Blurring Boundaries: Man versus Beast

I watched Exposed! last night which featured the Man vs. Beast episode. It started with a runner pitted against a giraffe then a zebra. He defeated the first but lost to the second. Then another man had a race with a chimpanzee as the second segment. He defeated the animal in overcoming all hurdles similar to a military training. (Heck, I do not know the jargon for these hurdles!). The third segment involved a big group of midgets who had to pull an Airbus with an Asian elephant as competitor. The elephant pulled off.

The feature was a novelty for me. I believe it is a postmodernist output. Instead of competing with fellow humans who are presumed to have similar or parallel traits, man attempted to compete with “beasts” in a test of strength. Of course there is a significant level of trickery. It assumed that the animals had the same mindset as humans. I must say it is unfair for the animals because they may not understand that they are actually up for the race. The zebra for example only ran upon sight of a running man. Perhaps, he ran for his life upon thought that a lion is at his back ready to devour him. I am wondering how they trained the animals to behave during the contest. They were surely conditioned to act mechanically like running for its sake without clear goals as humans do. The animals won for having the inherent brawn.

Too, deceit is evident in the second segment. According to Charles Darwin we came from the apes. The man defeated the chimpanzee because of the complexity of the hurdles. They had to climb ropes, crawl under spiny hurdles, etc. I doubt if the chimpanzee had sufficient training to understand and execute the rigors of the hurdles.

On the other hand, was it a reinforcement that our refinement compared to the primate makes us better than them in all fields? However, is it possible that the chimpanzee could have defeated the man if only the chimpanzee had the same level of intelligence as humans?

Why were midgets used to compete against the elephant? I am not privy of the midgets’ stamina but I cannot get the rationality behind employing them instead of men with average height. The elephant had a very slim margin during the race to the finish line. What could have happened if men with “bigger steps” competed?

You see aside from novelty, I cannot fathom any other purpose. The episode can be confusing. It can be staged as a reality show. Are we running out of competitors? Is it sheer human adventurism? Or is this an indication that we are returning to beasthood?

Next week, they will feature a tug-o-war between a chimpanzee and a Sumo wrestler. In the future, there is a big possibility that man will compete with animals in an animal world this time. Perhaps we will see a poultry man racing with a chicken to pick up corn kernels, a scuba diver swimming without any aid against a manatee, a miner boring holes vis-à-vis a prairie dog, etc.

Even my stand is blurred now. I am not rooting for the animals but I do not want them to be unfairly fielded in the games of humans. At the same time I want to discriminate them in the race. I believe that human strength should not be compared with animal strength even if we are considered as social animals only with higher intellectual capacity.

Is it safer to maintain dichotomies to preserve order? This blurring of boundaries is exciting. But scary too. Remember, there is the theory that one deadly virus was acquired by one man who had sex with a green monkey before…