從前，馬是非常好的交通工具。如今多數卻成為上流社會女性用來炫耀的裝飾品。
如果人人都能有一匹馬，牠應該會獲得尊重。可惜，目前來看，有錢有閑的人才有能力養馬。
在目前無解的難題中，暫且拋開階級層面的考慮。單單探究馬的智力就是無比沈重的負擔：馬究竟有沒有自覺？
由於馬頭乃是木刻而成，馬會有智能，使人感到意外。在木作的腦內，到底可以有多少個神經元同時運作？科學家仍然十分困惑。
從外觀可我們明顯可以看出：馬頭從馬的身體長出，宛然樹幹，又從樹幹長成馬頭的樣子。眼睛有真實動物的模樣，其實不過是木刻。看來也不過就是樹木。牠在看人的樣子就像呆呆的木頭。你怎麼可能對牠有所寄望？連流浪狗都可以在牠腳下繞，也，佔上風。
勞勃‧瑞福的電影＜＜輕聲細語＞＞可能會誤導人們對馬的理解。事實與電影情景相反：對馬輕聲細語的那位，並不希望別人聽到他說什麼。
馴馬師可以教馬跳舞。通常馬能跳舞，也可以跑得好。
散文名家蒙田寫過一篇文章，提到馬可以用蹄數拍來回答算術。我可一點也不信。
以上這些討論都只是初步探討階段。我還未進行到問題的核心。問題關鍵在於：馬總是讓執韁者決定行動方向。對於任何一匹馬而言，我們該問的是：誰在騎馬？
換一個角度來問：權貴階級究竟想往哪裡去？
THE PROBLEM WITH HORSES (original)
Once a useful helper and means of getting where one needed to go, horses have become largely a decorative toy on which upper class ladies show off their poise.
Horses might still be respectable if everybody could have one, but at present only the idle rich can afford to keep a horse.
Class issues aside, the problem of horse intelligence is no small matter in our current impasse. Are we even dealing with a creature with a mind of its own?
Given that horse heads are carved from wood, it is amazing the animal shows any intelligence at all. How many synapses can fire simultaneously in a wooden brain? Researchers still puzzle over this problem.
Having grown out of the horse's body like a tree stump, the head slowly carves itself into standard horse shape. This much we know. The eyes make it look like an animal rather than a tree, though in a way it really is a kind of tree. It stares dumb at you, all wooden. What can you expect from such a creature? The lowest street dog could run circles round it, and does.
Don't be fooled by the Redford film. In reality a horse whisperer is someone who doesn't want you to hear what he's telling his horse.
Horses can be taught to dance and seem to enjoy both dancing and running.
Montaigne writes of a horse that could tap out the answers to simple sums with its right front hoof. I don't believe it for a minute.
But all this is just preliminary. I haven't gotten to the real problem with horses. It is as follows: Horses always go wherever the person holding the reins wants them to go. In other words, for any given horse we must ask: Who holds the reins?
Or to put the question another way: Where do the rich want to go?
Eric Mader
Taipei
1 comment:
Eric,
Yes. It's true that most horses are for the idle rich.
The questioning of their intelligence by your methods is not true. Unlike a dog, a horse survives by it's hard-wired flight instincts and grazing in herds for safety.
They don't do math, but they are very smart. My horse and I roll a giant ball back and forth to each other for sometimes up to five minutes across the paddock. This is a form of fetch.
The first miracle is to teach a horse to deny their flight instinct and allow a meat eater on it's back with metal and leather (also smelling of meat) and then to further learn a "language" of aides (from the meat eater on it's back) based on motion and weight distribution. Humans sit on the weakest part of the horse's back and are virtually unseen from the creature's vantage point. That a horse even accepts a rider is a miracle of selective breeding and co-evolution.
Few other mammals have harmonized as perfectly with humans as the horse.
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