“Where did you get that idea?” is a question I often ask myself. We think that our ideas are the result of rational thinking and accurate information, but in many cases this is not true.
“We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” This is a quote from Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, nephew of Sigmund Freud and probably a man you never heard of, yet he is responsible for Americans thinking bacon and eggs is what we should eat for breakfast and women should have equal rights in regard to smoking cigarettes.
As a student of propaganda, the current love affair Americans are having with the polar bear is fascinating. This affection has nothing to do with real polar bears and everything to do with Coke ads and global warming memes. Look, the poor innocent bear’s ice block is melting, what will become of him? We must act now!
Real polar bears are 800 pound predators, carnivorous beasts who feed whenever they find blood pumping through muscle tissue. We love polar bears and they love us right back-for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
1. An 11 year-old killed and eaten in a NY zoo.
2. Campers pulled from their tents and mauled
3. A woman attacked as she crossed the street
At this point, many will defend the polar bear on moral grounds! If MAN didn’t mess with his environment, he wouldn’t attack. Where did we get that idea? From a thousand nature shows pounding it into our heads, that’s where. Polar bears are not moral agents and the ones who ate the 11 year-old boy were fed twice a day at the zoo. They simply eat meat when it is available and you are meat, just like those big-eyed seals they snatch out of their breathing holes. Am I saying polar bears are evil? No, I’m saying morality has no application to animals. They do what they do, just count on it.
Now polar bears are breeding with brown and grizzly bears and producing pizzly bears. This kind of kicks the concept of species in the head, but then “species” is just a word we invented. Supposedly members of different species cannot interbreed and if they do, the offspring are infertile. Oops, the pizzly bears are fertile! Environmentalists moan about MAN messing up mother nature, as if MAN runs a polar-grizzly hook-up site for bears that want to meet exotic partners. It is just nature doing its thing, adapting.
I once visited the ironically named Fred Bear Museum near Gainesville, Florida. Fred Bear makes hunting bows and the museum houses various bow-hunting trophies. I never really grasped the horror our ancestors felt toward bears until I stood in front of the brown bear. It was at least eight feet tall, weighed close to 1,000 pounds and each claw was six inches long.
Most of us have lost touch with nature, but the Inuits, who have not, laugh at our affection for polar bears. They respect them as killers, as we on the farm respected bulls. It’s not a moral issue; animals will do what they do-a bull will gore you if he’s in a bad mood and a polar bear will eat you if you are available.
And yes, a dingo actually will eat your baby.
Welcome Travelers... 