"Jane Goodall is a renowned primatologist best known for conducting a 40-year study of chimpanzee social and family life at Gombe Stream in Tanzania. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, a leading organization in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats.
I think we are still in a muddle with our language, because once you get words and a spoken language it gets harder to communicate.
Chimps are very quick to have a sudden fight or aggressive episode, but they are equally as good at reconciliation. They make an appeasing gesture--reaching out a hand, crouching, giving little cries of fear or sadness. Then, very often, the aggressor will reach out and pat or reassure--offer an embrace or something like that--and the victim relaxes, and it is over.
When humans get these sudden outbursts of anger, we add words to the mix. And as you have probably experienced, it is much harder to forget a word than it is a slap. Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don't go away, they just echo around. So even if you can make up, the words come back.
I think we are still in a muddle with our language, because once you get words and a spoken language it gets harder to communicate.
Chimps are very quick to have a sudden fight or aggressive episode, but they are equally as good at reconciliation. They make an appeasing gesture--reaching out a hand, crouching, giving little cries of fear or sadness. Then, very often, the aggressor will reach out and pat or reassure--offer an embrace or something like that--and the victim relaxes, and it is over.
When humans get these sudden outbursts of anger, we add words to the mix. And as you have probably experienced, it is much harder to forget a word than it is a slap. Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don't go away, they just echo around. So even if you can make up, the words come back.
How true this is I have found in my own life, how words have effected and shaped my life when someone lashed out in anger at me. Or when I have bangergery and lashed out at them, oh it may of at the time made me feel better or stronger because I felt like I had got the upper hand by hurting someone with words, but now I ask myself at what did it cost me in trust from that person?"
