Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace
Carl Safina
Many believe that culture is an exclusively human phenomenon. But this book is about cultures whose bearers are not people: they are wild animals that inhabit the virgin regions of our planet. Karl Safina proves that sperm whales, macaws or chimpanzees are also able to recognize themselves as part of a community that lives in its own way and has its own traditions. Safina proves that for both animals and people, culture is the answer to the eternal question: "Who are we?" Culture makes individual members of a species feel like a group. But cultural groups often tend to avoid each other, and even to be at enmity. By demonstrating that this tendency is equally characteristic of a variety of animals, Safina explains why we humans can never get rid of intercultural conflicts, even though the differences between us often do not have a significant objective basis.
