In reference to the comprehension exercise that I have done, in the last paragraph of Passage A, the author said something about the ants that are 'very human'. He was referring to the black ant-slaves who were cheering for their slave-masters (the red ants) when they returned home in glory (after exterminating a black ant nest).
What the writer means is probably that when some people are not properly educated, they become less knowledgeable, and when they are influenced by the people around them, or more so, the people who are either their master or somebody of a higher rank, they are less efficient at making decisions, and worse still, thinking properly. Like the black ants that were cheering for the 'downfall' or their own kin, their own relatives, of their own kind. The author probably thinks humans are the same way too, in a sense that the youngsters/youths are not properly educated and they grow up to become gangsters or boisterous and un-educated, good-for-nothing people.
The author was suggesting that our education is not good. That should be the main point to that sentence (phrase, actually). Please commment under the 'comments' section or the tagboard. Thank you.
Friday, February 12, 2010
"Something very human about the whole thing."
Posted by Caspar Zhou at 2/12/2010 10:44:00 PM
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2 comments:
Caspar, I'm going to start off this comment by saying that you pointed out something extremely intriguing and I wish I had thought to write this down.
On the other hand, I hope this is not the only thing you wrote because the whole thing refers to the war doesn't it?
I would say that the human-likeness about the whole thing is the methods of war, the reasons for war and the spoils of war.
Regardless, talking about lack of education is interesting. I wish I wrote both, but never mind. This really gives me new insight to the much debated topic of nature vs nurture. This example illustrates that with nurturing, people can be made to go against their nature, as the black ant slaves can be seen cheering on their red slave-makers when they returned from victory against other black ants.
I agree with Danyon that the human likeness was more to do with the war than the black ants' reactions to it. The mere fact that the ants were even having war was part of the human likeness. Slavery and war, as seen in the ants, demonstrates the cruelty of humans. It is these inhumane acts of cruelty and mindless killing against those equal to us that best illustrates the ugly side of human nature.
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