Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

What is the difference between people and animals? Genesis puts forward that man has dominion over animals. No other animals display the capacity for abstraction and metaphor displayed by humans. (Perhaps religion is an excellent example of the kind of thing that separates animals and people.) At times we envy animals. Their lives are simple, instinctual, and innocent. It was this attraction that lured Timothy Treadwell in the documentary Grizzly Man to live with and protect bears.

In her post about the movie, Noelle brought up a very good point. Only modern humans, overwhelmed with the complexity of society and technology in a fast paced world would fantasize about the simplicity of animal life. The hunter gatherers competeting with animals for food, and hunting and fighting for survival would nearly have this lifestyle, and not idealize it.

Grizzly Man also illustrates a measure of fear that people are not in fact meant to have dominion over animals. The helicopter pilot, for example, judged Treadwell very harshly for putting himself in a position where he was not in direct power over the bears. Why would the pilot think Treadwell such an idiot after surviving successfully for many summers in the woods? He was clearly competent in some regard. The movie made clear however that Treadwell died in a way that he saw fitting, and so the bear really did not break Treadwell's will. In this way, the bear is still within Treadwell's dominion. People predict animal behaviour regularly, and the question of our relationship really has little to do with animals, and everything to do with how humans should fulfill their end of the relationship.