Jane Goodall, In Memoriam — What It Means to Be Human

Several years ago, I moderated a gathering on an island off Istanbul that included the primatologist Jane Goodall. I knew about her epic early years studying chimpanzees in the wild, at first without even a college degree. The science she proceeded to do also ended up shaping the self understanding of our species. She recalled modern western science to the fact that we are a part of nature, not separate from it. But what I'd never gleaned from all I'd read about her across the years, yet saw powerfully when we met, is how fully she had mid career given her life's work over to a new passion. Humanity had become a threat to its own kin in the natural world. With the same careful empathic eye she trained on the entire ecosystem of the Gombe Forest, she began to do her part to tend to the human pain and misunderstanding that led to her beloved chimpanzee's suffering. This hour, in honor of the publication of her thirty second book, we revisit the beautiful conversation I had with her in 2020. We experience the moral and spiritual convictions that have driven this extraordinary woman, what she is teaching and still learning about what it means to be human. I believe that a trigger for this development of the intellect, which is so startling really, was the fact that we developed this way of communicating. So I can tell you things you don't know. You can tell me things I don't know. We can teach children about things that aren't present. And all that has enabled us to ask questions like, you know, who am I? Why am I here? And I believe part of being human is a questioning, a curiosity, a trying to find answers, but an understanding that there are some answers that at least on this planet, this life, this life form, we will not be able to answer. I'm Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Jane Goodall's new book is The Book of Hope, a survival guide for trying times. She spoke to me over Zoom from pandemic lockdown in Bournemouth, England in the home where she spent part of her childhood living with her mother and her beloved grandmother, whom she called Danny. Both feature largely in her many books and stories. So I wanna start, where I always start, which is how if I ask you about the spiritual background of your childhood, of your earliest life, however you understand that word now, where does that memory take you? Well, I certainly wouldn't have thought of anything spiritual when I was a child. No. My grandfather was a congregational minister. I never met him. We mom, my sister, and I came to live in this house where I am now with my grandmother and mom's two sisters. So was he the husband of Danny? Was he that grandfather of your grandmother you called Danny? That's right. Yep. He was the husband of Danny. …