Bambification in modern design and architecture

¶ … proof to the fact that people have lost part of their basic understanding in nature. Because of the evolution experienced by society, humans have gotten accustomed to believing that everything in nature has its equivalent in the world of humans. Thus, animals, plants, and everything that is not human in general has begun to be perceived as having certain human characteristics. Literature has had a strong influence in the event, with people writing on subjects which compared the wild nature with the human society, and, which eventually presented animals as behaving similarly to humans.

In their struggle to evolve and to create the society today, humans have tended to overlook certain matters, such as the fact that wild animals will never be the cute and fuzzy creatures that are being displayed in the media. During the last years, people have created various illusions of the real world, turning it into what they wanted it to be, instead of what it actually is. There are a great number of people today that have wrong concepts relating to wild animals and to the behavior of these creatures, considering that the respective animals can share human characteristics such as paternity. Unwilling to accept the fabricated reality that society is being subjected to, people such as John Berger and Charles Siebert have gone at fighting against what today is known as the Bambification of animals.

Ok, so a domesticated animal can live in the same house with a human being, listening to its master and displaying emotions such as happiness or distress. Furthermore, chimpanzees are considered to be identical to people in a proportion of 98%. Taking this into consideration, one could receive a blood transfusion from a chimpanzee, and, it is even possible for bones coming from the animals to be securely implanted to a human skeleton.

People can actually assume that there are not a lot of differences between a chimpanzee and a human being, with the animal actually being able to express human emotions, and, being rather inoffensive, when concerning its potential to show any form of aggression. However, it is at that point when people forget that chimpanzees "are separated from humans not only by five to six million years, but by enormous changes in ecology and ability, including raw biological differences in diet, locomotion, and sexuality, as well as by the refined influences of language and culture." (Wrangham, Richard 2004) These differences between chimpanzees and humans have been proved in various occasions when the beasts have shown their true wild nature.

In his book, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, canadian novelist Douglas Coupland has defined Bambification as being "the mental conversion of flesh-and-blood living creatures into cartoon characters possessing bourgeois Judaeo-Christian attitudes and morals'" (Coupland 1991 pp. 48) The recent decades have produced large numbers of people having a distorted image of reality. People have felt the full hit of the Bambification phenomenon approximately since the 70s onward. In the opinion of many, the animals in the wild are similar to the ones that they see in the media.

Animals do not share the social abilities possessed by people, with the closest relationship found between animals being the one between mothers and their young, this actually being caused by the dependence that offspring have on their mothers. One of the biggest problems that people have when concerning their ability to distinguish between correct information and false one is that popular culture is gradually influencing individuals to the point where they have artificial convictions relating to the real world.

It takes great efforts to only select the good information from the huge amounts of data that people receive from various sources. As a result, there presently exists a tendency for people to associate reality with fantasy. Today's society has reached a phase where people are pictured as being slaves of their own false theories. In a great number of novels, people are portrayed as having become products of society, and, as having learnt to consider the values of popular culture above those of common sense.

One cannot be blamed for being what humankind had made him, as contradicting with society practically means to be an oddball. When concerning the animal reign, it should be treated with objectivity, and, people should not think of animals as of creatures which have adapted to their society.

When thinking about white-tailed deer, most people automatically connect to Bambi, Disney's innocent little animal. The Bambi-inspired movies, animation, and literature which appeared consequent to Bambi all showed various animals such as lions and bears walking through the jungle without presenting any danger whatsoever to humans.

Deer are generally an example of nature's innocent side, and, for hundreds of years, people have associated the species with a symbol of forests. Today's society has continued to consider deer as being some of the most childlike animals. However, society also needs to comprehend the fact that children's literature is only fiction, and, that while we treat wild animals with compassion, they are still wild at heart.

Bambification is somewhat similar to anthropomorphism, and, people from around the world have begun to use both concepts more and more. All it takes for one to get a glimpse of an example of anthropomorphism is to open the TV and wait until the commercial break. People directing commercials have involved all kinds of animals, and, in order to make their commercials seem to be more attractive to the public, these particular animals talk and act just like humans do. Moreover, they appear to be interested in making bonds with the humans that they come across. It has to be difficult for one to understand how animals behave, consequent to spending years watching the wild beasts in commercials drinking beer alongside of human beings or washing their teeth with special tooth paste that they later introduce to people.

It would not be a surprise for one to find that an individual attempts to give Coca Cola to a polar bear at the zoo because he saw on TV that polar bears love the drink. Not only are these commercial damaging people's perception on the behavior of animals, but they are also damaging their notions of geography. A great number of people actually believe that polar bears live at the North Pole, along with penguins, and Santa Claus, of course. The Coca Cola commercial where polar bears and penguins drink the sugary substance seems to confirm part of the earlier supposition. However, it is actually impossible for a polar bear to come across a penguin, except if they meet at the zoo. Polar bears live in the northern hemisphere of the globe, while penguins live in the southern one.

The protagonist in another one of the movies distributed by Disney, Ratatouille, is a rat that dreams about becoming a chef.

In spite of the fact that humans do not normally consider rats to be charming animals, most have expressed their fondness for the species consequent to viewing the movie. Apparently, it only takes a movie in which a rat proves that it is a great cook for some to change their opinion in rats. Ok, so one of the movie's general ideas is to teach the audience that preconception is wrong and that no one should be differentiated. Even with that, it is difficult to believe that chasing a rat out of a restaurant's kitchen would be an example of discrimination.

People's consideration of animals mainly depends on their interest in them, and, the example of Norwegian scientist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe shows that it only requires for one to spend enough time with animals in order to understand them. Thorleif did not have the preconceived idea that animals are nothing like humans and treated them similar to how he treated other people. Consequently, the Norwegian found that there had been a lot of similarities between the human society and the chicken one. Hens can seemingly maintain peck order, and, moreover, there is a social stability within hen groups. Each particular chicken from the groups analyzed by Thorleif had been aware of their position within the band, knowing exactly to whom it had been superior and to whom it had been inferior.

Anthropomorphism indirectly harms the relationship between people and animals, as it comes in opposition to any form of scholarly analysis of the behavior of animals. It appears that there are some academics believing that while Bambification cannot possibly bring any good to the world of science, there are also some forms of anthropomorphism that are likely to bring assistance to psychologists. In response to the respective scholars, people such as Clive D.L. Wynne are determine to bring proof that anthropomorphism would only bring harm to the world of science. Wynne claims that anthropomorphism is the very opposite of objectivity.

It is believed that Darwin had a huge influence on the emergence of anthropomorphism because his theory made people think about the concept that there had been a connection between them and animals. Previous to Darwin, it has been considered that animals had nothing in connection with humans, since their brutish behavior had been very different from the sociable and civilized one displayed by people. French philosopher Rene Descartes apparently thought of animals to be nothing but machines that acted in conformity to the same laws to which inanimate matter had functioned. Quite the reverse happened when concerning humans, as, in spite of the fact that their bodies reacted similar to those of animals, they possessed a soul given to them by a divine being.

Darwin believed that there had been several similarities between the thinking of an ape and that of man. However, even he accentuated the fact that there had been great differences in cerebral power between the most primitive man and the most intelligent ape. It seems that Bambification firstly appeared as a result of people being inclined to anthropomorphize, leaning to understand various actions performed by animals according to their correspondence in human behavior. Darwin and his followers had been certain that humans shared several feelings, such as a mother's love for her infant, fear, jealousy, and rage with animals.

However, it is also possible for people to associate certain actions performed by animals to those performed by humans, ultimately believing that animals are able to express the same sentiments as people.

It is not that animals are constantly devoted to harm people, but it is that people fail to understand the way that they should handle animals because of the Bambification that they are being supplied with all the time.

The characteristics which man and animals have in common also work in exposing what the differences are between them. The fact that animals share some of the abilities that humans have does not mean that animals will ever be equal to humans. The capacities to speak and to have a better developed sense of right and wrong are just some of the factors which contribute in making people superior to other species.

The finding of several dead dolphins on the banks of the Percuil River in Cornwall has lead experts in believing that the animals have performed a mass-suicide. It is a mystery why animals, that presumably have no capacity of expressing human emotions, have performed an act which had been believed only humans could execute. According to the Guardian, the suicidal dolphins had swallowed dirt and trash in order to make sure that they would achieve their purpose. A possible reason for their behavior is that they had been disturbed by the fact that the Royal Navy had used the sonar in the area during one of its exercises. The authorities generally prefer to contradict with the concept of animals committing suicide, claiming that the idea is ridiculous.

The very belief that animals could go as far as painting might seem to be absurd to some, not to mention the concept of animals being able to paint self-portrait of themselves. However, Paya, an elephant from Thailand has been reported of painting a picture of an elephant, what Victoria Khunapramot claims to be the animal's self-portrait. The elephant appears to be one of the six animals that have been trained to paint by their keepers. In reply to the case, Dr. Joyce Poole, who is an elephant expert, said that it is possible for animals to paint, but, even with that, there is a small probability that Paya had intend to paint its self-portrait.

John Berger's essay Why Look at Animals? relates to people having gradually changed their perceptions on animals and on their conduct. Humans have a lot in common to animals, but, they are separated through a social division involving the intellectual capacities that humankind has. Berger asserts that humans had initially communicated through symbols that had had animal characteristics. The paintings in caves can almost be compared with the self-portrait performed by Paya, the elephant in Thailand. However, in Berger's opinion, humans have evolved beyond just communicating through symbols, as the language that is used in society today expresses much more than what it actually is.

Animals today are frequently compared to machines, and, vice-versa. People have gone as far as using animal descriptions for various machines, with this being an example of the advancements experienced by symbolic language. While mankind has evolved greatly, people still express their desire to be at one with nature, noticeably wanting to pass their prehistoric legacy further. In order to have animals contribute to the superiority that mankind posses, the animal reign has been compared to a society of machines that have no soul and only act according to their instinct, without any emotions being involved in the process. Descartes had reportedly killed a dog and dissected it similar to how one would dismember a machine so as to demonstrate the theory that animals work automatically. The French philosopher considered that while the mechanical characteristics employed by animals could reproduce emotions, reason could have never been reproduced by the reign.

Berger criticized the advancements performed by society during the last hundreds of years, as he observed that wild animals have slowly but steadily began to disappear ever since the appearance of urbanism in the nineteenth century. In contrast, the number of domestic animals has undergone an impressive growth ever since the period. Unlike wild animals, domestic ones displayed a much better relationship to their masters, and, thus, these respective animals resemble humans more than those in the wild do.

It can almost be said that animals have turned from real to artificial as a result of human intervention. People have performed actions which lead to animals behaving according to human laws.

"Artificial" animals have provided material for people to create the concept of Bambification. A sort of connection has been made between children and animals, to the point where various animation movies show them socializing and appearing to share similar characteristics. Children virtually create a bridge between humans and animals, with people eventually being given the false impression that animals are perfectly capable of behaving comparable to human beings.

According to Berger, "The zoo to which people go to meet animals, to observe them, to see them, is, in fact, a monument to the impossibility of such encounters." (Berger 1980 pp.19) The animals being displayed in zoos are similar to paintings, being framed and exhibited in order for people to appreciate their rarity. Considering the way that things are going at the moment, and the fact that more and more animals are becoming close to extinction, zoos will become even rarer, and, one should feel privileged consequent to viewing some of the last wild animals. Zoo architects are struggling to provide animals with environments as natural as they can. However, this should not be considered as an example of humans wanting to make life better for animals, since zoos shouldn't exist in the first place.