When both artists and scientists talk about the true essence of their profession, their calling, the mission, that added value that transforms their work from mere entertainment or a job to the (romantically) loftier spheres of "meaning" they all allude to this notion of "studying the human condition" bla bla BS. Naturally VERY few are able to do that and actually form a coherent and interesting observation to that effect, but once in a while there comes along a piece of science or art that really puts a mirror in your face and says: this is who we really are.
Project Nim is one of those cases, and it's the best example since Errol Morris's The fog of war. Actually, the two movies are profoundly connected, beyond the simple fact both are documentaries. Both Morris and Marsh, in an Arendtian fashion, want to understand the nature of evil and its day-to-day manifestations, be it at the corridors of academia or the oval office. Now, humans very much want to believe that they are good by nature, perhaps because they know they are very much not. I am not talking about Hobbes vs. Rousseau shit; rather about the psychology behind it all: to do good, we have to intentionally want to do a particular single action that will be characterized as such as we will drive ourselves toward it for a long time. To do bad we simply have to exist, evil just oozes naturally and effortlessly from every action we do without us even thinking about it. We nonchalantly profuse harm in so many ways that one might say this is a defining trait of our horrid species. Sure, we can express those heavenly and beautiful sentiments of guilt and remorse, but they do not reverse the damage done, they only serve a single purpose, that of cleaning or bad conscience.
Normal people (still evil mind you) can go about their business spreading hate and causing their mundane evil simply because everybody is doing the same thing. It's a kind of an evolutionary stable state. However, the extra evil are those that top their ordinary devilish behavior with intent. Oh! How does the story change then. I have long thought that the rich and the poor differ from each other not by genes, education, or traditions; it's not nature vs. nurture. It's all about how far is one willing to go in afflicting pain, misery and distress on his fellow men. True, environmental circumstances always help and give a boost, but the basic inclination still has to be there, and I don't care if this inclination was forged already in the womb or as a result of a posttraumatic childhood or whatever. Consequently, everywhere you go, the people at the top should – a priori – be assumed to be evil, rotten to the god damned core. As a simple test, go to any of the numerous websites that offer the clinical definitions of psychopaths or sociopaths and check your big boss against it. I bet you that in 95 out of 100 times your boss will qualify with flying colors.
So, back to the movies. The dramatic engine to both stories is exactly those of people: powerful men in their respective fields, situated in a position from which they can exert their power to maximize damage, most the time haphazardly, but occasionally with intent. I have already written about McNamara, so I'll focus on Nim now. As acutely observed by one of the project members, they were dealing with another species. Not a pet, not a toy, not a baby; an entirely different species became the subject of their human nature. The banality of evil, the everyday harm we inflict upon other species has receded to nothing more than a faint noise in the background. The oxymoron of calling Helsinki committees "ethical" is ludicrous since they approve the annihilation of millions of animals each year in the name of scientific progress that never comes, simply because science is long dead and technology has taken over. Every day we put up with the hellish conditions under which animals, soon to be our food, and raised under. Yet, we like so much to go to see that Pixar or Disney movie with that cute, warm and fuzzy animal-of-the-month. We have extended the reach of or evil to the species that cohabitate this planet with us. The methods we have perfected to kill or own are miniscule and pale in comparison to the one we have devised, far out of the prying eye of the public, to torture, maim and kill members of other species.
That is the story Project Nim tells. I have no idea if James Marsh had this message in mind, but that is the true story behind the shameful story of Nim. So many lines of resemblance can be drawn between McNamara and Terrace, but that won't change the simple fact: they did what they did (and others do now in their stead) because they are evil and we have granted them the license to exert more evil in our names, simply because we were outeviled by them. The fog of war won an Oscar; Project Nim is not even nominated. I guess our remorse and guilt stop at the species boundary.