Ishmael Again

1. Anthropomorphism means Attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena.

When Ishmael talks about anthropomorphism in this chapter I think he is talking about how the people of our culture assume that animals are like human in some ways and how they should be like humans because we think that this is the right way to live. When he said "This anthropomorphism leads to much confusion. This is not only because animals are incapable of this level of abstraction, but also because they know nothing about territories and have no interest in territories". I think this means that humans think that animals view territories the same way we do by claiming the land, but really they think entirely differently and it works for them, and that we should not think there is only one way of doing things.

2. When Ishmael Says "This might be described as a strategy of erraticretaliation: 'Give as good as you get, but don't be too predictable." I think this he means if someone bothers you then you should bother them back. If they aren't than it wont matter if you bother them occasionally because they will get you back so things are even. Erratic Retaliation is a peacekeeping method because everyone who does it understands it. The reason Cawks just attacks sometimes and don't just annihilate each other is because it does not follow the rules of Erratic Retaliation. If one tribe started killing everyone then all the other tribe would do the same thing, and soon there might not be any Cawks left. Something else that makes this not work is because if one tribe had a couple people lest, and another had a little more left then they decided to join together and go against a greater enemy. Their tribes would have different laws and culture which would make everything not work out at all, so they would fight and not be able to get rid of the enemy which was the original plan.