Re: [Re: Disney Dinosaur Follies...]

["Jerry D. Harris" <dinogami@hotmail.com>]

> > << Actually, I'm getting tired of the evil theropods in dino >ovies...

>   Has anyone of us bothered to ask Disney about this?

  Why bother asking?  The answer is pretty obvious.  Carnivores kill, and 
killing is _evil_...at least, this is the moral lesson pushed on most of us 
throughout our lives.  (Why that is so is also pretty obvious, but well 
outside the realm of appropriate subject material for the list, so I won't 
go there...)  If Disney were to give voices to their carnivores, then they'd 
be effectively raising them to the same "stature" as the talking, 
anthropomorphized (read: human) animals.  Killers, in the human world, tend 
to be implicitly labeled as something sub-human, contemptible, undeserving 
of compassion or consideration; were Disney (or anyone else) to give the 
carnivores a voice, they'd be saying that the needs of the killers are just 
as deserving of consideration as the needs of the non-killers, and I think 
we all know that this isn't going to happen (although I think I recall that 
this Darwinian circle is acknowledged in the "Lion King"...)

  Of course, we all know and understand that in Nature, killing is 
perfectly natural and expected, and forms part of the basis for natural 
selection.  (I did notice that Disney's movie is particularly anti-Darwinian 
this way: the moral lesson it pushes on kids is that the Darwinian attitude 
of Kron and Bruton, to let the weak perish so the strong may survive, is 
wrong -- instead, the weak should be assisted regardless of the increased 
threat and/or cost [and, if you note, the strong -- Kron and Bruton -- die 
instead of the weak!]  And yes, I know that some modern animals, other than 
humans, do help the weak members of their species, but let's not go into 
that again, OK?)

  At any rate, what would we have the _Carnotaurus_ individuals say?  
"Hello there, pack!  We'd like to join you in the Nesting Grounds so that we 
may continue to kill and devour the old, sick, and weak!  That's Life, you 
know!  It's unavoidable!  We deserve the same rights to live as you do!  
It's not our fault we were born carnivorous!"

  ???

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                     Jerry D. Harris
                 Fossil Preparation Lab
          New Mexico Museum of Natural History
                   1801 Mountain Rd NW
               Albuquerque  NM  87104-1375
                 Phone:  (505) 841-2809
                  Fax: ; (505) 841-2808
           >>>>> dinogami@hotmail.com <<<<<

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