When Elephants Weep – The emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy
Mountainside Mutts Book Club Review Rating: 🦴🦴🦴🦴
As another year draws to a close, the Mountainside Mutts Book Club has wrapped up its final meeting of 2024. Once again, we found ourselves grappling with a familiar question: “How can we get more people to read this book?”
The Club’s last selection, When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy, is a relatively short read at 236 pages. However, the first 45 pages require a bit of determination to get through. Stick with it—what follows is heartwarming, astonishing, and deeply thought-provoking.
A Bold Hypothesis
The core premise of When Elephants Weep is both radical and overdue: for far too long, science has deliberately avoided exploring whether animals experience emotions. Why? To avoid the supposed “sin” of anthropomorphism—attributing human traits to animals.
In the prologue, the authors set the stage with a critique of this scientific reluctance. They argue that dismissing the emotional lives of animals is not only misguided but ethically and intellectually bankrupt. Once past the initial groundwork, the evidence begins to flow. Organized by categories of emotions—fear, grief, joy, shame, and even the inexpressible—the book delivers one striking example after another of animals exhibiting undeniable emotional experiences.
The Question of Anthropomorphism
Why is attributing emotions to animals considered so problematic? Masson and McCarthy suggest that the issue lies in the uncomfortable implications of treating animals as emotional beings. Recognizing animals as sentient, feeling creatures risks elevating them closer to humans on the arbitrary hierarchy we’ve constructed. As the authors note, “Just as humans could not be like God, now animals cannot be like humans” (p. 32).
Evidence of Emotion
The authors offer countless moving anecdotes that defy the notion of animal emotional emptiness: a chimpanzee worried about being seen after an accidental fall, an elephant risking its life to save a baby rhinoceros, bears taking time to admire a sunset. These stories are not mere coincidences—they are windows into the rich emotional lives of other species.
From the perspective of a dog trainer, I frequently find myself wishing more people could see the unique individual in their own dogs, rather than treating them as tools to obey commands or as beings to be controlled through force. And if more people read this book, perhaps they would develop a deeper empathy not just for animals, but for humans as well.
The Human Justification
Masson and McCarthy explore how human arrogance and convenience underpin the dismissal of animal emotions. It’s easier to hunt, exploit, and dominate creatures when we convince ourselves they lack feelings or understanding. As the authors eloquently put it:
“It has always been comforting to the dominant group to assume that those in subservient positions do not suffer or feel pain as keenly, or at all, so they can be abused or exploited without guilt and with impunity” (p. 29).
A Call to Action
Ultimately, the authors argue that ignoring questions of animal emotion reflects an arbitrary intellectual failure:
“To leave questions of animal emotion as forever unapproachable and imponderable is arbitrary intellectual helplessness” (p. 223).
Why Read This Book?
If you’ve ever wondered about the inner lives of animals, When Elephants Weep will leave you amazed and inspired. It challenges us to see animals as the sentient, emotional beings they are. Perhaps, as th
e authors suggest, developing greater compassion for animals can also deepen our compassion for one another.
So, give it a read. Appreciate the unique qualities of another being. And if you love reading and want to join a friendly group to discuss books with nature as a central theme, reach out.
Next Up:
Our book club meets approximately every 6 weeks. What unites our members is a love for the animals and the natural world around us.
The next selection for the Mountainside Mutts Book Club is: On Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery. We’ll meet on 8 January 2025. We’d love to have you join the discussion. You can even join via Zoom. Find us on the Book Clubs App or email: [email protected] for further information.
In the meantime, have you read “When Elephants Weep”? If so, what were your thoughts?
