Analyzing My Text's Cultural Setting

In this post I will be evaluating the text "What Do Talking Apes Really Tell Us?" by Jane C. Hu for its relationship to its cultural or social setting. I will also be analyzing how the time and place that the article was published may affect these cultural standpoints.



Question One

Gady, Antoine "Emblematic" 1/27/12 via flickr.
Attribution-No Derivs 2.0 Generic

The values, norms, beliefs, and ideas of the culture play an important part in the text. This article was written in 2014, which is fairly recent, and as such shares the same values that we hold today. As a culture, we generally value, believe in, and normify (I decided that was a verb) the need for honesty and full disclosure, empathy and breaking down labels, and the facination with the implausible. The author is from Seattle Washington, and as such I will be referring to AMERICAN culture today for this post.

In today's technology based world, it is fairly easy for a reader to just google a claim being made to verify it. It is a norm a lot of stories of corruption and dishonesty that get published because of the media impact right now, causing the public to be a little uneasy about everything they hear. People want to know the whole story, not just the one the author wants us to hear. This is important in this article because the author, Hu, claims that Patterson is not being totally honest by picking and choosing how to interpret Koko's "words".

Also on the other side of the spectrum, we have a very rights-central culture these days, and as a result we tend to value emotion and empathy. This tends to cause us to value, in one way of putting it, ALL the feels. The idea of a gorilla being able to talk is appealing to today's society because "awwww". Also as a culture, we are always trying to break down boundaries that seem to be in our way. We want to believe that gosh darn it why WOULDN'T gorillas be able to talk.

We live in a culture today that wants to make everything seem possible, and values the implausible at times, because we are fascinated with the thought of progress and the unknown. This becomes a norm in today's society because of the tendency of Americans to fight the seemingly non-fightable battles to break down boundaries in society. We as a culture WANT to believe that a talking gorilla is possible, which is the main argument of the article. The author also argues that it is this hope and fascination that drives people to interpret Koko's words the way they want them to be true.


Question Two

The text is fairly indirect in their statement of these cultural values. They demonstrate these beliefs and values by referring to Patterson's interpretations of Koko's signs, as well as the human tendency towards empathy and selective interpretation. They don't directly state that these values and norms are good or bad, but rather it is implied through their tone and rhetoric in presenting these American ideals. In this way they do not come across as super direct, but rather address these values and reasonings in different places throughout the text to try to emphasize the points they are making.


Question Three

The text is actually very critical of these cultural values in America today. They assert that it is these norms, value and beliefs and ideas that result in the over-eagerness of people to believe things that might otherwise be seen as illogical. The author criticizes the fact that America is ruled by emotion and hope rather than logic. They encourage that people instead look into the way Patterson is trying to spin things and make a well rounded judgement based off of more than just emotion. However the author does seem to support the cultural value in full disclosure. They think that the public has a right to know all of the facts and not just the circumstantial "proof", and encourages this American idea of skepticism.