Indian Authorities Unable to Stop Monkey Rampages
Monkeys are violently attacking people in Delhi, and authorities seem helpless to stop the rampages. From the story: In the latest incident in Delhi's Shastri Park area, residents reported the monkeys appeared late Saturday and rampaged for hours. "I was talking to someone at my door at around 11 pm when a monkey appeared," said Naseema, who goes by one name, told the Times of India. "As I moved inside, the monkey followed and sank its teeth in my baby's leg."
The monkeys should be captured or killed--not as punishment since the rampagers, being amoral, are incapable of engaging in wrongdoing--but as a simple matter of public safety. But that is apparently not so easy in India:
Efforts to drive out the animals is complicated by the fact Hindus view them as a living link to Hanuman, the monkey god who symbolises strength.
Delhi's mayor has admitted authorities cannot cope with the violent animals.
"We've neither the expertise nor the infrastructure," said Mayor Aarti Mehra. If they are caught, "we're under pressure to release them due to pressure from animal activists and from people due to religious reasons."
I'm not going to comment on the religious angle, but when animal activists put rampaging animals over the safety of people, something is definitely haywire. Meanwhile, deep ecologists would probably counsel surrender and the evacuation of the city to allow the monkeys to reclaim "their territory!"
Labels: Rampaging Monkeys
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:57 PM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
I think we are exceptional enough to realize that we can capture and control them much as we would do with violently misbehaving children. These monkeys are like strong stupid children or high-tech low-ethics communities. Something should certainly be done, but our reaction to them should, as best possible, demonstrate our greater capacities, both technically and ethically.
Lincoln: One man has died and children are being attacked. At some point the ethics are to take the ultimate sanction. At the very least, they have to be rounded up and taken out of circulation.
To whom are we demonstrating our higher capacities? The monkeys will not learn from our tolerating their attacking people. At least not the lesson you want them to learn. Unfortunately, the nature of these animals puts them at odds with the human population that they coexist with. It seems that culling them back is a reasonable step. Otherwise the only point we are demonstrating is to other human beings. We are sending the message that your safety matters less than the lives of these rampaging monkeys. I am not certain why this point is worth further risk of human health and life to make. It is also not obviously morally superior to me to round them up and cage them for life. Some animal rights activists argue that "imprisonment" is worse for animals than death.
I suppose we could capture them and use them for research. ;-)
To whom are we demonstrating our higher capacities when we moderate our very young children?
We demonstrate our higher capacities to the young children when we moderate them because the children, due to their ability to comprehend, will eventually pick up on not only the behavior we exhibit, but also the reason for that behavior. If we punish a child by sending her to her room when she curses, then she first understands that she can't curse, and later comes to understand why cursing is unacceptable in her family.
These monkeys aren't going to process the reasons behind the actions, though. If we separate them they will only see us as predators trying to do them harm and will attack.
I agree that the least amount of harm should be done if at all possible, but right now the animals are a threat to the people in the city. It may be necessary to kill some of the monkeys just to protect the citizens from the threat. It should be done as quickly and mercifully as possible, and with the numbers decreased, the animals will probably draw back from the populated areas, just as mountain lions near American cities do.
Otherwise, the problem will increase and there will be more deaths, and eventually citizens will take the matter into their own hands. That won't be good, either.
So far as I can tell, based on experience raising both children and various non-human animals, our very young children have no greater (and sometimes less) capactiy to comprehend than do these monkeys.
((eyebrow goes up))
While I disagree that small people have less comprehension than monkeys, let's say for a moment that you're right and kids under, say, five are about on the level of the monkeys in question.
As is evidenced by my experience with my three nephews (two of whom are autistic and one of whom is also mentally retarded to the point where he cannot speak), even if the children start out with low comprehension abilities, they have the ability to remember events in their past (as do all humans) and they can take what they remember together with what they learn as they get older, so that eventually they *do* comprehend what adults mean when they say, "No," to something.
My cats don't understand the reasons behind my repsonses to their actions. They only understand the consequences. Get on the dining room table and you get picked up and shooed out. Even if they fall off the table (which they have done, while dead asleep, too), they don't understand that this is the reason they're forbidden on the table.
(As an aside - we don't use that table for eating; we eat at the kitchen table.)
My nephews, however, have all eventually come to understand that they don't get on the table because if they fall off, they get hurt, and that *this* is the reason why they're not allowed to chase the cats up onto the table.
Cats, and I assume monkeys, do not progress to the point where they understand motives. They won't ever grow into comprehension.
Children do grow into comprehension.
I admit that I think the least amount of harm possible should be done to moderate the animals. Only use killing as a last resort.
I also believe that the city has gotten to the point of the last resort - people have been injured and killed by the monkeys. The monkeys won't learn. Therefore, they need to be stopped any way necessary.
You can't reason with an animal. By example, a child will grow to be a reasonable adult.
Not all children grow to be reasonable adults.
"Not all children grow to be reasonable adults."
I suppose that would depend on how you're using the word "reasonable."
From Webster's online dictionary (courtesy of AOL)
Reasonable:
1 a : being in accordance with reason (a reasonable theory) b : not extreme or excessive (reasonable requests) c : MODERATE , FAIR (a reasonable chance) (a reasonable price) d : INEXPENSIVE
2 a : having the faculty of reason b : possessing sound judgment
Neither of us is talking about def. #1, so we can scratch all that. That leaves def. #2. I would say that your argument is that not everyone grows up to possess sound judgment (def. #2b). I'd agree with you there. I'm hardly a reasonable being whenever Extreme Makeover Home Edition is pre-empted by NASCAR.
So our disagreement would have to be about def. #2a - having the faculty of reason.
Who, then, should be elimiated from the category of "having the faculty of reason?"
The severely mentally disabled frequently have limited reasoning capablities, given that their brains simply *cannot* receive the data needed for them to reason out cause and effect and to have any kind of empathy. Fair enough. However, these are extreme cases that generally prove the rule - that most humans do develop higher reasoning functions. And even among these exceptions there are people who, through patient work by doctors and therapists, are able to start reaching some of those cognative conclusions that the majority of are able to reach. There are several papers available online - I'd have to google them to get the web addies again and will be happy to if requested.
What about people like serial killers who lack the empathy to relate to their victims? Most of them admit that they know right from wrong, but instead of seeking help they give in to their impulses. Despite their vanity and egotism, most of them do realize that they're doing something wrong. So despite their evil actions, we can say, from what we've studied about serial killers, they also have the the ability to reason. I recommend the book CHASING THE DEVIL about the Green River killer to see evidence of their ability to reason that their actions are wrong.
Autistic people? My personal sample group is small - only two of my nephews have autism - so I don't really have that much authority on this, as I've never read up on the condition. But I do know that my nephews have been able to understand why people get angry or hurt when they do something wrong. We've talked about it before.
It would seem to me that your argument, "Not all children grow to be resonable adults," would be talking about a very limited subset of humanity, and most of those people have therapists and doctors trying to help them achieve higher cognition, so that they *can* be resonable adults.
So there you are, a small minority of human beings cannot reason. They prove the rule of the majority.
There are *no* animals capable of reasoning on the same level as human beings. Monkeys cannot empathise with people. They don't have the ability to understand why their actions are hurtful. Nor can cats, nor can dogs. At no time in the history of animal husbandry has anyone ever made mention of cattle or horses that understand how their actions hurt someone else. They can zoomorphise to an extent, but even animals that zoomorphise, such as snakes that live peacefully with a mouse instead of eating it, do not empathise with the other animal. For some reason, they treat an animal outside their own species like a member of the species, but if anything upsets the balance, they will turn on that animal. Human intervention makes it easier for the animals to continue to have a positive relationship in many cases, but sometimes a dog that has played mama to a kitten will still turn around and eat the kitten. This isn't good or bad - it just is, in the animal world.
Among this group of monkeys that's going around killing people in India, there are no monkeys that can be pulled aside and reasoned with. It's not in their nature. It's not in their capacity. There aren't even any exceptions to this rule.
So when we moderate small children, it's with the hope and expectation that eventually they will grow up to understand the reason behind our actions, not just parrot behavior we train them to have. With animals, we train them, knowing that they won't understand why we do something, just that they'll get a treat if they indulge us. If they can't be trained, they need to be stopped. These monkeys can't be trained. They need to be stopped.
The idea that we can capture and train these monkeys is an interesting one... I don't think that it would be impossible to train a monkey, after all, people train dogs and all other manner of creatures. You just have to understand the mind of the creature you're trying to train. Some animals can't be trained well (where we get the expression "herding cats" for example). Monkeys are a tough problem because they live in groups and form their own group dynamics. It looks like this would be like trying to train a pack of wolves instead of a single dog, and that just isn't going to work.
As for animals not being able to understand why something happens... I don't know about that. I've seen animals that are pretty good at figuring things out. Monkeys have a more highly developed brain than most animals. I can't say whether they understand why things happen or not, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for them to understand simple causality. But often that just means they're going to be more unruly, as is the case here. They've obviously figured out that stealing food and harassing people is advantageous. I think the best thing we can teach them is not to mess with humans.
Welp, here is the way I look at it, these monkeys have to have some sort of reasoning for these attacks. I believe this is what should be looked into. Why are these monkeys suddenly attacking people? You do have to consider, this area was probably habitat to the species long befor humans had made it their homes. You would probably be pretty upset if you were forced to leave your homes, wouldnt you? Maybe there is something sacred to this species in this area, or some sort of migration. I mean really, after all this time the species just one day decided to start attacking people?? "ATTENTION ALL FELLOW MONKEYS: Today... we attack the human race.. run them out of their homes.. bite their children.. and we do this for....... no apparent reason, we are just gonna do it". I dont see it. To be honest, human's have decided we are the high power in this world because that is just the way we think. Im not a big animal activist or anything, but people really need to consider we are not the only species on this planet that have meaning and reasoning, and anything we want or say is the way its going to be. These monkeys may be in the right and humans in the wrong in this situation, because nobody cares about the monkey, only thier own race, to me that is pregidous. Search for the answer on why these attacks are happenig, monkeys are intelligent and may have reason, maybe humans ARE in the wrong, sounds crazy, but thats because it is never considered in these types of situations, its always the animals never the humans fault right?
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