Now, I'm not entirely sure this video is authentic--perhaps it's been spliced out of two film clips--but I've absolutely seen videos of men and lions interacting in just as playful and affectionate a fashion. And the mystery of it is this:
Obviously, lions can love people, and do. But why? What possible advantage could it afford a lion to have a latent capacity to love a creature it should, in principle, only be able to understand as "prey" or "predator?"
Throughout the animal kingdom, we find this latent capacity to love human beings. I've seen in in alligators! Reptiles! Where does it come from and why? It can't possibly be a reproductive advantage.
Overwhelmingly, humans screw animals up everywhere we go. The only animal instinct that makes sense, on confrontation with one of us, is "run, or eat it." Yet here it is, and we all love and RT this because we know it's astounding--where does this impulse come from?
