Zoos as colonialist enterprises

[boingboing]

Originally published at: Zoos as colonialist enterprises | Boing Boing

…

[BakaNeko]

The Tragic Tale of the Pygmy in the Zoo

[Otherbrother]

I’ve still got mixed feelings about the fact that for many years Disneyland had an “Indian Village” in Frontierland with real tribes as an attraction.

https://www.yesterland.com/village.html

By the standards of the day it was apparently fairly authentic and respectful (better than what folks saw in that infamous sequence in Peter Pan, anyway) but still…

[Lot_49]

I’ve always wondered why the tiger in Blake’s great poem “The Tyger” is not at all a fearsome looking beast.

Scholarly commentary says the tiger looks confused because it’s “in the forests of the night,” and not enlightened, which seems like a bit of a reach. I used to think it was because Blake had never seen a tiger. In Blake’s time (around 1800) if any city in the world had a zoo with a tiger in it, it would’ve been London. So now I’ve come around to thinking that, although he was a brilliant poet, Blake was a pretty primitive artist.

[Flossaluzitarin]

Doesn’t really compute as given. On the other hand animal-constructed boundaries and concessions against human built environment (or just cars) has a ways to go.

[MrShiv]

@Lot_49

I’ve always wondered

…how Blake could rhyme “eye” with “symmetry”.

[Azure]

I also just never got the impression Blake was a fan of The Enlightenment, what with equating Newton with night and sleep.

[hecep]

@MrShiv

…how Blake could rhyme “eye” with “symmetry”.

Symme… try (as in ‘fry’)

[knoxblox]

/S

[MrShiv]

I’ve got it!

What immortal hand or knee
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

[hecep]

I see what you mean.

[MrShiv]

I mean…

Right?

[jerwin]

This book, among other things, describes zoos before europeans got their vulgar little hands on them

Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World