DOLPHIN SMILE
Vadim Dyshkant
Perhaps the state of civilization should be judged in relation to human animals.
Osminozhya Science
Considering people's love of spectacle, it is not surprising that perhaps the most tumultuous events of last summer was the World Cup. Surprisingly different - perhaps its main character was not accurate scorer or impenetrable goalie, but rather a clumsy animal. Fans and reporters throughout the championships were affected the ability of the octopus Paul, contained in a German aquarium, to predict future winners of the matches is not less than artfully goals scored. Fans of the losing team threatened to roast cephalopod visionary, he had become a central character quickly captured by Chinese documentary film, and a Russian tycoon proposed to the owners of "visionary" to buy it for the huge money.
Summer is gone and forgotten about Paul, as he forget about the championship, and even about the debilitating heat - everything is transitory in this world. Eternal, however, is our ability to think about the phenomena of life, the facts and analyze them in a small notice at first glance, the events reflected the hidden problems. That's the story of the octopus-predictor, I believe, would have to make us wonder: what is the nature of mystical abilities who lives on the sea floor (or "mercy" of a man in a tank) cephalopod beings? Personally, I have not heard anyone seriously trying to unravel this phenomenon. Meanwhile, in his unraveling the key to solving many problems, because the correct answer to a question about Paul's abilities may be, shall, to change our attitude towards life. Realizing that even octopuses possess consciousness, sane person in any living being unconsciously begin to see a person that is the same as himself, a sovereign entity, not an object of exploitation.
If you recognize the octopus in having feelings and a sense of identity, then what to talk about other, more developed forms of life: the cows, horses, dogs, pigs, where people kill for culinary delights? Or, for example, about dolphins, the mass extermination of the ruthless director who inspired Louis Psihoyosa off in a semi-underground mode of documentary film "The Cove" won this year's "Oscar" in nomination "The best feature-length documentary" (this picture is won over twenty awards at various international film festivals, I happened to see her at the Moscow Film Festival, and hopefully that will not pass it the attention and the drafters of the program in Kiev, "Youth"). Going to a small Japanese town of Taiji, Louis Psihoyos, along with former trainer Rick O'Berri dolphins and several other animal welfare advocates did what most are afraid to local fishermen and the authorities. By setting the night camera disguised as boulders boxes, they captured the carnage that regularly organize in the bay of dolphins for meat hunters. You warps the thought that someone regales the flesh of these intelligent animals, not just in a sea of people rescued from sharks and other dangers? Why, then, you do not get stuck in the throat piece of beef, which until recently was a body no less intelligent and supply us with milk, butter, cheese and other useful products of the cow?
Japanese fishermen, when they were accused of brutality, responded coolly to Americans that the dolphins, they say, are their national food, like cows - eating Westerners (if the film did the Koreans, they would be reminded of the savvy Japanese have eaten dogs). Directed by reciprocal accusation turned a deaf ear, and took to figure out how long the people of the rising sun eat dolphin meat (like a tradition justifies the murder), and found that it is sold under the guise of whale meat, and that the concentration of mercury in it five times the acceptable norm. So, perhaps related to the living traditions must not determine the national cuisine, not our own likes and dislikes, and the total for all the moral code of laws at the forefront of which two thousand years of Christianity should be a last commandment "Thou shalt not kill"?
Crazy Animals
The "Bay" shocked not only the appearance of red from the blood of the sea, in which die in the throes of a beautiful, intelligent animals. Com in your throat from the story dolphin trainer Rick O'Berri, which played the role of pets in the famous children's television series "Flipper", filmed in the mid sixties. This brave man (and for the protection of nature, as it turns out, you are fearless: environmental activists by corporations are engaged in a ruthless depletion of marine and terrestrial resources, not just blasphemy and persecution, but threats of physical violence) in the sight of his profession, when one of his dolphins, the last time looked into the eyes of his trainer, voluntarily resigned from life. It turns out that these mammals are able to exhale and inhale more of it is not, if you do not want to live. People, by the way, do not possess such a gift. Leave on their own body can only yogis who have attained this skill by years of rigorous spiritual practice, while the despairing mortals swallow pills thrown from rooftops or climb into the loop ... After the death of his beloved Rick O'Berri stopped and began to train dolphins to protect them from the people. He realized that the smile of a dolphin, doing somersaults to entertain the crowds at the pool, is misleading - in fact it reflects the unbearable pain experienced during a speech by a terrible noise (music, applause, laughter and cries of the audience) is an animal, which has the finest ear.
Having made the criterion of what is good and what is bad, its fun and profit (business people call it "economic feasibility"), we stopped to appreciate the selfless, based on the appreciation and respect for the relationships with those around us. Following this, we have ceased to feel - or even notice - the pain of others. Coarsen our feelings, we have lost the ability to see the nature of things, to understand the subtle relationship between cause and effect. We are not aware of what our consumers' self-interest, our reluctance to see the other sovereign, demanding respect for the person and not a means to achieve its own, even the good from our point of view, goals, causes all our problems and crises. Moreover, we have not offended that we are treated not as individuals but as a dumb consumers. We were taken for idiots, devoid of human dignity when, for example, calls from advertising billboards to "become male", which supposedly have to eat tuna. Males and females are not able to recognize either their own, let alone another person - they are driven by instinct.
Such ads inadvertently suggests the terrible thought in his evidence: we have created a civilization refined animals. Besides, more dangerous and ruthless than our smaller brethren. Because they live under the laws of nature, we, thanks to sophisticated and perverted mind, we see a violation of these laws, the special valor. We have long been the pride the humiliation and destruction of others. So is it any wonder that the ability of the octopus Paul or any of agile dog, now make us more interesting than the "heroic deeds» homo sapiens?
