Siebert and Abrams

“As humans, we are all well acquainted with the needs and capacities of the human body-we live our bodies and so know, from within, the possibilities of our form. We cannot know, with the same familiarity and intimacy the lived experience of a grass or a snapping turtle… We receive them from the countless gifts of food, fuel, shelter, and clothing. Yet, still, they remain Other to us, inhabiting their own rituals, never wholly fathomable” (Abram 10-11)
“The other part of our newly emerging compact with elephants, however, is far more difficult to codify. It requires nothing less than a fundamental shift in the way we look at animals and, by extension, ourselves. It requires what Bradshaw somewhat whimsically refers to as a new “trans-species psyche,” a commitment to move beyond an anthropomorphic frame of reference and, in effect, be elephants” (Siebert 537).
While both Siebert and Abrams both discuss the idea of connections to animals, both have different approaches to the problem. Abrams speaks throughout his essay with confidence and has a rather stubborn connotation throughout the essay. However, Siebert really does not ever directly state his opinion in his essay, rather, he uses others’ opinions, such as Bradshaw’s and Abe’s, to express his point of view. Abrams claims that people can never truly have the experience of being grass or being another form of creature other than a human. On the other hand, Siebert believes that the only way that peace can be attained between humans and elephants is of humans can relate to elephants. Although both Siebert and Abrams find a similar topic to create an essay on, both see oppositely on the solutions to for problems at hand.