Similarities And Differences Of A Happy Medium

Thesis: (Nature is the driving force of the world, with a part of this the animal kingdom; in particular; the elephant a majestic gentle giant with intellect, emotions, and so many amazing things that people should know.)( Elephants are beautiful, intelligent, and important animals that have so many fun things to learn about.)

When you think of an intelligent and social animal, what do you think of? A chimp, a dolphin, or a dog? Actually, an elephant can be included as well. Elephants have been proven to show cognitive abilities through a new experiment and study where they tested elephants to see if they would work together to gain food. Three pieces of information that talk about this incredible new study are the article “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Hand” by Virginia Morell, the video ”Elephants Shows Cooperation” presented by Discovery News. Although these selections talk about the same topic, they are different in many ways. The video is different from the two texts because of the differences in the information

The Sumatran Elephant is a highly endangered animal. This animal has been forced closer and closer to human territory because of their failing ecosystem. This causes them to more likely raid crops and come in contact with humans. They then hunt

Elephants have been victims of not just the incessant poaching but also of the civil wars; ultimately making them to fight back. The killing case have gone over the roof, as the “singular perversity” (Siebert 353) of the attacks. In India, “nearly one thousand people have been killed by elephants between 2000 and 2004” (Siebert 353). Several frequent attacks were recorded in Africa and other villages where the denizens were forced to evacuate their houses. ‘nearly one thousand’ which accentuates the gravity of the situation in 4 years had gained a lot of attention from the elephants researchers. Seibert’s prime third perspective, Gay Bradshaw, Oregon State psychologist, claims that that “everybody pretty much agrees that the relationship between elephants and people has dramatically changed” (Siebert 353). The choice of diction ‘dramatically’ indicates that elephants are not being violent towards human beings but they are also doing it intentionally. Dramatic behavior changes over the years are now being explained in the elephants. “Bradshaw and several colleagues argued that today’s elephant populations are suffering from a form of chronic stress, a kind of species-wide trauma” (Siebert 354), due to “decades of poaching and habitat loss” (Siebert 354). Elephants are becoming more destructive and Bradshaw looked into combining “traditional research into elephant behavior with insights about trauma drawn from

One thing that has been common among cultures of ancient civilizations and the cultures of current times is the idea of burial rituals and the impact they had on the cultures. All civilizations have experienced death among their people and they required a way to properly take care of their lost ones respectfully, thus establishing the need for burial rituals. The rituals not only produced respect for those who have fallen but they also pertained to the beliefs of afterlives or preservation of the body. All over western civilization, different examples of burial rituals, how they are performed, and why they were done can be seen and are extremely important to the people. For this reason, this topic is extremely important to study and to understand

Elephant has long been known as one of man’s best friends, who have peacefully coexisted along with humanity for thousands of years. However, the relationship between the two is no longer in the equilibrium state. In “An Elephant Crackup?”, Charles Siebert discusses the downfall of the elephants. He gives a depiction of the recent raging and violent acts of the elephants among themselves and toward other species, including humans, and presents an educated and almost unexpected explanation to their behaviors. He says elephants are just like us; they have feelings and now are “suffering from a form of chronic stress, a kind of species-wide trauma”(Siebert 354). The similarity that should be something fascinating is now slowly turning them into the immensely savage beasts before wiping them out of existence. Even when the appearance of the words “stress” and “trauma” looks like a serious case of “anthropocentric conjecture”, it provides a totally new vision, a fresh way of looking at the boiling issue of the disappearance and sadistic acts of elephants specifically and wild animals at large. With the help of two powerful essays: “Great to Watch” by Maggie Nelson and “The Power of Context” of Malcolm Gladwell, the issue of the unusual behaviors of the elephants is thoroughly illuminated and its solution no longer seems to be out of human’s reach.

Ever since the beginning of mankind, civilized cultures all have one specific thing in common. They all practice a dignified disposition of their loved ones who die. In fact, Robert G. Mayer, author of a widely used embalming text book writes in his text that "the art and science of embalming has been performed, in one form or another, for well over 5500 years." Of course the methods of embalming have varied greatly over course of time; however one important aspect for many of these practices is the ability for our species to scientifically preserve the remains of the dead human body. In more modern times, mankind has come to understand this process to be known as embalming.

There are distinct and meaningful rites and traditions in virtually every religion when it comes to death. Specific rituals and rites- whether preparing and casketing the deceased or the components of the funeral service or memorial services- can connect people together and encourage them to share their grief. The framework that religion provides around dealing with a death both fulfills doctrinal obligations and offers direction to mourning survivors. The Buddhist religion is particularly unique in its belief system as well as funeral customs they practice.

This article focuses on a sacred ritual in Famadihana, Madagascar that allows families to remove their ancestors from the ground every five to seven years, and basically give them an entire new burial all over again. In Madagascar, there are two classes in society; the living and nonliving and they both are essentially celebrated. Guests travel long distances for a sacred ritual as a special occasion where they either bring alcohol or money to lay alongside the corpse after they are returned to the tomb to represent the ending of the cycle of life and death. Although the deceased body has decomposed a significant amount, it actually makes the ritual even more special. The family members take the corpse off of a shelf and remove the deceased

Elephants now join an elite club of social cooperators: chimpanzees, hyenas, rooks, and humans. In the video Elephants show cooperation, the article Elephants can lend a helping trunk, and the passage Elephants know when they need a helping trunk in a cooperative task, The authors demonstrate the intelligence of elephants. They conduct an experiment which shows how elephants work together to achieve a goal. All three sources illustrate the cognitive ability of these sagacious creatures.

Humanity has dominated over all other organisms, over nature itself, it would seem. We’ve built large communities, and nearly driven out all other species. We consume them, we test on them, and we use them for our own personal gains. We over consume, and utilize products that are capable of causing irreversible damage to the environment. This result in the death and even the extinction of thousands of animals. One beloved species of animals that is endangered is the African elephant. Amboseli National Park is a protection program that strives to protect the different African animals and ecosystems, and especially the elephants. Amboseli has studied the elephant population since the 1970s and is the most studied elephant population in the world. This research involves the study of their: ecology, movements, genetics, vocalizations, postures, social behaviors, and reproductive systems. Yet, the elephant population has been under fire from human activity, and is resulting in the death of about one

“Blissfully ignorant, as if I were in a zoo or in the presence of Babar or some other story-book elephant[…]The encounter itself was nothing but a projection of my own wish that a wild elephant would want to meet me. It was wrong to think that I could communicate with a strange elephant under these circumstances”.(XIV-Prologue) Masson simply thought that he could communicate with the elephant. In turn, He created a fantasy world similar to those often shown in Disney movies such as the Lion King that specifically portrays elephants bowing and waving their ears in the introduction of Simba, the protagonist. In doing so, Masson failed to realize that elephants aren’t like humans and cannot respond with a hello or any human form of greeting. Using Masson as an example, a full grown adult who was fully educated as to what animals really are in reality, was nearly killed because of his projection of an elephant from a book. Comparing this to a youth in general, any child would have easily been killed if they had done what Masson did. In fact many youths, teens, even adults have been harmed due to their false perceptions of animals. On June 27th, 2015, two male hikers from a city in Oregon, were injured by beavers

With the growing concern for uniqueness in the modern society, there has appeared a tendency to be different from others. According to the statistics, there are over seven billion people in the world. Everyone looks different, has different preferences, and thinks differently. Nobody can be perfectly identical. Due to the wide societal diversity, people try to find their own color. On these grounds, Stumbling on Happines by Daniel Gilbert claims that people aim to be unique. A closer look at the data indicates that societal diversity is based on the individuals’ uniqueness which is frequently denied by the representatives of different communities, which makes some people ashamed of their uniqueness and hide who they really are.

In Sri Lanka, Lucy lived a simple, but full life like any other elephant. She had luscious, green forests to explore while foraging for fresh vegetation, a warm and comfortable climate suitable for elephants, and most importantly, she had other elephants to socialize with. These things are essential to any elephant’s physical and psychological well-being (“Get Elephants Out of Zoos”). Unfortunately, these ideal

The short film “Alike” portrays an interesting snapshot of modern day society, posted on YouTube by, Pepe School Land. The authors purpose was to bring to light what seems to be an overly systematic society. The video is applicable to many different audiences, school children, working adults, and society. The production does a good job of showing societies role in removing imagination from children and a family’s interdependence.