I chalk the bias up to cosmopolitan ignorance. The media learned people, for whom the wild is some romanticized notion of eden and balance, are a wellspring for the perpetuation of this ignorance. They see the cute animals in books, broadcast on shows, and docile in their zoo cages. They think of the neighbor's dog, the friend's kitten, or the relative's parakeet and mentally transpose those domesticated traits. Then it comes as such a shock when a "domesticated," "tame," and "shy" horse staves in another human's skull with a single hoof strike. Suddenly that learning about how wild animals "fear" humans doesn't stand up to the reality of mountain lions hunting humans on the peripheries of towns and cities. Despite the oft recorded incidences of humans attacked, maimed, and killed by animals of all stripes the learned retreat to the veracity of their recorded media.
I believe it is that willful choice, that decision to avoid reality for contrived fiction, comes from unrealized feelings of dissatisfaction and inadequacy. I find that many people that hold the romantic view of nature are disillusioned with human societies largely because they see things in those societies they don't like. It is rare that I encounter a rosy-sunglasses-wearer who is happy or remotely content with their current state of living. Instead of looking at what are the causes of these problems and doing the things necessary to change themselves and their society, they project their ideas of happiness onto some existence that is anything but a modern human society; some choose sci-fi or fantasy worlds but a large portion choose "Mother Nature" and her animal children.
"Mother Nature," what a misnomer. It should have been called "Dutch Uncle Nature" for that's how it really works. The learning experiences are often fatal and often it is sheer physical capability or mindless viciousness that decides who lives to see the sun rise the next morning. The "balance" is an unwieldly cycle of bounty and starvation with a fair dosage of disease, drought, and essential deprivation to claim their victims at random. Life is brutish, merciless, and mercurially short as few young survive to adulthood.
It is the people that choose to ignore these things that think pigs are merely gross instead of dangerous. Or that swans are too elegant to have ever killed adult humans. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, sharks are still scary monsters. I guess rows of jagged teeth in a gaping mouth are too blatant in their purpose to be supressed by any romantic/cute notions.
_________________ "Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." -
|