And, now, here is the concluding section of my mega-essay on friendship, which
has remained so fresh, relevant and readable for more than 20 years now
-- as I am sure it will remain for more than 50 years from now!
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Glossary & annotations
(in same order as in text)
Tom and Jerry -- Uproariously
funny characters featured in a long series of classic Hollywood
cartoon films, of an aggressive cat and a resourceful mouse engaged in
an endless game of vigorous chasing and friendly fighting.
Tarzan --
Famous literary character created by American writer Edgar Rice
Burroughs (1875-1950) and glorified by American comics and cinema, of a
dashing young man raised by apes in African jungles.
Mowgli -- Main character figuring in The Jungle Book written
by British author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), and in a full-length
cartoon movie produced by Walt Disney in Hollywood, of a lively and
charming man-cub raised by wolves in an Indian jungle.
pOPpe -- That's the way I sign my name when I write to my children and grandchildren.
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THE HINDU Sunday Magazine
Articulations - 11 Oct. 1992
Machines and other animals
There
is a remarkable similarity between the relations which machines and
animals have with human beings. In the preceding section of this essay
(Sept. 20) we had noted that the friendliness or hostility of machines
towards men can be broadly identified in terms of their constructive or
destructive potential as well as their manoeuvrabilty by the users. In
the same way, to the extent that animals interact with human beings,
their attitude can be assessed in terms of their belligerent or peaceful
nature and the co-operative spirit they show as close associates in
work and play.
We
must also consider another dimension of the question when we talk of
friendship in relation to machines and animals. As conscious creatures,
animals possess instincts of friendship or hostility not only vis-a-vis human
beings, but also among themselves. A parallel phenomenon is the
compatibility or incompatibility which exists between different
machines; this concept is particularly important in the fields of
electronics and computer technology.
Animal instincts and spirits
Friendship
among animals is almost always collective in nature, and generally
manifests itself between those which belong to the same species. This
is essentially a result of necessity -- the need for protection against
harmful elements of nature and more aggressive species of animals, or
for some productive endeavor as in the case of a beehive.
It
may be observed that generally the herd instinct is far more intense
among vegetarian mammals than among carnivorous ones, and among milder
varieties of birds than among predatory ones. The clan instinct is
conspicuous in the case of elephants and cattle, gregarious birds like
crows and migratory ones like flamingos. Have we ever seen eagles
flying in a large formation, or ever heard of a battalion of tigers
trekking in the forests?
Profound
attachment between individual animals is very rare in real life, and
even the intimate relations between protective parents and their
offspring are generally short-lived. In the romantic imagination of
men, however, different species of animals do pick up friendships with
one another, whether collectively or individually. In the fanciful
world of animated cartoons, animals which are enemies in real life often
turn out to be good friends in the motion picture. Indeed, sometimes
there is an undercurrent of goodwill even in the confrontation between
mutually hostile animal characters. Perhaps the most striking example
of this is provided by the hilarious travails of the cat and the mouse
called Tom and Jerry, immortalized on colorful film by Hollywood --
although they are constantly engaged in an eventful personal war, one
cannot help noticing that a deep and abiding friendship does exist
between them.
In
literary fiction almost all the animals in the jungle might love a
Tarzan or a Mowgli, but in the real world very few animals develop
strong emotional ties with human beings. The horse and the dog are
exceptional cases of animals which offer warm companionship to their
human masters. Here too the similarity with machines persists, in a
subtle way. Some machines, especially those which have mechanical
features, have a way of adjusting themselves to the handling of habitual
users and responding better to their commands than to those of others.
In fact, this kind of compatibility can sometimes create such a
powerful bond that one might even imagine that the machine actually
reciprocates the affection of its exclusive operator!
Human instincts and and attitudes
The
collective attitude of human beings towards animals in an integral
sense is closely related to their approach towards the natural
environment as a whole. Just as mankind feels alarmed today by the
progressive depletion of valuable natural resources and the suffocating
pollution of the atmosphere caused by its own indiscriminate
technological and commercial ventures, it also feels greatly concerned
about the decimation of many animal species resulting from its own
destructive activities or indifference.
One
may compare this concern with the anxiety being felt by people all over
the world today about the steady deterioration in their folk arts
brought about by their own distortion or neglect of them. Just as all
sensitive and unbiased persons have a compelling wish to see the
surviving traditional arts preserved, they also recognize the need to
protect the rich and varied animal wealth of the world. The primitive
hunter's spirit, which even the most advanced human civilization has
done nothing to mitigate, is today moderated by the fear of ruining the
very pattern of life which has evolved on this planet. Out of this fear
is born the 'friendly' attitude even towards wild and dangerous
animals, as towards the whole environment.
When
we consider the collective attitude of human beings towards machines,
however, we find that the analogy with the case of animals is no longer
valid. As machines become more and more versatile and indispensable,
they tend to overpower people, undermining their affinity with nature
and destroying their peace of mind. Quite understandably, the
cumulative human response to this is not friendliness but ever-growing
animosity.
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PostScript, 2014
Additions and omissions
With that
final spell of my reflections on friends and friendships, I did think I
had written an absolutely comprehensive essay, which could be enlarged
only in the light of entirely new factors likely to be caused in
society, lifestyles and cultures by the relentless progress of modern
science and technology. So I was quite surprised to get the following
response to my recent posts, from Aparna, my daughter (-in-law technically) who lives in Australia:
"Dear pOPpe, . . . Perhaps you can add the cyberspace friendships that are now being formed, as an analogy to pen pals. . . "
What comes as a
surprise in this comment is not the concept of Cyberian friendships
(which was obviously crying out for fresh reflections), but her
reference to pen pals. Of course, not mentioning them in my
'comprehensive' essay was a serious omission, of which I haven't been
aware till now! And which, of course, immediately makes me think of radio friends, another serious omission.
Thank you, Aparna, for your sensitive reading of these tightly-written texts -- just wait a little for the sequel!
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