4/25/2023 0 Comments Find the rabbit illustionI could clearly perceive the duck - there it was with its elongated beak and egg-shaped head. I wanted to dispel them completely, once and for all. Those lingering doubts and uneasiness seemed to have come back to haunt me. The problem, then and now, were one and the same - I was never really convinced with my perception of the rabbit. I distinctly remembered being unsatisfied, even back during my high school days, with the Rabbit-Duck image. While, I was happy to experience the ‘Eureka!’ moment, that I referred to earlier, it was only fleeting, quickly replaced with feelings of discomfort and doubt. Try imagining the duck with its beak pointing leftward and the rabbit with its face pointing rightward. It it helps at all, the duck’s beak and the rabbit’s ears are one and the same. It was also used by the American psychologist, Joseph Jastrow. The earliest version of this optical illusion appeared in the 1892 version of a German humor magazine. Nothing is as unfunny as a joke requiring logical explanation hopefully the same doesn’t apply to cartoon humor. The cartoonist was, therefore, hinting at the ambiguous nature of our religious beliefs and our predisposition to tunnel vision. Hence the caption - one group was adamantly demanding the other group to abandon their belief in the “Rabbit God” and start believing in the “Duck God”. Just as you could choose to see the rabbit OR the duck, you could similarly accept the “Rabbit God” OR the “Duck God”. I remembered the picture from my high-school years and suddenly it all made sense. I spent a few more seconds trying to join the dots and suddenly, out of nowhere, an image popped into my head - the rabbit-duck optical illusion. However, in this case, there were a couple of items that stood out like a sore thumb - for instance, why did the cartoonist invoke the “Rabbit” god and the “Duck” god specifically? Even more troubling, why were both the camps holding up similar-looking flags. The cartoon, in its original form, that I stumbled upon while sifting through my Twitter feed one Saturday afternoon. Cartoons are like jigsaw puzzles or newspaper crosswords - there are no extra pieces and you almost always experience that ‘Eureka!’ moment when you are finished. However, I had this nagging suspicion that I was missing something. The cartoon, therefore, seemed to attempt to highlight the non-sensicality of our religious conflicts and monotheistic beliefs. I saw two warring factions about to fight each other tooth and nail, over the relative superiority of their chosen gods. However, the fact that this could be the “best cartoon ever”, piqued my interest and I decided to take a closer look. At first glance, it seemed like any run-of-the-mill meme floating around the blogosphere, commenting on the absurdity of our society and culture. I was swiping through my Twitter feed and stumbled upon the following post by Ian Bremmer, a pioneering geopolitical risk analyst. When you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of our entire human experience. Do not assume anything, especially matters of subjective opinion.
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