About book When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives Of Animals (1996)
[Readers note: the author is a professor of Sanskrit and a trained Freudian analyst who has a passion for animals and exploring our relationships to animals from a philosophical point of view. He is not a practicing biologist, animal behaviorist, or any other -ist within the zoological/anthropological realm. I believe his intent is to help make this area of science more compelling, interesting, and accessible to the lay public. Best to read it with that understanding in mind.]I fell right into this book from page one of the prologue. My inner dialog was so loud and persistent I had to take notes on paper to help myself focus more clearly on what I was reading; it felt good to be so actively interactive with a book! About halfway through chapter one, though, I realized I definitely wasn't part of the target audience. Back when I worked at the public library I became hooked on non-fiction, and I've always loved the life sciences in particular, so I'm already very familiar with the topic. Despite feeling like I was being beaten over the head with his strident arguments, I still found myself cheering Masson for writing such a passionate book, and I was happy to overlook some of his more specious generalizations knowing the intent was to convince folk who hadn't really thought about this topic before that it's one worth embracing and exploring more deeply. The thing I couldn't get away from, however, was my need to shout: "...in Western scientific traditions!" after each of his assertions that there is "..almost no investigation...in the modern scientific literature," or "...the worst of ethological sins - anthropomorphism." At least he did mention Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal, and again, de Waal's research was not really the point of this book. It did make me hungry to read " The Ape and the Sushi Master" again, where de Waal does explore the limitations of Western science and how Eastern scientists have a much more holistic approach that includes recognizing the sentience and emotional expressions of other animals.
This book has a fatal flaw, which I believe is the crux of its argument and usefulness: In the discussion of whether or not animals can be said to have feelings, Masson is forced to wrestle with the definition of emotion, its origin and symptoms and causes and ontology. Is emotion mutually exclusive to evolutionary function, as one would come to believe from the tone of scientific discourse? If a mother protects her cubs, can we assume she feels love for them? Why would we possibly assume otherwise? The very concept of anthropomorphism implies that humans and animals are fundamentally different, and thereby disallows any meaningful, genuine comparison by researchers for fear of appearing soft.The book eventually becomes repetitive and even polemical in its statements on what it means if animals do, in fact, have emotions (hint: we might be compelled to be less cruel to them, you know, universally). Relatedly, it is defined by the logical fallacy that a collection of anecdotes can constitute data. That being said, the research is compelling and the story-telling from animal observers is interesting. While I might not recommend reading this book cover to cover, it's worth a few chapters and some skimming.
Do You like book When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives Of Animals (1996)?
This could easily be a five star book, as I believe it can change the life ofmany people who do not give enough credit to animals. However in my case I was already in agreement with the fact that animals do have emotions and feel just as much as we do, so it was not a life changing book per say. However this book is very intelligent. It's well written, very scientific in its approach, and while at times can be a bit snarky, is justifiably so. This is not the feel good "let's read stories about animals" kinda book though, while the stories are there, it is, again, scientific in its approach and it a good theory book. However it is written in a style that all can read, very approachable. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone.
—Marie
The concept of this book is pretty simple. It's just basically saying that animals have emotions, in many different aspects. How they face embarrassment, love, joy, etc.And that's all in the form of many different anecdotes. I loved reading about animals doing these human like things but it was getting a little repetitive in some areas. I get it-animals experience emotions.Nonetheless, this was still intersting to read. Not really informational, but good for animal lovers and I guess it's also pretty good evidence for the fact that animals are pretty cool :)
—Faye
Repetitive. No science. Reads something like this-scientists suck because I think my pets have feelings and they really do because I can just tell and how can anyone say they don't? Also, other people think their pets have feelings. So there. Flawless argument. Horribly misinterprets or over interprets behaviors and actions. Everything right up to the looks dogs give and of course, from a look you can read their mind because it's not possible they could be thinking anything other than the anthropomorphic (oh, that naughty word) thoughts you have assigned to them (He literally does say that his interpretation is the only logical one). Given that humans can't even read other humans' thoughts from a look most of the time, his cross-species mind-reading skills are truly impressive. Recommend "Animals in translation" or "A parrot's lament" if you want a good book on animal emotions and intelligence, backed by science (You know, studies done by those scientists who hate animals and are stupid and don't think that animals have emotions. Seriously, has he seen any animal research in the last 3-4 decades?) and written much better, while still being interesting and touching. Also, anything about Alex the grey parrot. He was awesome.
—Tippy Jackson
