find the term “folkbiological reasoning” and peruse this paragraph in the psmag article:
“Studies show that Western urban children grow up so closed off in man-made environments that their brains never form a deep or complex connection to the natural world. While studying children from the U.S., researchers have suggested a developmental timeline for what is called “folkbiological reasoning.” These studies posit that it is not until children are around 7 years old that they stop projecting human qualities onto animals and begin to understand that humans are one animal among many. Compared to Yucatec Maya communities in Mexico, however, Western urban children appear to be developmentally delayed in this regard. Children who grow up constantly interacting with the natural world are much less likely to anthropomorphize other living things into late childhood.”
now consider, and i say this in the least pejorative way possible, that furry culture seems to arise at least partially from a desire/instinct to anthropomorphize and identify with non-human animals, often in broad, non-species-specific categories (cat, dog, etc.).
i need to lie down
As an outsider to furry culture the whole thing is really interesting.
I approach animals from a certain point of view (veterinary medicine) and I think I understand them, what they are and what they do pretty well. I assumed somebody who goes around introducing themselves as a cat, for example, actually knows something about cats.
Not in this case.
So one evening my brother brought a few of his friends around to my home with fursonas consisting of a dog, cat and kangaroo.
I was bottle raising a litter of seven adorable kittens at the time (a handful and a half, let me tell you) and I thought this was brilliant. Three animal lovers, in my home, which don’t have any pets of their own. Perfect future kitten owners, right?
I mean, at a certain stage in kitten season you start trying to pimp out those cute little fuzzballs to anybody.
Mr Cat Fursona had no idea what to do with a real live cat or kitten. He’d never interacted with one, he’d only seen pictures and videos. He was so thoroughly awkward, and possibly a little bit afraid, completely unsure about how to hold them, what to do if they wiggled and even if they were happy. He marveled at the way their ears twitch when they swallow but freaked out about their toileting habits. And to my surprise he wasn’t actually interested in these real cats for more than three minutes.
They had minimal interest in this litter of kittens, they were not interested in real animals. They were not familiar with real animals.
I don’t think they’re ascribing human characteristics to an animal. This group seemed to be taking perceived animal qualities (eg dog=loyalty, cat=aloof) and applying it to themselves. Even if the real animals don’t actually have those qualities at all, they were interested in the qualities that society had assigned those animals and then applying that to themselves. Is was society’s concept of a cat that was of interest to him, not the real thing.
So you can be a cat, it seems, without knowing a single thing about cats. And perhaps if he had grown up with cats then he wouldn’t have chosen one for his fursona.
Fascinating!
I grew up in the woods, in farm country, very close to nature and animals. I wonder if that’s why I’m not a furry? *shrug*
id like to thank god, jesus, and those bullshit lake camps my parents sent me to when I was ten
No but the history behind this picture is really interesting
The reason that everyone always looked miserable in old photos wasn’t that they took too long to take. Once photography became widespread it took only seconds to take a picture.
It was because getting your photo taken was treated the same as getting your portrait painted. A very serious occasion meant so thst your descendants would know that ypu existed and what you looked like.
But one time some British dudes went to china to go on an anthropological expedition, and they met some rural Chinese farmers and decided to take their pictures. Now, these people weren’t exposed to the weird culture of the time around getting your photo taken, so this guy just flashed a big grin during the photo because he was told to strike a pose and that’s the pose he wanted to strike.
I think painted portraits and old photos give us the idea that in general people were just really unhappy because those are the visuals we have. This is so refreshing.
Hey, look; “Man Laughing Alone With Rice” is back on my dash.
You know what I think is really cool about language (English in this case)? It’s the way you can express “I don’t know” without opening your mouth. All you have to do is hum a low note, a high note, then another lower note. The same goes for yes and no. Does anyone know what this is called?
my favorite out of context quotes from my archeology professor so far in no particular order
and floridians are just as human as you and me!
and the moral of the story is that there are no deadly snakes native to alaska
you might know this guy as one of the only archaeologists cool enough to be mentioned by indiana jones
it’s my dream to have my name said by harrison ford
i’m not going to apologize for having this class at 6am because you paid for it and it’s your fault.
we don’t all dress like lara croft. i tried to get it to be a thing on a dig and my colleagues yelled at me.
they were pretty good archaeologists except they were too racist to realize anything they found.
i take back what i said about us not dressing like lara croft because lewis binford here is wearing nothing but short shorts and a cowboy hat. take notes for an academic halloween costume!
archaeologists can be good artists! not me, though. or anyone i know. but if you can draw just know you have options.
sometimes you find dead bodies when you dont really expect it and you just have to deal with it
archaeologists are the only people allowed to get exited when they find corpses.
once i ruined thanksgiving dinner when i told my family i had gotten my degree in archaeology and my uncle commented he liked dinosaurs too
the closest i’ve ever been to a grizzly bear is when i left my glasses in my tent on a dig in alaska, saw a big rock in the distance, and almost screamed
additional quotes
ah yes. archaeologists. or, as i love to call us, pottery analysts
i mean he was kind of a good guy for helping us beat britain but he owned slaves so that really cancelled it out.
archaeology is like cultural anthropology, except after you interview the person you turn around and shoot them in the head.
do not use trees! trees are bad! don’t do it!
usually you find shards, but it’s super exciting when you find a really big shard
it’s basically like a waterpark, except you’re fully clothed and walking through a dark tunnel knee deep in muddy water. so, basically splish splash.
i dont believe in curses but my colleagues and i like to encourage the idea of them so people stop touching our stuff
usually, you would find a knife in a kitchen. or underneath your pillow to really freak out your roommate who is a history nerd and has no idea why you would sleep with a knife under your pillow and he’ll get really scared and freaked out and okay i’m getting off topic
no matter what the other scientists say, archaeology is a real science.
don’t worry, i promise you, and whatever government agency that’s spying on me right now, that i’m not a crazy communist trying to overthrow the government
by now you’ve noticed the big “POP QUIZ” written on the board. there isn’t one, but i wanted to see the looks on your face when you saw it. but you’re all dead inside so it’s not really funny.
everything was fine except the citizens of pompeii just woke up dead the next day
the number one question you should ask when you read old archaeology papers is “how the hell do you know?”
nothing pisses off old men more than young people asking “why” and “prove it” so do that as often as possible
this is incredible! all it takes is a computer the size of this room!
even more from the margins of my notebook!
when in doubt, it’s ritualistic
coprolites are the only shit archaeologists get excited over
i know the only reason you’re not laughing at my hilarious jokes is because it’s early
they called it the garbage project. which is also what people call the projects i work on when we apply for funding.
what you have to realize is that people are fundamentally weird. they do weird stuff now and they have done it thousands of years ago.
things come and go but pottery is forever
i dont know if you all know this but moose are terrifying abominations.
and today’s lesson is about the difference between dirt and soil!
please, please, please do not eat old butter you found buried in a bog.
normally i would say this blackboard is a feature because it isn’t portable and can’t be moved but this is a community college so who knows
one of my biggest fears is that this will get so many notes that someone in the class will see it and show it to the professor and he’ll realize half the notes ive been taking in class are jotting down the weird shit he says
sparksoffandommagic 