Cultural Analysis of "What Do Talking Apes Really Tell Us?"

In the article "What Do Talking Apes Really Tell Us" by Jane C. Hu, I was able to culturally analyze the text to find values, keywords, and arguments of the culture. This article was not out of the original three sources I analyzed, the reason for which was previously explained. I will be using and analyzing this text for the rest of Module 3 to evaluate whether or not the famous Koko the gorilla actually understands human language. That is a big commitment, so *dramatic music* DUN DUN, DUNNNN!

shannonpatrick17 "Nature-Koko (2004)"
09/12/09 via flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic

The keywords that I was able to pull from this article were "selective interpretation", "read into actions" and "empathy education". These keywords all support the claim the author makes, which is that Koko's signs being interpreted as her actually understanding words is the human fantasy to have a deeper connection with animals taking over. In addition, it is this human craving for connection and empathy that drives people to believing what they WANT to be true in this case.

We see it all the time, people claiming their crush's glance means are interested in them, people with bad relationships claiming that issues aren't really a problem, people thinking that having a side of salad justifies eating a whole cake as well. People tend to selectively interpret actions or events to mean what they want them to mean. In her article, Hu uses this "selective interpretation" to explain how Patterson (Koko's handler) has been able to convince so many people that Koko understands human language. According to the the author, Patterson desperately tries to assemble Koko's at times nonsensical signs to mean something logical. For example, Koko signs "nipple" and Patterson says that sounds like "people" so Koko means she likes all the people. In addition, the public in turn selectively interprets Patterson's translations to be 100% accurate.

The "read into actions" part also ties into this desire to believe. When you manipulate and dig enough (at least in my case, my b.s.-er is typically pretty strong) you can twist just about anything the way you want it to go. The author argues that such is the case with Koko. The gorilla can sign any number of seemingly meaningless things, and Patterson and the public manage to turn it into something deep and meaningful. This comes from the human desire to turn what is actually happening into what they WANT to be happening by reading into actions.

The author uses "empathy education" in the text to develop her point on why people are so willing to believe the twisting of words Patterson presents. The idea that a big powerful animal like Koko could be capable of coherent, empathetic emotions and communication is appealing to humans. We long for a deeper connection with animals, and strive for another being to share our emotion and grief with. Therefore this is why when Robin Williams died, Koko's apparent grief was so heartwarming. Hu claims that is human empathy desires that make it so easy for us to turn Koko's signs into communication.