Dr Rajiv Desai
An Educational Blog
Are We Animals?
Are We Animals? _____ Man versus polar bear: _ Keeper Julius Latoya shares a tender moment with Kinna, a young orphaned African elephant at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya. ______ ______ Section-1 Prologue: Many parents admonish their misbehaving children by saying “stop acting like animals” implying that children are acting in a primitive and thoughtless manner. When my students/patients misbehave, I occasionally tell them that they are behaving like animals. Of course, my critics in India would label my utterances as racist and dehumanizing akin to the Nazis’ persecution of Jews during the Holocaust and torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Many patients hospitalized in some Covid-19 facilities in India complained that their condition was like “animals” at the facility. Most of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. Many of […]
