Siebert and Abrams Connection

By reading both Siebert and Abram's essays you can get a feel that their opinions almost oppose eachother. Throughout An Elephant Crackup? Siebert argues that in order to solve the conflict between humans and elephants, people need to become elephants, mentally. This means that we have to become as familiar with elephants as we already are with ourselves. In Abram's essay, we can get the sense that he disagrees with Siebert's statement. Even though Abram's essay is about a slightly different conflict, the way he says stuff makes it sound like it is impossible to become that familiar with any animal but ourselves. We are [unable to] know, with the same familiarity and intimacy the lived experience of a grass snake or snapping turtle" (Abrams 10-11). In essence, Abrams disagrees that people can mentally become elephants.