The zoo animal in a cage exhibits all these abnormalities that we know so well from our human companions. Other animals do behave in these ways under certain circumstances, namely when they are confined in the unnatural conditions of captivity. Does this, then, reveal a basic difference between the human species and other animals? At first glance it seems to do so. Among human city-dwellers, needless to say, all of these things occur. Under normal conditions, in their natural habitats, wild animals do not mutilate themselves, masturbate, attack their offspring, develop stomach ulcers, become fetishists, suffer from obesity, form homosexual pair-bonds, or commit murder. In Tokyo this miniaturization is taken to the limit in the amazing capsule hotels, where visitors are cocooned in tiny cells that look like air-conditioned coffins with cable TV.
In the slums of Bombay-the largest slums in the world-I saw how human territories could be condensed to a degree that makes even old-fashioned zoo cages seem spacious. When the BBC decided to make a television program based on this book, the filming brought me face-to-face with the ultimate expressions of the urban dilemma. Highlights below are from my reading of The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris, available here on Amazon.
0 kommentar(er)
