Ok, so "profundity" may not be a real word, but you know what I mean. The point is, only an idiot would be impressed by a zoo installing a human exhibit.
LONDON - Caged and barely clothed, eight men and women monkeyed around for the crowds Friday in an exhibit labeled "Humans" at the London Zoo."Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment" read the sign at the entrance to the exhibit, where the captives could be seen on a rock ledge in a bear enclosure, clad in bathing suits and pinned-on fig leaves. Some played with hula hoops, some waved.
The ironic thing is that the humans doing the watching are the ones in their "natural environment". Contrary to the babblings of the stumbling brainiacs quoted in the article, humans have always modified nature into "artificial" forms to suit our needs. Skyscrapers, houses, cars, cities, farms, and zoos are no less the natural environment for a human than a nest is for a bird or a dam is for a beaver.
When visitor Peter Bohn, 42, saw the "animals" juggling, he stopped and had a good laugh."It's hilarious," he said. "It turns everything upside down. It makes you think about the humans in relation to the animals."
I'm suspect Mr. Bohn gets a headache every time he considers whether or not a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if there's no one to hear it.
Profound is when I tell my brother that an Army officer saying "hoo-ah" is a mixed metaphor and he points out that that's not a metaphor at all, at which point I say that it's like a metaphor.
Update:
The article above left out this delightful quote from some London Zoo flack:
"We have set up this exhibit to highlight the spread of man as a plague species and to communicate the importance of man's place in the planet's ecosystem," London Zoo said.
(HT: James Taranto for the update.)
Profundity is a real word, according to Merriam Webster.
To me, this story illustrates how ridiculous it is to claim that secular liberalism is not a religion. Man's relationship with nature is one of those eternal questions on which nearly every religion provides an answer. Christianity puts man firmly above nature, with a specific statement from God on the topic. Other religions have put man beneath nature, with various aspects of nature as deities.
The Zoo spokesman said that the exhibit "teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate." That's a theological statement, not a scientific one.
No doubt many Britons yearn to view themselves essentially as animals, firmly under nature's thumb and without any capacity for moral reasoning. Life is much simpler that way, as long as you're fed and sheltered. But should London's taxpayers have to pay to spread that message? And does anyone doubt that they will never be required to pay to spread the opposite message?