I, like Austin, did not like The Bug or the resulting literary analysis; however, I will be talking specifically about the class in which we finished the book instead of the book in general. One of the things that stuck with me was this comment near the end of class. “As the book progresses Ethan begins to experience more and more emotion. He becomes more human.” While this is what the author may have intended to convey, we should not be agreeing with her. The implication is that emotion is what makes us human. On the surface you may agree, but look deeper. We are not the only creatures that experience emotions. The list of animals that experience emotion is lengthy to say the least. Elephants, all of the great apes, monkeys, rodents, birds, dogs, cats, and whales all experience some degree of emotion. I hear you shouting at me “but we are the most emotive creature on the planet”. I would have to argue there as well. If you take the parts of the brain that are responsible for emotion and measure their volume per body mass for humans and whales, specifically orcas, you will find that their emotional brain is proportionally much larger than ours. The clear implication being that they are much more emotional creatures than humans. On a different but related note, claiming that emotion is what makes us human snubs people on the autistic spectrum, who do not necessarily experience emotion or socialization like “normal” people. Implying that emotion is what makes us human allows us to discriminating against people because they are “less human” or different than we are. While this was just an in class discussion we need to be careful about where our hidden assumptions take us.

 

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/elephant_african_mourning