Sowat ses jaar gelede, my vier-jarige seun en ek is bo kyk na 'n Discovery-kanaal "shark attacks" spesiale (moontlik hierdie een). He was very young at the point and I was always worried what he might see on a show like this and how he might take it. I didn’t want him to develop, byvoorbeeld, 'n spesiale vrese van die water of klappen iets onvanpas aan sy vriende en moontlik veroorsaak dat sy baba vriend netwerk te kom gekraak.

Discovery handles these kinds of subjects very well. It’s not about creating a vrees van iets, but rather to show how unusual it is for sharks to attack humans.

So, we’re watching it and there is this one particularly scary attack involving a small girl. As Discovery is building the drama of the attack, my klank (wat nog altyd baie senuweeagtig in elk geval), is getting very excited. I make some noises about how unusual it is for sharks to attack people, and how bad the poor girl must feel. I’m trying to explain that people recover from these events and become stronger for it. Egter, I had misinterpreted his excitement. He was not worried about the girl at all. In plaas daarvan, terwyl klap sy hande, Hy sê vir my, "The sharks love it! It’s terrific. It’s wonderful. Its a DREAM COME TRUE!"

Ek het gedink dit was hilarious, but also very disturbing. Aan die een kant, Ek was bly — selfs 'n bietjie trots — dat hy het 'n sterk empatiese gevoelens, cross-species though they may be. As humans, we need to develop our "empathic muscles" so praat, of jy sal uiteindelik soos hierdie man 🙂 On the other hand, he was feeling cross-species empathy toward a species who was exhibiting behavior inimical to his own. I was really struggling with this when the narrator used the word "paradigm". My son picked up on that and asked me what that meant.

That’s not such an easy word to describe to a four year old, but I gave it a try. When I think of the word "paradigm", Thomas Kuhn is never far from my thoughts. Ek lees The Structure of Scientific Revolutions back at Lafayette and for better or for worse, the word "paradigm" is pregnant with extra meaning for me. (Sort of like the word "contact" after hearing a Movie Phone voice tell me where I could see that movie [I thought the book was better]; I always say to myself, "CONTACT!" whenever I see or hear someone say "contact").

In elk geval, Ek probeer om te verduidelik aan hom 'n Kuhniaanse definisie, that it’s "a historical movement of thought" and that it’s a "way of thinking with a number of built-in assumptions that are hard to escape for people living at that time." Natuurlik, jy kan nie praat soos met 'n vier-jaar oud, so I’m trying to successively define it to smaller pieces and feeling rather proud of myself as I do so. (Ek het net geweet dat iemand buite van die kollege sal sorg dat ek Kuhn het gelees!).

I’m just warming to the task when he interrupts me. Waving his hand in my algemene rigting en nooit om sy oë uit 'n ander wrede haai-aanval, Hy sê net, "Yeah, ja, ja. Blah, blah, blah.".

So much for that 🙂

Op daardie stadium, I decided to run away, rhetorically speaking, sit back, and enjoy watching sharks attack humans with my son.

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