Last night we went to see Jane Goodall speak at the Palais in St Kilda, Melbourne. It’s Jane’s 90th birthday this year. Last time I was at the Palais, I was watching the band First Aid Kit. Years before that, Nick Cave. It’s surprising to see a gentile, elderly lady stand in front of a packed house, speaking quietly with the air of a grandmother. Jane would occasionally set the record straight when a question or idea strayed off course.
There was some subtext in a question about inequality between men and women in science. There are in fact more women conservationists around the world, although ‘in Tanzania for some reason, it’s mostly men’, said Jane. She added ‘I was with a tribe in South America one time and they told me their genders are equal. Men and women are like each wing of an eagle. If they aren’t equal in strength, the bird can’t soar to great heights.’
The enduring wisdom of our elders and betters
We still have the elders of our community there to nourish and protect us with their wisdom. Wisdom that we’ve lost as we are sucked in by an increasingly angry and divided society that seems intent on magnifying our differences, rather than celebrating our similarities.
Those types don’t last though. There are plenty of younger speakers who can fill stadiums. Some of them represent the most appalling of human behaviour. How many of them will still be able to do this when they are 90 years old? Real wisdom endures. The wisdom of nature recognises that human and animal nature is to be aggressive from time to time. However, real survivors – those that offer hope – know this while being supportive, encouraging and rich in the best of human nature.
Jane Goodall had that support in the way of her mother. She joined a young Jane Goodall to live in a tent in the Jungle for six months, when she first worked for the famous Louis Leakey.
Goodall has learnt the greatest lesson of all from animals. That life goes on and there will always be struggles. Without that, there would be no hope to reach for. Look carefully and you can find this wisdom in any animal you share your living space with. It just means earning their trust, slowing down and being quiet for a while.
Wisdom and our relationship to animals
There is much more I could say about last night but it would take too long. It would have been wonderful to hear more insights and anecdotes from Dr Goodall into the minds of animals. She did talk about her dog rusty and the bloody-mindedness of scientists at the time. It reminded me that I included this quote from Beastly by Keggie Carew that I reviewed recently:
[Goodall] already knew, from a whole childhood of close observation, that her dog, Rusty, was quite capable of rational thought, had a vivid and unique personality, and experienced an array of complex feelings. Anyone with a dog as a pet, she sagely pointed out, knows this. However, scientific orthodoxy was hostile; Rusty could leap around the garden doing somersaults all he liked, but [the scientists thought] that he could not be happy without hard evidence.
Keggie Carew’s Beastly
I am currently working on my second book, with the working title: How to Survive the Next 100 Years: Lessons from Nature. Some more of Dr Jane Goodall’s reasons for hope will almost certainly appear in there ; )
Jane Goodall’s top four reasons for hope
For now, I leave you with Jane’s four reasons for hope:
- Young people. Including the 1.5 million kids in 70 countries involved in the Jane Goodall institute‘s Roots and Shoots program.
- Human intellect. Not intelligence. Our ability to problem solve and find solutions makes us a unique animal.
- The resilienceReferring to an ecosystem’s ability to maintain a steady stable-state. The need to build resilience is entirely anthropocentric and symptomatic of ecosystems that are damaged or declining, leading to loss of ecosystem services on which humans depend. More of nature. All over the world are incredible examples of natural regeneration exceeding our expectations.
- The indomitable human spirit. Despite whatever happens, people will never give up.
