The Orcas are making demands and we should meet them
Orcas have been attacking boats near Spain, and one current theory seems to be it's all because an Orca injured by a boat strike- one of many- decided enough was enough, and started organizing a counterattack.
It seems to me that if the Orcas are indeed attacking the boats because they’ve been injured by them, the Orcas are, in a very real sense, protesting the boats, or if you prefer an even more dramatic metaphor, fighting against an invader. We should take their views seriously and their view seems to be that they do not like the boats because the boats are hurting them- a perfectly reasonable point.
Obviously, we don’t want Orcas to die and so need to reduce boat strikes for reasons of animal welfare but I want to go further than that. The intelligence, culture, sociality, and cognitive power of orcas mean that if the Orcas are saying “Stop killing us and making our lives harder with your boats, we’re really angry about it” we should honor that demand, in much the same way we should honor similar demands from humans resisting oppression. This is a rare case of an animal effectively making a collective demand- no more boat strikes- and we have a moral obligation to meet that demand.
I don’t know if the Orcas are aware that humans pilot the boats they attack- it’s not out of the question that they could know, perhaps by looking at smaller boats clearly piloted by humans. Perhaps it varies from Orca to Orca- but whether or not they conceive of themselves as resisting human aggression or merely boat aggression is not relevant.
If the Orcas are aware that humans are piloting the boat, it is however doubly sad, because it is a breach of the Pax Orcana that Orcas, with the exception of captive Orcas, have, been honoring in relation to humans for a long time. The phenomenon of Orcas not attacking humans in the wild basically ever is so mysterious that the Tlingit people even have a story about it. Unsurprisingly, it’s our fault.
Discipline and sides
I recently saw an intellectual I have some respect for post something mean about an intellectual I have much less respect for on Twitter. I responded to tell him to knock it off.
As I did so, it occurred to me that there was a paradox here. We’re most likely to try and police those who we see as having a similar position, or at least similar values to us because we perceive them as most susceptible to discourse policing. As a result, we tend to leave those who are drastically unlike us alone.
But extrapolate this kind of behavior, and maybe you just end up weakening your own side. Overall, I think this behavior is rational, but we sometimes forget the cost of such selective policing.
In the moral arena, this becomes especially tragic, as we yell only at those with enough of a conscience to hear. Not sure where I’m going with this, but it’s something to think about.
Where are the minds of yesteryear and were they ever there?
Never read your hero’s Twitter feeds. I won’t name names, but some figures- particularly older figures- who wrote books of incredible wisdom, insight, and power are a bit daft and a lot naive online.
I once saw the Facebook profile of a famous Australian journalist, intellectual, and legal academic. Vastly accomplished and rightly venerated for her achievements, she nevertheless posted one of these, without the disclaimer saying it was a hoax.
She wasn’t joking either.
I won’t name names, but very few authors live up to what you would expect of them on Twitter. This is especially true of authors over 50.
There are honorable exceptions. Joyce Carol Oates is often picked on as a bit daft on Twitter, and she says a lot of things I disagree with, but there’s real wisdom in her posts. She very cleverly plays with the perception she is past it or going a bit loopy to troll those who think they’re trolling her.
Part of it is age, yes, but perhaps we need to take seriously the idea that great works are typically greater than their author. They are a product of an author, a personal context, a culture, some luck, and vast effort. The expectation that an author embodies that greatness generally is too much.
Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your orca post. I very much agree with your thoughts on the subject.