If it is possible to receive the “evil eye” from a duck, I faced off with seven pairs of evil eyes while walking in a park the other day. As the flock foraged through lush green grass, it struck me that these waterfowl were not among the kind I had seen before. They were not mallards, wood ducks, coots or any of the other species that are typical to American ponds, lakes and parklands.

One of the seven ducks seemed to be the ringleader. He — or she — was bent on only one thing: keeping the seventh “odd duck” as far away from the remaining six as possible. How typical, I thought. They’re very much like us!

I wondered, momentarily, if these ducks had the capacity to reason why their boorish behavior ought to be directed at one of their own kind that, by all appearances, was undeserving of such marginalization? For that matter, are dominance-driven behaviors on the part of animals influenced by emotions at all? More tellingly, is in-group/out-group selection any more a negotiable aspect of human nature as it is for our furred, feathered and scaled counterparts in the animal kingdom?

Does Nature have a good reason for why we — and they — behave the way we do?

Continue reading “A Social Criticism: Who We Are, Where We’re Going and How we can Embrace Diversity in the 21st Century” →