Kuhusu miaka sita iliyopita, zangu nne mwenye umri wa miaka mwana na mimi walikuwa ghorofani kuangalia Ugunduzi hisa "shark attacks" maalum (pengine hii moja). 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, kwa mfano, yoyote maalum hofu ya maji au payuka kitu muafaka kwa marafiki zake na pengine kusababisha mtoto rafiki yake wa mtandao kuja crashing chini.

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

Hivyo, 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, yangu sauti (ambao daima imekuwa sana jumpy anyway), 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. Hata hivyo, I had misinterpreted his excitement. He was not worried about the girl at all. Badala yake, wakati kupiga makofi mikono yake, yeye anasema mimi, "The sharks love it! It’s terrific. It’s wonderful. Its a DREAM COME TRUE!"

Nilidhani hii ilikuwa hilarious, but also very disturbing. Kwa upande mmoja, Nilifurahi — hata kiburi kidogo — kwamba angeweza kuwa na hisia kali empathic, cross-species though they may be. As humans, we need to develop our "empathic muscles" hivyo kusema au utasikia kuishia kama hii guy 🙂 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.

Hiyo si neno vile rahisi kuelezea kwa miaka minne ya zamani, but I gave it a try. When I think of the word "paradigm", Thomas Kuhn is never far from my thoughts. Mimi kusoma Muundo wa mapinduzi ya kisayansi nyuma katika Lafayette na kwa bora au mbaya, the word "paradigm" is pregnant with extra meaning for me. (Sort of like the word "contact" baada ya kusikia Simu Kisasa sauti niambie ambapo mimi naweza kuona kwamba movie [Nilidhani kitabu ilikuwa bora]; Mimi siku zote kusema kwa mwenyewe, "CONTACT!" whenever I see or hear someone say "contact").

Anyway, Mimi kujaribu kueleza kwake ufafanuzi Kuhnian, 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." Bila shaka, huwezi kuzungumza kama na umri wa miaka minne, so I’m trying to successively define it to smaller pieces and feeling rather proud of myself as I do so. (Mimi tu alijua kwamba mtu nje ya chuo bila huduma ya kwamba nilikuwa kusoma Kuhn!).

I’m just warming to the task when he interrupts me. Waving his hand katika mwelekeo yangu ya jumla na kamwe kuchukua macho yake mbali ya mashambulizi ya kikatili mwingine shark, yeye tu anasema, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah.".

So much for that 🙂

Katika hatua hiyo, Niliamua kukimbia, rhetorically akizungumza, kukaa nyuma, na kufurahia kuangalia binadamu mashambulizi papa na mtoto wangu.

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