I escorted the kids and two of their friends to the zoo yesterday, without additional adult assistance. Nothing remarkable happened, but since I'll not likely be doing that again it seems worth remarking. I didn't have to do it, but let the record show that I did it anyway.
Ethically speaking I'm ambivalent about the practice of confining wild animals for human gawking convenience, which seems anachronistic and wrong on its face... but arguably useful in provoking human sympathies that might in the long run be in the animals' and the planet's best interests. In the digital age, though, a holographic zoo might serve the same educational function. I'm not sure a holo-zoo would trigger the same family feeling of connectedness with the entire animal kingdom that the real thing evokes for at least some zoo-goers, but it's a possibility worth exploring. In the meantime I'll just have to bite the speciesist bullet and hope the zookeepers are respectful of their tenants when nobody's watching.
But putting all that aside, a trip to the zoo is awfully appealing when you find yourself in search of something to entice four young ladies outdoors on a gorgeous early June afternoon. The Dad hat doesn't always coincide with the Ethicist's, I confess. But it was a good walkabout, on a very pleasant sunny afternoon, and (again) a great opportunity to observe the human animal on parade. You can observe a lot by watching, especially this time of year.
The whole zoo experience seems to have been Disney-fied, somehow, since my last visit several years ago as a kindergarten chaperone. Or maybe we've all been Disney-fied, in our orderly spectator way of taking in thematic entertainment, queing for over-priced comestibles, shuffling purposively from sight to sight etc. It's sure a far cry from Thoreau's tonic wildness. But okay, I admit it: I'm glad we saw the tiger cubs before they head home to Florida in a couple of weeks.
Charles Darwin (
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