The Cove and the Self-Righteousness of Activists
The Cove, a 2009 documentary directed by former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos, boasts an enviable collection of awards and critical acclaim. The film won audience awards at Sundance, Hot Docs, Silver Docs, Sydney, and Maui, Golden Space Needle in Seattle, Best Feature Documentary in Galway, Best Theatrical and Best in Festival at Blue Ocean, Truly Moving Picture at Heartland, Best Feature Film and Best Storytelling in Nantucket, Winner at Newport Beach, Jury Award in Traverse City, and was selected Best Documentary by the National Board of Review, L.A. Film Critics, and New York Film Critics Online. The Cove has a 95% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average score of 82 on Metacritic. It has been shortlisted for a Best Documentary nomination for the 2010 Academy Awards. In the words of Metacritic, that is "universal acclaim."
The film's subject is dolphin hunting in Japan: a group of American activists sneak into a private cove used by local fishermen to trap migrating dolphins and film the subsequent slaughter. Yes—that’s right—the Japanese hunt and murder/death/kill cute little baby genius dolphins like Darwin from Seaquest. While South Park devoted an entire episode to ripping the documentary, Michelle Orange of Movie Line puts it best:
How much of this (The Cove) should we believe? As a piece of propaganda, The Cove is brilliant; as a story of ingenuity and triumph over what seems like senseless brutality, it is exceptionally well-told; but as a conscientious overview of a complex and deeply fraught, layered issue, it invokes the same phrase as even the most well-intentioned, impassioned activist docs: Buyer beware.
Japanese consumption of whale and dolphin meat and Japan's general spurning of International Whaling Commission resolutions are extremely complex issues that should be examined soberly. Unfortunately, the activists in The Cove—like many of the louder, more self-righteous environmentalists—skip the part where they take time to consider the multifaceted, layered issue and rush blindly in convinced the world is comprised of evil, greedy men for them to battle. Even more unfortunately, this attitude turns off many naturally skeptical people (the support of which the environmental movement sorely needs) from real and important causes.
From the Japanese perspective, whales and dolphins are not particularly special. There is a significant body of scientific evidence to support the Japanese position: while cetaceans do have large, complex brains, much of their neurons are devoted to the maintenance of large bodies and energy-intensive sonar lobes. Much of dolphins’s charm is attributable to their “smile”—an accident of evolution—and the fact that they live in the ocean: limited encounters with human beings (who historically have killed most animals they came across) has made dolphins noticeably social and docile.
In certain parts of Japan, dolphins are food, just as cows are food in America but not in India. Imagine if a group of devout Hindus snuck into a Chicago Jurgis Rudkus-style slaughterhouse and pieced together a documentary about how Americans were a bunch of savages for murdering holy cows, complete with graphic shots of cows's heads being cut off, spliced Michael Moore style with out-of-context footage of slaughterhouse workers laughing, complete with a Samuel Barber soundtrack. When the ensuing mob crowds the slaughterhouse and attempts to shut down business, the humble meatpackers would surely be perplexed.
Much of Western Civilization’s image of dolphins as superbeings originates in the work of John C. Lilly , a 1960s counterculture physician convinced that LSD was a magical drug capable of enhancing consciousness. Lilly, who described himself as a psychonaut, used to drop acid and swim with dolphins then write “research papers” on the ensuing awesome spiritual journeys and the wisdom bequeathed by the noble cetaceans. It should come as no shock that most of the rest of the world does not have the same mystical perspective of dolphins as Westerners.
Hayden whatever gets arrested by the evil Japanese.This is not to say that the comparison of dolphins with cows is fair. Cows are bred specifically for consumption: they wouldn't even be alive if there were not human demand for their milk and their meat. If cows went extinct, it might even be good for the environment. Dolphins, on the other hand, are part of the natural ecosystem. Hunting them at large scales interferes with the natural ecological order and inevitably brings about unanticipated consequences.
Nor do the dubious origins of research into dolphin intelligence imply that dolphins are not intelligent. There are plenty of comprehensive studies on the abilities of dolphins and whales to communicate and recognize patterns—enough for the world outside of Japan to conclude that for the time being, there should be a moratorium on killing them. However, it is important to note here that the IWC only covers large cetaceans and the ban on whaling is for ecological—not humanitarian—reasons. There are no arguments based in international law to indict the Japanese.
Brendan O’Neill of Spiked goes so far as to describe the film as racist:
The Japanese are depicted as suppressed and unquestioning: we’re shown speeded-up footage of hordes of Japanese people walking through garishly-lit, buzzing city centres, their travels to work or home crudely reduced to pointless, super-fast marching through the streets, and we’re told that there’s a saying in Japan that ‘if a nail is sticking up, pound it down’ – in other words, Japanese culture is stultifyingly automaton. Where old racist America depicted the Japanese as rats, contemporary countercultural America depicts them as members of a rat race. The Taiji fishermen – sorry, the hook-wielding crazy killers of beautiful dolphins – come off the worst. The film dehumanises them to an alarming degree.
While I sympathize with O'Neill's premise, I disagree with him on several points. The filmmakers interview many people in Tokyo, all of whom are unaware of the dolphin-slaughter. Ric O’Barry, the activist hero of The Cove, remarks in response: "how can an activity be traditional if no one knows about it?" As a counterpoint, consider that no one in America knew about helicopter wolf-hunting until Sarah Palin ran for Vice President. Cajun food is undoubtedly an American tradition—one of the oldest—but ask people in Chicago if they know how to cook it or even what the ingredients are, and you'll get a lot of blank stares as well.
Tokyo is a busy city where young people go to pursue successful careers and social climb. Very few people in Tokyo would be aware of a small group of fishermen in a small village hundreds of kilometers away hunting an animal without any cultural mystique in Japan. The contention that public ignorance and lack of outrage implies some government coverup doesn't make the filmmakers racists so much as it makes them morons cum manipulative assholes. Furthermore, Japanese civilization is populous and diverse. The idea that something traditional in one part of Japan must be traditional throughout the country betrays a lack of imagination on the part of the filmmakers.
However, although it is unrelated to the central thrust of the documentary, I do think the filmmakers have a point in this regard: Japanese culture is undoubtedly suppressed and unquestioning, although this is a relatively recent development. The Japanese school system is nationally standardized and largely based on that of the Second Reich (we know where that lack of instruction in critical thinking and skepticism led). All students must wear the same clothes, eat the same lunch, and do the same work, regardless of individual ability or interest. Many elementary schools even manage a logbook of what the child did outside of school time, including with whom the child played. Schools assign students friends and often sever organic friendships if they think they are unproductive.
Social engineering in Japan realized the goal of creating obedient, hard-working factory workers and paper-pushers to fuel the economy long ago. To criticize this creativity-sapping ideal of uniformity is not racist, nor is it necessarily a product of chauvinistic American countercultural thinking; but it is a moral imperative for anyone who cares about the future of Japan.
Nevertheless, The Cove's analysis of the issue-at-hand—Japanese consumption of dolphin meat—misses the mark entirely. The typical Japanese response to Western efforts to stop whale and dolphin killing relies on asserting whaling and cetacean consumption as an indispensable part of Japanese culture. The Cove postulates that consumption of cetaceans is, in fact, not a part of Japanese culture, but rather the effect of recent government propaganda. The truth is that the Japanese have been eating whale and dolphin meat for hundreds of years, and it is undoubtedly a part of their culture, but so what?
Whaling was a huge part of American culture, too—as anyone who’s been to New Bedford or Nantucket or read the great masterpiece of American Literature, Moby Dick, knows. Slavery was also a huge part of American culture for a very long time. Decapitating Chinese prisoners with samurai swords and suicide-bombing was part of Japanese culture before and during World War II, but the Japanese don’t do that anymore, and Americans do not have slaves.
This is because societies change their practices as they become more civilized. Whaling was originally banned in the United States because we hunted whales to near extinction. In 1986, western countries convinced the IWC to ban the practice worldwide, in no small part due to a public zeitgeist which acknowledged that cetaceans may possess not insignificant intelligence. The idea that something cannot be stopped because it is a part of one's culture is laughable (and perhaps the inevitable product of a school system that ignores the development of critical thinking skills).
The Japanese response to the IWC ban was to halt "commercial whaling", but begin publically financing the slaughter of whales for “scientific research” such as weighing and measuring the length and width of dead whales. Since the whales are already dead for scientific reasons, their meat is sold to the highest bidder or donated to the school system, to prevent waste. Whale is regularly available to eat in Japan despite international bans on commercial whaling. I've eaten it. It's not very good. And before the ban whale was the cheapest "fish" available.
The more conservative elements of the older generation often lament the increased price of whale meat due to international bans and the limits of the Japanese government’s ability to defy them and still keep face. Their solution has been to indoctrinate youth via mandatory whale school lunches. In Japan, all students must eat the same thing for lunch. This may sound ridiculous to Americans who have not experienced military training or fraternity hazing, but ordering people to do illogical, pointless things is a proven method of effective social engineering. Thus, Japanese schoolchildren are forced to eat whale and then told it’s a part of their culture. This way, the myth is perpetuated.
More importantly, donating whale meat to the school system in exchange for subsidies allows fishermen to keep their jobs, and conveniently circumvents the “commercial” part of the IWC’s ban on commercial whaling. The absurd waste of the Japanese government's subsidizing the killing of whales to feed children food they don't want to eat demonstrates the vacuousness of Japan's argument.
Japan should stop whaling because the resources of the seas do not belong to it, the Japanese take more than their fair share of common marine resources, and almost every other nation considers the practice of whaling outmoded and barbaric. Since the seas and their inhabitants are property common to every nation, Japan should respect international resolutions and cease defying them with pathetic excuses designed to allow for the exchange of subsidies for donations.
When the cultural and scientific research arguments fail, the Japanese delegation at the IWC often spuriously argues that whales and dolphins are depleting world fisheries. This is the same argument used to justify the slaughter of large carnivores such as wolves, bears, and tigers that has led many of them to become endangered species, if not altogether extinct. The real agent driving world fisheries to exhaustion is doubtlessly people, and the nation consuming the largest share of fish is Japan.
global distribution of fish catchThis brings up a good point which the film briefly touched on but would have been better served as the focal point: the world’s fisheries are indeed being rapidly depleted, and the Japanese, and increasingly, their numerous and sushi-loving Chinese neighbors play no small role. If the Japanese were honestly basing their consumption of whales and dolphins on a desire to save the world’s fisheries, they would stop eating sashimi twice a day.
A final point of note is that whale and dolphin meat contain unsafe levels of mercury. The Cove focuses on this to a large degree, and it is a public health issue that is largely ignored in Japan: a nation with a long history of ignoring public health issues. Many elderly Japanese consume tuna sashimi everyday. As with chronic smokers, the attitude towards hydrargyria (inorganic mercury poisoning from consuming too much large fish resulting in irreversible peripheral nerve and brain damage) is that, “I’ve been eating tuna everyday for years and I have no problems. I love tuna. It’s too late to cut down.”
Ironically, methyl-mercury has a short half life of about 50 days, and if there are no symptoms of disease, mercury levels can be dramatically reduced in a short time-span. Furthermore, mercury levels increase via bioaccumulation: thirty years ago, mercury poisoning was not really an issue. Now, it is starting to become one, and in the future—if there are still any tuna left—they will doubtlessly be far less fit for consumption than they are today. So, the argument that one has been eating tuna for years with no problems falls apart: the tuna of thirty years ago was a different animal entirely.
bioaccumulation of mercuryWhile hydrargyria is a serious problem that is likely to become a major public health concern in the future, the filmmakers disingenuously compare it to Minamata Disease, which results in severe birth defects, insanity, sudden blindness, deafness, paralysis, coma, rapid deterioration of the mental faculties, and painful slow death. Hydrargyria is a result of chronic exposure to trace levels of mercury accumulated in the world’s oceans, whereas Minamata Disease results from sudden exposure to very high levels of mercury. Minamata Disease originally occurred as a result of the Chisso Corporation dumping large amounts of toxic mercury into Minamata Bay over a period of sixty years dating from 1908, during which the company paid off local fishing lobbies and continued to dump even well after disease broke out. The Japanese government did nothing to stop it, nor did it begin to compensate victims until 1973. While Minamata Disease was, and continues to be, a terrible episode in Japanese history, it is not quite at the same level as the Japanese government allowing or promoting the consumption of whale and dolphin meat.
Nevertheless, dolphin meat does contain five times the international standard for safe consumption. It is grossly irresponsible and morally repugnant to both encourage its consumption and to force schoolchildren to eat it in the spirit of some strange, stubborn nationalism. Yet, eating large amounts of whale and dolphin has been characterized as quintessential Japanese culture, and to oppose their consumption is seen, of course, as another form of western cultural imperialism imposed on a nation that has already lost so much to provincial Americanization and is in the midst of a cultural reassertion. Western activists assuredly face an uphill battle, especially if they plan on continuing to stereotype and insult the Japanese.
The problem is not that killing dolphins and whales is inherently immoral. The makers of The Cove seem to take this as fact and jump right into a Joseph Campbell-esque good vs. evil narrative. In the process, the filmmakers unfortunately repulse many thoughtful, potentially sympathetic viewers. The real problem with Japanese consumption of whale and dolphin meat is that the Japanese are taking more than their fair share of a resource that belongs to everybody despite unanimous censure as well as humanitarian, ecological, and public health concerns. Their reasons for doing so are poorly articulated and spurious. The consumption of cetaceans deserves treatment as a serious issue, not as the sensationalistic propaganda for which the environmental movement is sadly notorious.
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:00AM | tagged Japanese culture, The Cove, culture, culture war, food, reviews in Dispatches from the Wild Wild East | 18 Comments | Share Article 
Reader Comments (18)
Great article buddy. I have read a bunch of your articles since I first saw you were writing these things. On most of the issues you present I have agreed for the most part with your point of view, there was maybe one article where we didn't align. But this one is fantastic. As a wildlife biologist I try to walk the line of good science that leads to conservation and my own personal morals and bias'. I think you touched on a great point here, that this movie is "exposing" all the wrong reasons for stopping whaling and dolphin consumption, and when they do touch on the right topic, it is overlooked and presented with misinformation. Nothing pisses me off more than self-righteous idiots claiming their point of view in infallible. It is the whole "missionary" syndrome that seems to endlessly enact itself in different ways throughout western history and it can be heartbreaking at times depending on what it is we are trying to steal away. Great article man, thanks for putting this out there. It is so easy to be enticed by these type of movies created in a "propaganda" format, although the creators would never want to admit what their movie truly is.
Well said everyone, this film was so distorted and powerfully persuasive I felt like I was watching Loose Change again. Interestingly enough, you touched on some of the same points as I did in this short review from 6 weeks ago, but you have gone much further here. Really good reading, Thanks.
Great article. I wrote my view of this film from the perspective of the Japanese. I would be curious to know what you think of it.
http://alllooksame.com/?p=330
"The real problem with Japanese consumption of whale and dolphin meat is that the Japanese are taking more than their fair share of a resource that belongs to everybody despite unanimous censure as well as humanitarian, ecological, and public health concerns."
I agree. If the film was about this, I would fully support the cause. But instead, this film is about American moral superiority which does nothing but to make the Japanese more indignant and guarantee the problem to last forever. The only people to benefit from it would be the filmmakers with their Oscars on their resume.
I have to object to your comments about Japanese schooling. I'm by no means an expert on the Japanese education system, but I know at least in most elementary schools I've seen (having taught English in several, and having seen many on TV), children nowadays *do not* wear uniforms. I also know that in many high schools, there is no longer school lunch--children bring their own lunches. And even if elementary school children are required to eat school lunches, that is not necessarily primarily reflective of a desire to inculcate group-centered values or an acceptance of authority to children. I would argue that the school lunch system in Japan is by far better than what we have in the US. My experience with American school lunches is pretty negative--second-rate hamburgers, fries, and orange juice was how it worked when I was in elementary school (20-25yrs ago). Japanese school lunch menus (determined at the local level, not the national) are balanced and healthy. Requiring the children to eat what's provided is good for their health. It also helps children acquire healthy eating habits. Children raised on school lunches of hamburgers and fries, or home-packed lunches of peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and Doritos are more likely to eat that way later in life.
I've also heard that Japanese elementary school education is actually rated very highly by education scholars. The rote memorization that people associate with Asian learning doesn't really come into the picture in public schools until junior high school. And it appears to me that university entrance exams (which do not normally include essays) are the reason this system gets perpetuated. Teachers are basically forced to teach to the exams (sounds like the direction we've been heading in the US...).
Finally, the fact that Japan has a national education system does not necessarily mean social engineering. There is a good deal of autonomy at the local level to determine curriculum. I taught at a school that decided to increase English to twice a week for grades 1 - 6, while there are schools which have almost no English curriculum. A national funding system for schooling in Japan means access to education is much more equitable. I wish the American education funding system (but definitely not the junior high/high school emphasis on rote memorization) learned from the Japanese system. I believe that in Europe, many countries also have nationally-standardized education systems.
Ok, I'm off my soapbox now. Otherwise, I like your review a lot. I very much respect your desire to create a more balanced review of the information provided in The Cove.
Just a couple extra comments: I've heard that eating whale isn't actually a practice with widespread historical roots. I've even heard that the American government actually promoted it post-WWII as a cheap source of protein (don't know if this is true). But perhaps the 'traditional roots' of whale consumption is overstated.
Also, I think support for whaling is perhaps not unlike support for gun rights in the US. It's a pet issue of the far right, and Japanese politicians have become beholden to their support. I wonder if the new political climate in Japan is changing the equation...
George,
Thank you for your insightful comments. I agree with you that elementary schools and junior high schools in Japan are two different animals. I have a lot to say about the positive aspects of the Japanese education system and public health especially in my blog on this website: http://www.theinductive.com/christopher-carr/ - which I hope you'll read and comment on.
Whatever the reason rote memorization and passive learning is perpetuated, I dislike overly-standardized, test-based education. Of course some standards are necessary so universities can compare prospective students, but requiring Okinawan high school students to learn and reproduce on a life-determing test the history of Kyoto is not only obviously pointless, but it also does a disservice to the Okinawan people. In the particular case of Okinawa, albeit relatively removed from the context of this review, mainland textbooks were specifically imposed to weaken and destroy Okinawan cultural identity. Granted, this is fairly ancient history, but change is slow in Japan, and that ancient history forms the underpinnings of the current system.
I dislike the nationally standardized text series, New Horizon. The English textbook in particular is abysmal. The token foreigner of the text, Ms. Green, is a complete moron who is ridiculed for her inability to properly speak Japanese and goes about reassuring the nation's students that Japan already has the best of everything, including really big public parks, which is patently false. The textbook further reinforces cultural and language gaffs, as well as stereotypes, by, for example, demanding that students ask foreigners if they're from America instead of where they are from and demanding that students use the word "cap" instead of "hat" to refer to that particular part of a baseball uniform.
Although these examples are incredibly minor, there are hundreds of them that in aggregate give Japan the worst English test scores in Asia after North Korea. To a native speaker of English, the unnatural language and counterproductive focus on not making any mistakes are obvious and correctable, but the vast majority of foreigners working in the Japanese school system have absolutely no control over what they teach and merely serve as sounding boards for the head English teacher, who is selected only on the basis of a standardized multiple choice test of written English, and often unable to carry on basic conversation. The teacher's editions of New Horizon actually have pronunciation guides written in Japanese, which as you know, comes no where near to approximating the sounds of English. If a foreign teacher ever gets uppity and tries to change the curriculum, he finds himself without a job and a visa pretty quickly. The tendency is to do nothing, not break heiwa, not get fired, and still get paid and get to travel.
This unproductive equilibrium means that nothing is ever changed, unless it is changed from the top down, since the education system encourages lower-ranking civil servants to avoid responsibility. The education system plays no small role in reinforcing the grouping of foreigners into a generic hoard, emphasizing the Japanese cultural myth of unique uniqueness, and makes seeing foreigners as more than just clowns even more difficult. Watch Eigo de asobou for more confirmation.
You are absolutely correct that the whole whale thing is a pet issue of the culturally conservative right-wing of Japanese politics, which has, in my city at least, become more active since the election of Yukio Hatoyama. I agree with commenter Dyske that the most tragic part of The Cove's moment is that the pro-whaling elements of the Japanese political scene will only feel more threatened and more emboldened by the continuing, loud, self-righteous protests and generally obnoxious behavior of Western anti-whaling activists. This issue will never be resolved so long as a wall remains between open and honest dialogue, mutual distrust remains the norm, and activists remain more focused on ideological purity and battling caricatured bad guys than cooperatively solving problems.
Great blog, thank for it. Wish that all the discussions around this movie were so fair minded and well-researched!
Of course, part of the reason reactions The Cove have been so 'rabid' speaks to the power of the movie. It really moves people - or manipulates them - depending on your point of view.
Personally, I think dolphins are very special, and I'm sad that the movie is creating more controversy and animosity than inspiration and constructive action.
One thing which does not seem helpful is to extend the debate around this movie to issues of whaling. The IWC does not consider dolphins to be in their purview (very unscientific of them, but that is how it is). Also, the practice of slaughtering dolphins (which are considered by local fishermen as pests) is very different in its intent and cultural meaning from hunting large whales. Finally, The Cove is about dolphin slaughter, not about whaling practices...I think that at its roots, the movie was intended to try to stop the dolphin slaughter, nothing else.
Escalating the condemnation of the dolphin slaughter to Japanese whaling practices to Japanese education to Japanese culture to Japan as a whole certainly does not help protect the dolphins...or anything, for that matter.
And anyway, any change that will happen around these issues will have to come from Japan. If any of us want to make a real difference, we'll have to stop criticizing and try to engage with the hearts and minds of people in Japan.
Please read more of my thoughts here
http://thedolphindance.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/ripples-from-the-cove/
Thanks, Chisa
At last a review written by someone in possession of facts, which makes a change from those simply repeating what they have read somewhere else and voicing an opinion.
As a result of my anti-whaling & anti-dolphin killing activities I now have friends in Japan who were horrified to find out what has been going on. Perhaps, in the end, these people may force change from within, for one thing is certain the Japanese sure won't take notice of anyone outside of Japan telling them what to do.
Now we have a battle over tuna emerging. A species that Japan comsumes 80% of the world supplies of. In August 2006, investigations revealed that Japan had been illegally overfishing for Southern Bluefin tuna over a period of 20 years, taking 178,000 tons of tuna above what was allowed. Southern Bluefin tuna is now considered critically endangered by the IUCN. Meanwhile the Mitsubishi corporation salts away 1000's of tonnes of BF Tuna awaiting the time it can make a killing. At present rates of overharvesting that time will come within 5 years. Not bad for a country that no so long ago did not eat it. Is Krill next?
I'm all for critical thinking, but this isn't critical, it's cynical. The reality is that what they do in the cove is vulgar, but not unique. It happens all along the coast of Japan. Then there are the Japanese "Research" whaling vessels. They kill 1000 +/- Minke whales every year, hunting them in protected Antarctic waters, under the thin guise of Research. Do they NEED this? Nope, it's just profitable.
There was a time in the U.S., not long ago at all, when black-skinned people were property, and brown-skinned people were sub-human. There will be a time when we recognize that the cetaceans are our marine analog, the people of the sea, per se. Then we will recognize that it was only greed which caused us to turn a blind eye to the atrocities we performed.
One big reason Taiji's slaughter continues (nothing at all triumphant in that,) is that the market for captured cetaceans remains high. A dolphin will fetch 6 figures, and make them far more. But the torture is very real for such creatures. No, they don't do it 24/7, but these creatures can and do swim 35 mph, covering many miles a day. Highly social, complex... and yet we keep orcas in what amounts to a tiny concrete puddle. SeaWorld has a very apt and active team of PR people constantly putting a spin on everything, to support and perpetuate the illusion that the orcas are happy in that puddle. Fact is, they're bored senseless, kept hungry (ala falconry, bu these aren't dumb animals) and rewarded with tidbits of carrion.
Addressing Mr. "As a marine biologist" (as a human being?), my own Cornell education produced a considerably different conclusion. Think about how our own behavior would appear to an alien species. Most of us follow very prescribed patterns (akin to a mouse running the same path through a maze, day after day for decades.) While we may pick up an instrument or turn on a radio (chew on a stick, to the outsider?) most of us are not terribly capable as musicians, nor are we actually creating anything original. Most of us are slaves to sexuality (as one might see a monkey's masturbating every 10 or 15 minutes.) We wage wars and perform genocides, we enslave each other. But that's not ALL we are, that's just an overview, from a distance. Get in a boat all you like. Get in a sub. Snag a wet suit and a regulator and think that you're understanding dolphins that way. Be analytical as you like, but you'll still not understand the details and reality of an average dolphin, not even one day of that being's life, let alone the 40-100 years that various dolphin species live. When one cannot even get an overview grasp on the being (and how could we, when our lifespans are similar?) we cannot begin to understand what it is that we do. But we CAN understand why we do it. We know that well. We do it for money, and to feel powerful. Getting over our hubris, that's no valid excuse to end the life of a being that would otherwise have continued to live and grow and experience, to have siblings, children, grandchildren, etc., for decades, if we didn't come along to cut that life short. For what? A bit of profit and an ego trip? We don't have the right, any more than some other being has the right to do so to us for such petty reasons.
There are things beyond the basics, and those facets and aspects are not going to be readily digested by summary dismissals. Is The Cove 100% 20:20? It's a film, takes less than 2 hours. It's not possible for it to do so. But it does its job. It brings to light the situation and some of the issues. It's a far more noble and worthy undertaking than this critical column, put forth on an Internet publication that would never have justified ink and trees even 15 years ago.
Self-righteous? Was that an attack? I must have missed the memo on it becoming acceptable to insult those who are sensitive and aware and courageous enough to take a stand.
Finally, as proof that the authors are, like Mr. Marine Biologist, woefully inadequately prepared to provide an educated and comprehensive opinion on the subject, the IWC is not even remotely concerned with the ecological ramifications of the hunting of whales. They are a WHALING commission, formed by and for whalers, simply to (supposedly) ensure that they aren't hunted to extinction. To that end, whaling has been prohibited for decades (but Japanese ships armed with 50+ caliber harpoons still go out into protected Antarctic waters to kill them every year, under the false premise of Research. They have twisted the intent of the regulation beyond recognition, and if the IWC changes it to remove the whaling loophole, they will simply withdraw from the IWC and do as they please, as they have been for decades. That the IWC does not recognize small cetaceans (dolphin family, generally, up to Orcas) as protected, it wouldn't matter if they did, because the Japanese would still invoke the Research clause to do as they want.
You're not going to grasp the enormity of the situation in a 2 hour film. It's foolish to think that one could possibly do so. I encourage people who are seriously concerned with the issue to go to sources that are able and willing to grasp most facets, not just take a glimpse and render judgment.
@JT
I'm not surprised you have me pegged as a Cynic, but my belief system shares more in common with the Stoics, Skeptical Empiricists, and Logical Positivists than it does with the Cynics.
First, the claim that consumption of dolphin is happening all over Japan is factually incorrect. And whale meat is extremely rare.
In your second paragraph, you appear to equate the rights of black people with the rights of cetaceans. Do you really want to make that argument?
You appear here to be appealing to human emotions, suggesting that I should imagine a dolphin father teaching his dolphin son to play dolphin baseball or all the dolphins gathering in front of the dolphin television set at night to watch dolphin Jeopardy together, before deciding whether or not it's okay to eat cetaceans.
Writing these articles is a hobby of mine. It doesn't insult me that you suggest The Inductive would not have been printed in the pre-Internet era. You're right. We would have never decided to create our own publication if things were as expensive and difficult as they were before the Internet.
You say, "the IWC is not even remotely concerned with the ecological ramifications of the hunting of whales. They are a WHALING commission, formed by and for whalers, simply to (supposedly) ensure that they aren't hunted to extinction." Yes, but there is nothing wrong with that. That is how humans solve problems, by allocating rights and sustainably managing resources. It seems like your disagreement with the IWC is that they consider whales and dolphins to be things which don't have the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property that humans have. Ummm.....yes.
If you contend that the IWC is flawed, then I agree with you. But it seems like you're just making an incoherent and emotional general rant and thereby doing nothing but justifying my premise that much of the argument from the anti-whaling crowd and the proprietors of The Cove has taken the form of assuming that whales and dolphins are special and then attacking cultures that consume whales and dolphins as the equivalent of Nazis. As I mentioned in my article, there are many arguments in favor of not copnsuming whales and dolphins, but they are usually not explored in dispassionate and logical fashion.
Frankly, it seems like logical people have more passionate interests and concerns than protecting the rights of cute little animals.
Nice try. Most of that longwinded tripe could have been boiled down to AT&T's "I'm sorry you feel that way," which is intended to offhandedly dismiss one's legitimate complaints by claiming that, while that may be your emotion, the reality is not so.
Regarding the IWC, the point is that they were founded by, and continue to exist to represent, those who would hunt whales at all. They are a voluntary participation, not an impartial or scientific body. They're basically the meat packer's union. That they don't protect the dolphin family (which includes orcas, right and pilot "whales") is no shock. That they don't REALLY protect the true whales isn't a surprise either. They exist to protect and promote whale hunting. Hopefully the point won't escape you this time.
I was trained as a biologist, a scientist, and my mind still works that way. There has to be foundation. Did you expect me to put the last 4 decades into a post on your little board? While you write about cetaceans from your armchair quarterback's position, I've spent lots of time with them, both in captive environments and in the open ocean. You mock the notion that they have relationships, but I've seen them do so -- with me as well as with each other. Not just your dog's "wag the tail, slobber and lick, happy to see you" interactions, but complex, varied and circumstantial dealings. The jealousy of a male, only demonstrated when the object of his affection is near me. We got along just fine unless she was around, and then he was firm in his expression that I should leave the water. Why? She expressed attraction for me.
Whales teach their babies to hold their breath longer and longer. A humpback was videotaped not long ago doing exactly that. These creatures have the entire ocean to roam in, but they remain with their family members for the most part -- for 80 years and more. They obviously know SOMETHING we don't about how to interact with each other. Maybe that's something we could learn from. To the best of my observations, they do not have a religion, don't have a ritual of prayer or anything like it. Perhaps that has to do with their success, in some aspect.
You strike me as a humanist, someone who would be deeply bothered to not be the supreme creature on the planet. It bothers you at a very basic level to concede that they may very well be smarter, more evolved than we are.
The question was rhetorical, but yes, I DO really want to make the comparison between slaves and cetaceans. They are intelligent. They are capable. Yet they are not allowed the same basic inalienable rights that you would give yourself. It's important that these are mammals, that they are highly intelligent, they live 80-100 years, they have highly evolved, complex communications and relationships. They do just fine with abstract thought and learn our ways of communicating far better and faster than we learn theirs. They have been captured, jailed and enslaved for our profit, and that involuntary servitude is unjustified for any legitimate purpose other than personal greed. People find them attractive, but not enough so to let them go, allow them self-determination. We don't begin to know or understand their potentials... shall I continue in the comparison? The SeaWorld/Six Flags/Blackstone and Hertz of the world are allowed to enslave them because of dull-witted propaganda similar to that which you elude to. Supposedly they can't be freed, they couldn't survive. Bollocks (and that's an entire paper in itself.) That they are impotent ignores that these aren't reactionary microscopic life forms. They actively think, interact, solve problems, etc. They can and will adapt to the open ocean just fine -- IF we care to bother putting them back where they came from instead of keeping them in little concrete puddles. SeaWorld would have you believe that they get excellent dental care five times a day. Fact is, most of them are driven to gnaw on pipes in those tanks out of boredom, frustration, and aggravation, penned up energy, etc., and their teeth are in horrible condition. Some have open root canals which are flushed under pressure "until they begin to bleed". They're fed huge bottles of antiacid every day, to calm the stomach ulcers that form from this captive treatment... there's a long list of ills that only occur in captivity. None of that dissuades their captors from continuing to OWN them, because they still make money on them hand-over fist. Those captors claim educational value, yet even after their educational program has been provided, people visiting the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago asked if they were let out into Lake Michigan at night, and how do they get them to come back the next day for more shows. Bottom line? It's all about money. Same thing with the slaves. Greed was the real reason why blacks weren't freed, but the list of excuses went on and on. "They have nothing, they can't make a living, where will they go?" Those with the power of self-determination are always selfish with it, it seems.
If I'm mistaken, the worst that happens is that some intelligent sea mammals get to live full lives and some Japanese and Faroese get less mercury in their diet. If you're wrong, the murder and enslaving of these creatures has gone on unchecked during this supposedly modern and enlightened age of humanity. If I'm wrong, people look to safer, more healthy foods and some cetaceans are allowed the liberty they were born with. If you're wrong...
The only thing you have to justify your position is the notion that they are somehow not deserving of being left unmolested. It's clear that justifications for taking their life and liberty from them are insufficient, when personal greed is removed. Whether you find their intellect sufficient or not, they are sentient, and otherwise sovereign entities, our marine analog, and we have no business treating them like simple fish or property.
"Hayden whatever gets arrested by the evil Japanese" is the caption. Not only is it disrespectful, Chrissy Yugo, but it's inaccurate, and demonstrates your intentional ignorance. What was in the picture is a surfer's convention of celebrating the life and mourning the passing of one of their own. Surfers gather as a memorial/funeral, out in the ocean, on their boards, in a circle like that. It's a bit like an Irish wake, without the copious alcohol. But you wouldn't care about such details, as they don't suit your purposes. From what I recall, there was no footage of anyone being arrested in The Cove. Even getting footage at ALL was very difficult, as the Japanese only like cameras around their own necks. Is it racist? That's a common cop-out. Is it racist to be opposed to the Faroe Island people's slaughter of entire massive pods of Pilot "Whales", or do we simply not like what they're doing?
Ah yes, the Faroes. Cries of "BUT IT''S OUR TRADITION!" Once again, bollocks. Tradition was that on the rare occasion that a whale came in to their shores (and was weak enough to be taken by lesser technologies) they would kill and eat that whale. Traditionally, they didn't have a hundred boats, skiffs, ships, and jet skis to herd as many cetaceans to their shores, and then butcher them, while the town watched in some sick sort of fascination as the waters turned red from the butchering. No, this is not Tradition, nor is it necessary for survival. It's some sick satisfaction that some humans get out of killing creatures. This is something we should be exterminating from our genes, rather than indulging on the guise of personal freedom. As they say, your freedom ends at the tip of my (cetacean's) nose.
Even if you continue to insist that they are not entitled to the basic inalienable rights of life and liberty that YOU want and enjoy, even if you want to consider them property, then these cetacean killers are still capturing and killing creatures that do not belong to them. We who oppose these actions, performed by the few, claim OUR right to our portion of those cetaceans, and demand that our dolphins and whales be left unmolested.
Your mind was made up when you chose to borrow from Louie's limelight by stealing the pictures to get yourself a bit of attention. I won't be making any further responses to you here.
ALL of this is copyright by the author, who does NOT give his consent to it being distributed or reused except as presented without censorship here and now, as submitted.
I think your passion on the subject is fascinating, JT, and I admire your empathy for an alien species. The ability to translate rationality to emotion isn't easy or general and I really do respect that. I disagree with you, despite that, because I am a humanist (your comment was the first time in my life I've ever seen "humanist" as a pejorative without "secular" attached to it), and the plight of other species just doesn't motivate me. I wish that whales and dolphins weren't being slaughtered and I don't go to Sea World, but I spend most of my time wondering how to get humans treat each other better. I guess that means I'll have to leave the whales to you and yours.
My advice to you, since i support your goals if not you methods or reasoning, remember that the stridency of your tone will alienate more people than it convinces. The best of all worlds may be one with whales given all the protection and rights of humans, but that idea seems preposterous now. Sea World may be prison for dolphins and whales, but it also gives millions of people an interaction with those creatures that makes them more likely to support pro whale policies. Is the ennui of some whales and dolphins worth the prevention of the "murders" of others?
Along similarly utilitarian terms, Chris's post didn't defend whaling as much as it defended the Japanese from a caricature that made them out to be inhuman. The Cove struggled to gain distribution in Japan and hasn't seemed to be well received there even now. In other words, it preached to the choir but pissed off the only country that could effectively end whaling. Chris thought there were better ways to marginally improve the plight of whales. I see a world kinder to whales than any time in history, with trend lines only pointing to further improvement and have to agree. That is often due to the very forces you villianize- people motivated by economic interest instead of an abiding belief in the "humanity" of whales. The assholes throwing acid at whalers and the Oscars going to well-intented propaganda movies might make you feel better, but doesn't do a fucking thing to save whales.
While I fully agree with almost anything in the article, I do not follow the criticism of the movie. True, Japan has takes more than their fair share. But it would be totally contraproductive to explain that at length in the movie. Because that is not how you can convince people to change their habits, by pointing at them and saying "you've taken enough, stop it!". This would probably increase the stubbornness, and drive more Japanese people to stand behind these practices, from a reflex that "nobody else can tell us what to do".
I think the movie does just right in its way of trying to create empathy, and focus on undisputable facts such as the mercury poisoning. In the end, it is the Japanese people that must be convinced, and this can only be achieved by patient reasoning, and not by pointing fingers.
I’m Asian w/an education in Molecular Cell Biology & agree w/ Chisa that the film would have a much better effect if they used the former Dolphin fishermen in Futo who became a dolphin protector & launched a successful dolphin/whale watching business instead… the flimmakers have said (and are doing) a documentary on the Faroe Islands in Europe next (also note that most of the West/US also condemns Canada for clubbing baby-seals) ..and boycotts were also what caused all tuna companies to mandate dolphin-safe nets.
Western culture values intelligence & human rights & being humanitarian/humane.. which extends to animals that are intelligent, sentient ,self-aware (they recognize themselves in mirrors unlike chickens/ffish that attack their mirror images) –thus, the sale & slaughter of chimpanzee, gorilla, elephant(ivory) & dog meat & dolphin meat/hunting there as those animals have IQs equivalent to a human child & can understand 90+ sign language commands) as well as laws against animal cruelty & clubbing baby seals (spearing dolphins is also cruel since the death is not instantaneous)
Also, in the West, the cattle/livestock are killed INSTANTLY with a the equivalent of a bullet to the head (a machine shoots a bolt/piston into the brain, instantly killing it (brains have no nerve centers & a hard hit to the head causes instant loss of consciousness (as well as loss of memory) ..a gate/door closes behind the cow before it’s done so that the next cows in line DON’T SEE it (so even if a cow had the self-awarenes, they wouldn’t know that they were about to be slaughtered).
that’s the opposite of the dolphins being speared (they do NOT die instantly as the film SHOWS ..only a hard direct hit to the brain kills instantly –the film shows the dolphins just being STABBED in various places in the belly, back, etc)
& having their throats cut while watching the fishermen doing it to their sons,daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers & rest of their family (as they ARE SENTIENT SELF-AWARE & realize the cruelty & slaughter happening to them
Trying to make the “all life is the same, intelligence doesn’t matter” argument making cows, chickens, insects the same leads to the old ways of how soldiers/warriors of all ntions,cowboys, Samurai,etc used to kill thousands of civilians/peasants/Indians/Nanking Chinese for insulting them because intelligent life is no more valuable than an insect so why not kill them if they insult you?
If you don’t value intelligent, self-aware sentient beings more because “all life is the same value” & don’t care about compassion nor being humane, why not slaughter thousands of chimpanzeess/gorills as well as Holocaust, Nanking Chinese, Indians, ..unless you think what makes humans more valuble is not their intellience/self-awareness/sentience but because htey’re somehow special because some god/bible says so? give me some verifiable scientific facts other than intelligence that makes humans more valuable?
From an objective scientific viewpoint, intelligence is what gives humans(and dolphins, chimps,etc) the capacity to have social structures/culture(study biology & chimps/dolphins do have complex social structures/hiearchy), understand cruelty, etc and makes them special/more valuable than quashing an insect or mindless fish/birds.
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Also, Taji, Faroe Islands & any other nation/town are free to continue doing whatever you want within your borders & others in the world are free to condemn it (freedom of speech) AND NOT RESPECT IT (nor them) & boycott them if they want & urge others to boycott them because that was how South Africa finally ended apartheid because they didn’t value black rights either nor treated them humanely) & boycotts also worked for mandating dolphin-safe nets
I don’t recommend boycotting Japanese products since most Japanese aren’t aware of nor support inhumanely killing dolphins.. but if most Japanese defend/support it, then I’ll boycott Japanese products & urge others to do the same & it’ll be a repeat of South Africa & the dolphin safe nets (both boycotts by the US took years to acheive their effect), just like some people boycott fur (which really killed the profits of the fur industry)
Have a nice day!
Want to clarify that brains have no "pain centers" (ie, the brain itself has no pain sensors & is "numb" even though it can detect touch/pain in other parts of the body(including the head/skull), but the brain itself is numb (which is why on video brain surgeons can touch different parts of the brain(skull is open) & patients report feeling nothing)
I hesitate to try to add anything to this review and related discussion. The issue, the film, and ensuing discussion are all complex, and I am not sure more comments will be helpful. But I do know something about all this, about dolphins, about Japan and its educational and nutritional systems, and about The Cove and its making. I am also a recovering teacher of writing and linguistics.
There are a number of good points made in the Comments section above, especially those by JT. And a number in the review itself, though it seems to wander indecisively between condemnation and approval.
A few criticisms. The review itself is poorly done. I don't know who did the title, but it itself is misleading. Where does “self-righteousness” enter into the discussion and what is wrong with it? Right is right. Does it matter where the rightness originates? Only to a philosopher, perhaps, but in the popular domain that The Cove occupies, the film does plenty to establish its moral authority.
The main point I understand from Mr. Carr's comments is that the film is pretty good but that the issue is more complex than what is presented there. Duh! This can be said about almost every popular piece of communication I can think of. Of course the issue is more complex. Would the film have been more effective if it had engaged in extensive analyses of Japanese culture, nutrition, and education? If it had done a detailed analysis of cetacean intelligence and how that functions as a value in comparative evaluations of various species? It is too easy a shot to say that some treatment of a phenomenon oversimplifies, especially when the purpose of the effort is persuasive and not instructional.
And Carr and others have noted that the persuasiveness of The Cove is not really in doubt. To me almost anything beyond noting that is to make a comment that is more about itself, the business of “criticism,” than about making films. A legitimate enterprise, no doubt, but not one that I pay much attention to or money for.
Where the effectiveness of the film is questioned it is done so also on the basis of it being too strident, too emotional, not reasonable enough. “In the process, the filmmakers unfortunately repulse many thoughtful, potentially sympathetic viewers.” Oh, really? This form of criticism is frequently leveled at outspoken and aggressive activists for many causes, yet the empirical basis for it is often lacking, as it is in this case. We “intellectuals” tend to prefer a reasoned, “balanced” (Don't you now hate that word, thanks to Fox) case and to dismiss emotional appeals as irrational. But there are thinking people behind many causes who will argue that not much attention was paid until they got unruly. Each cause and each audience must be taken independently, but I personally doubt that balanced reasonableness is called for in the case of the Taiji dolphin slaughter. As Carr notes, “Very few people in Tokyo would be aware of a small group of fishermen in a small village hundreds of kilometers away hunting an animal without any cultural mystique in Japan.” Many are now.
Some specific issues …
Commentators have raised the issue of comparative wrong by suggesting that an equally damning case could be made about cows. Maybe, but so what? The Cove is not about cows; it is about dolphins. Another common logical mistake is to fault an argument because it is not broad enough or does not consider similar cases. At the least, the argument of The Cove would be diluted by attempting to take on all animal rights issues in some sense of “fairness.” And personally, I do not think the comparison is really fair, though I would like to see an end to the eating of cows also. Humans have very different relationships with cows than with dolphins, and that is an empirical fact, whether it is justified or not. A scene of riders wading into a herd of cows (or horses or sheep or even chickens) and slaughtering away would have an effect similar (note that I am not saying “equal to”) to that of the dolphin-killing in The Cove. As objectionable as it may be, we culturally keep even the “humane” slaughter of food animals in our culture under tight wraps. Wonder why?
And Carr dismisses the issue of dolphin intelligence with the same oversimplification that he accuses the film of. Understanding animal intelligence is extremely complex and difficult. The Wikipedia reference that Carr supplies in support of his dismissal notes this throughout, so I am not sure why he cites it. And what the heck is Carr trying to do blaming our cultural overestimation of dolphin intelligence on fifty-year-old drug trips? That kind of illogic would get a “D” in my composition class. No, dolphins may or may not be the smartest item on the shelf, but the cultural understanding of them is a fact in itself, and its scientific basis is much more complex that Carr is willing to recognize.
I guess I am most bothered by the appearance of the review on a website that seems to emphasize logic and reasoning. These are exactly where Carr's review comes up short.
Who the fuck in Japan eats dolphin meat? Seriously dude, I'm not an advocate of this but dolphin meat isn't necessarily desirable. You also came off as a biased asshole in the review, no offense. This is coming from a completely unbiased person, so take it in stride. By the way, well said kranky.
> The Japanese government did nothing to stop it, nor did it begin to compensate victims until 2001.
This is totally incorrect. The first compensation to the Minamata victims started in 1973. At that time the compensation was strictly limited to victims with severe damages, and therefore, expanding it has been a big political issue.
@Akira: You're correct. I have changed the sentence in question. Thanks.