TL;DRAbstract
I have been prompted to re-think the problem of intolerance in the later empire by the experience of my nephew when, at the age of three, he paid his first visit to the Cincinnati Zoo. He already knew what all the animals looked like. He had seen pictures of elephants, giraffes, lions and walruses. But the only living animal that he had actually seen was his own pet cat, Teddy. Naturally, he assumed, therefore, that all animals were the same size as that cat – and, consequently, that they were smaller than himself: a flattering assumption. The fact that the animals in the zoo were all of very different sizes – some, indeed, immeasurably larger than himself – came as a great surprise to him. On seeing two Bengal tigers eating their lunch, he exclaimed: ‘Big, BIG cats!’, and remained silent, adtonitus, for a full twenty minutes, until a visit to the bird-house restored his overshadowed ego.
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I have been prompted to re-think the problem of intolerance in the later empire by the experience of my nephew when, at the age of three, he paid his first visit to the Cincinnati Zoo. He already knew what all the animals looked like. He had seen pictures of elephants, giraffes, lions and walruses. But the only living animal that he had actually seen was his own pet cat, Teddy. Naturally, he assumed, therefore, that all animals were the same size as that cat – and, consequently, that they were smaller than himself: a flattering assumption. The fact that the animals in the zoo were all of very different sizes – some, indeed, immeasurably larger than himself – came as a great surprise to him. On seeing two Bengal tigers eating their lunch, he exclaimed: ‘Big, BIG cats!’, and remained silent, adtonitus, for a full twenty minutes, until a visit to the bird-house restored his overshadowed ego.
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