Are Gorillas the blank state by which we measure ourselves

Primatology (the study of apes) has been argued as been biased.

The arugment goes that the study of apes is deeply affected by ‘simian orientalism’: the view, or rather the unconscious approach, in which primates, like orientals, are needed by the West as the ‘other’, a blank slate to be inscribed, in order that we may construct what we ourselves are.

Women primatologists’, attempt to counteract the masculinist presentation of apes grouped round dominant males, iwith females primarily classified by their state of sexual receptivity.

 The salient point in this male/femalebut view of primatology is that accepted wisdom, or knowledge is destabilised, Which is invarariably a healthy development.

And on a post modernistt note: all stories across the cultural/political boundaries of animal and human are unfinished. You must forget those wistful desires to know.