Justice
We know the five major senses- touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing- and we know that there are many senses beyond those ones we tend to limit ourselves to- like your sense of pain or temperature. But how many other senses are there? Which one is our sixth sense?
In The Deepest Sense, I was most fascinated by the chapter on animals. Because they had a good example for what I believe is the sixth sense that ties society together. That is, one's sense of justice.
Justice is something that you perceive, and it is something that is perceived by the rest of nature, or at least our closer relatives in the animal kingdom.
In that experiment, one of the monkeys was upset by the injustice of the other monkey getting better treatment. This is the cornerstone of every great society- the distributing proper treatment of people and the earth. When there is great inequality, people rise up, because they sense that justice has failed them. Sure, sensing ghosts is probably the most well known sixth sense, but it is not the one that led mankind to write the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
What I loved most from The Deepest Sense was the absurd lengths mankind would go to achieve justice when animals are the criminals. While animals do have a sense of justice, it is one that is much more oriented in the present, for immediacy- although crows have been known to hold grudges over injustices - and humans taking them to court for their crimes does not effect them the same way. Perhaps my favorite few lines of the book was the explanation that, when a domesticated animal had committed a crime, it faced a secular court. But wild animals faced ecclesiastical courts, as they were under God's province. And those decisions helped humans feel that justice had been achieved.
We can prove it scientifically now that animals have different worldviews and senses- be it they have more or fewer types of color receptors in their eyes, or greater senses of smell by orders of magnitude- but back in the days of animal trials the people felt that the animals knew what they were on trial for. These weren't mock trials, shams, shows, jokes on the critters- the same exact judges, defenders, and prosecutors for human crimes would be staffing these trials.People really felt like in was a worthwhile expense of time and resources, because justice is important for preventing society from falling apart.
For further reads on animal trials, if you're a nut like me:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-truth-and-myth-behind-animal-trials-of-the-middle-ages
https://www.wired.com/2014/09/fantastically-wrong-europes-insane-history-putting-animals-trial-executing/
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2013/02/medieval_animal_trials_why_they_re_not_quite_as_crazy_as_they_sound.html
In The Deepest Sense, I was most fascinated by the chapter on animals. Because they had a good example for what I believe is the sixth sense that ties society together. That is, one's sense of justice.
Justice is something that you perceive, and it is something that is perceived by the rest of nature, or at least our closer relatives in the animal kingdom.
In that experiment, one of the monkeys was upset by the injustice of the other monkey getting better treatment. This is the cornerstone of every great society- the distributing proper treatment of people and the earth. When there is great inequality, people rise up, because they sense that justice has failed them. Sure, sensing ghosts is probably the most well known sixth sense, but it is not the one that led mankind to write the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
What I loved most from The Deepest Sense was the absurd lengths mankind would go to achieve justice when animals are the criminals. While animals do have a sense of justice, it is one that is much more oriented in the present, for immediacy- although crows have been known to hold grudges over injustices - and humans taking them to court for their crimes does not effect them the same way. Perhaps my favorite few lines of the book was the explanation that, when a domesticated animal had committed a crime, it faced a secular court. But wild animals faced ecclesiastical courts, as they were under God's province. And those decisions helped humans feel that justice had been achieved.
We can prove it scientifically now that animals have different worldviews and senses- be it they have more or fewer types of color receptors in their eyes, or greater senses of smell by orders of magnitude- but back in the days of animal trials the people felt that the animals knew what they were on trial for. These weren't mock trials, shams, shows, jokes on the critters- the same exact judges, defenders, and prosecutors for human crimes would be staffing these trials.People really felt like in was a worthwhile expense of time and resources, because justice is important for preventing society from falling apart.
For further reads on animal trials, if you're a nut like me:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-truth-and-myth-behind-animal-trials-of-the-middle-ages
https://www.wired.com/2014/09/fantastically-wrong-europes-insane-history-putting-animals-trial-executing/
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2013/02/medieval_animal_trials_why_they_re_not_quite_as_crazy_as_they_sound.html
I love this post.
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