Animal otherness: linguistic distinction and human discrimination (Berger, 5)
There is an unremarkable element in the human relation to animals. Human intellect has empowered man to denounce animals as inferior beings. Able to feast on them as the top of the kingdom. The intellectual description goes further in demeaning undesirable humans as animals.
To be an animal is to be less than subhuman. It is to be a brainless and violent. Darwinian survival of the fittest characterises the impolite and amoral behaviour of the animal. The animal is shrewd and obtuse, unreasonable and irresponsible. Anything short of posh is animalistic in its instinctive desire. Aspirations muddled by human craving. Lustfully seeking to quench unattainable thirst. The true human is in control of his actions. Strong and brave he is balanced in his life. He reasons and deduces. Speaks and clarifies. The pinnacle of the animal kingdom. The most evolved creature. A superiority complex embedded in his DNA. Generationally educated in sacred and mundane atmosphere. Civilisation is away from the animal jungle. A place of horrid murder and savage actions. Despicable behaviour with no tolerance for compassion nor polity. There is no order or rule. There is simply carnage, each fighting to stay on top. A chaotic arena fighting amongst the dubious. A colosseum of faceless wizardry. The gladiators fight preying on the weak slaves. A bloodbath inevitable.
Animals are uncivilised in the human mind. Roaming the jungle and hunting one another. It is a battle royale to see who will be the last man standing. It is a fight to the death. The jungle is a place for animals to kill one another. To remain servants of nature. To be herded sheep in an illusionary mark. Their lacking intellect cannot escape the natural prison. Only man civilised can build and fortify himself from nature. Nature will still come for him. Disasters will befall him but he uses his resources to fight back. Using nature itself to defend himself. He will not be a pawn in nature’s game. He is better than the animal because he can outthink nature. He can build shelters and weapons to defend against other creatures. Nature’s overwhelming force cannot destroy him. While animals run to shelter, he stands in place, screaming bring it on. He builds a covering to protect himself from the rain and heat. He conducts electricity to cool him down and heat him up. A tornado or an earthquake may destroy his shelter but he can always build another one. It is will that will be his success or downfall. All is at his disposal, it is a matter of using his strengths to survive. His genius is his salvation. He reasons his best options and prevails.
It is only fitting that the civilised man looks down upon the animal. The animal has no kingship nor material excess. He is not adorned with gold nor beating with life. He is a part of the cyclical order of nature. Beholden to her whims. He cannot escape her grace nor her wrath. Animals are the unfortunate devolved creatures that cannot escape their fate. They are hunters and to be hunted. Natural selection has sealed their fate in the monstrosity of nature’s laugh. Human perception is in the negative. If humans can outdo nature and nature controls animals so can humans. Humans hunt animals for food. While a part of the natural cycle, hunting for sport could be construed as up taking nature. This isn’t a task executed for hunger but for pleasure. Owning pets is a declaration of control. A dog is put on a leash, a fish in a tank. A servant to its master. Trained to follow commands. Both are domesticated either a souvenir or in servitude. Man’s knowledge gives him the tactical advantage. His intellect enhances his own ego. His abilities only strengthen with time. The more inventive, the more advanced the further from animals he becomes. In his mind, he is the controller of reality. Anthropocentrism is at its finest.
Man distinguishes himself further and further away from animals. His enlightenment only elevates his own expertise. He is literate. He is fashionable. He is clearly elevated. The more he knows the more he acquires. It is his intellect that takes primacy. His preoccupation with his intellectual prowess fosters its egotistical might. He may be slower than other animals, less intuitive and more vulnerable but he is smarter. He is more capable. Yet all the observations are strictly empirical. He senses that he is atop. His actions stress a superiority but it may be false. He has little way of knowing. Animals act differently. Their seeming deficient intelligence is based off speech and mathematical incapability. He doesn’t see their theorems or their merchandise. He doesn’t see their cities or their weaponry. They are but primitive creatures. He is the most evolved. He is the ape that was. The greatest of the mammalian species. The power to build and destroy within an instant. Yet this is all in the eye of the beholder. All in his perception of animalistic inferiority. A monolithically biased account of animal existence and preconceived notions of natural development.
Animals are far better at certain things than he is. He cannot run like a cheetah nor swim like a fish. He cannot soar like a board nor shield like a crab. His intellect is his greatest charm. Man’s ancestors were easily too weak and ignorant to recognise their true gift. It was only with experience that they realised their true potential. The intellect which provides no skill. Man is weak and frail. He is slow and disheveled. He was the target of the animal kingdom. The lowest of creatures. He is weak amongst the primates. A chimp could knock out a professional fighter. Gorillas would smash him. He traded brawn for brains. The chimp may be able to knock him out but man could invent brass knuckles to knock out the chimp. The theory that humans grew weaker with enhanced cognitive function isn’t exactly true. Weakness was not so much diminished strength but improvised use for more lower body power than upper body. A strategic use for running and hunting. Humans were not just smarter but more clever. Able to outrun a cheetah with a car, fly faster than a bird and swim quicker than a fish. Man’s intellect built machines to rise through the system. Each invention took years but man’s genius of domesticating donkeys and camels to ride long distances, to build shelters outside the jungle with walls and weaponry for protection gave them the edge. The intellect was almost a cheat code to ensure the survival of man.
Despite man’s apparent elevation to the top. An uncharacteristic and unprecedented growth in history, he is still insecure. He builds to fend off the horror of his existential dread. He can’t beat reality. The top of the kingdom is but a lonely place. He cannot conquer death nor save from the cancerous deployment. Immortality is but a foregone conclusion. To feel more alive he takes on his brethren. No animal kills like he kills. No animal hurts its brethren like he does. Man is the most violent and cruel being. He ego and esteem offset his compassionate animalism. He is not impassioned by natural aspects but by greed. The desires incumbent on his intellect. His desire for control makes his devilish aspirations a reality. A tragedy ignorant to the animals. His great intellect is also his greatest burden. Bringing him so much good and yet so much evil. He can rise so high and fall in an instant. His realisation of this crusade is his own pitfall. He cannot be ignorant to the horror of his existence. His intellect is too great. The darwinian program fails to account for the anomaly of emotional depression. The neurological art of seduction and deprivation. Its power is beyond comprehension. A blessing and a curse. Unable to control the stress or damper the failures. Obsessed with his mind no matter the downfall.
Animals possess intelligence. They may not be able to cultivate complex equations or construct gigantic pillars but they do have a sense of their own. Their limited intelligence provides some hope to their existence. Animals can communicate whether through whistling or pheromones. They organise themselves in social groups with a higher acceptable determinism. They possess the ability to recognise themselves in the mirror. Knowledge of their intellectual capabilities is limited at this point in time and it does seem it inferior to human capability but there is a charming respect for their lives. They can be jealous and violent. Monkeys address inequality, wolves get homesick and elephants mourn their loved ones. The drift is not different. Many a time it is just inexplainable and incomprehensible. If it can’t be understood it must be less. Despite evidence of exchanging goods and falling in love. They lack the complexity of humans and are more attuned with their habitat. They do not lack individuality but do lack freedom to choose a separate way of life. The more intelligent the more free thinking the more independent. Animals should not be seen as dumb though some species are lower on the intelligence totem pole than others. Human intelligence is unique but it is not exclusive.
The historical rise of anthropocentrism is commonly painted as the bible but this is modern rendition of the ancient book. Most ancient groups including the Israelites, Egyptians and Chinese saw animals as an equal along the human side. To whatever degree nature permitted man to infest animal flesh need not undermine the moral compass of these ancient civilisations. Natural selection is a part of nature and man will eat animals but that doesn’t take away from treating them with dignity. Just as defeat by an enemy while disappointing can be accepted so to with the defeat of the animal. Anthropocentrism is not the human elevation over animals but the human subjugation of animals. Man is told to conquer and guard. To be a warrior in a field. To protect god’s land and his creatures. To indulge but balanced. The shift becomes apparent in the mid sixth century. It is ironically the growing ascetic views in western and eastern models. In this naturalist shift with the formation of pre-socratic philosophy in the west and Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Jainism in the east subscribed to a proto-darwinian landscape. No longer was the deity the sum of all or the ruler the head with all others beneath. Now the lower class could elevate. The difference was not between a deity and his congregation but humans and animals. Humans while caring for animals saw themselves as superior. Animals have been used to eat and to plow fields. The normatively of these events does not suspect an ideological hierarchy or a superiority complex. Humans used animals and in return cared for them. Darwin’s theory still held back then but it wasn’t done with malicious ideological intact.
Only with the naturalist thinking. When the deity is removed does humanity become its own exclusive core. Does the semantic reading of the bible become the deduction of many. Animals perceived as humane are shot down to nothingness. To be an other unnerving of human needs. The hellenised efforts only broadened this point. The ideological leap for the theological monistic Christians furthered this tool to subjugate others. Marking humans as animals. Dehumanising became a new trend for difference and destruction. Once animals were reduced to otherness, other humans could too. A destructive and nefarious cycle that has continued through the ages. The naturalist emerged during commercial expansion and technological advancement. The human intellect was marvelling in its prestige. Prosperity led to urbanisation and rising literacy rates. Humanism grew sharply influencing the recently downtrodden to embolden themselves. All packaged up in an enclosed city. An industrialised ethos united away from the countryside. Away from the jungle. How much better and isolated from their animalistic counterparts. The enlightened do not need inferior instincts to survive. They have a mind and money.
This naturalist perspective also sought asceticism. The presocratics and eastern compatriots sought to distance from materialistic excess. The lower class didn’t need materialism to be human but to deter from the materialism. The aesthetic was the animal. Animals needed adornment. They needed to kill and be violent. The way to be truly human was to desist from these desires. To reach enlightenment was to be one with nature. To be one with nature was voiding all nature provided. To move against the current of natural progression. To resist the temptation of aggression and might. A worlds away from the aesthetic appeal of jewellery and status. Placing all humans on a horizontal chain with other species below. Desire was alien. It was the devil incarnate. Asceticism came into contact with the bare minimum of human expression. While greek nudity was probably more pragmatic than ideological, the cynics deprivation for nudity was an ascetic appeal. Apparel itself is a marker of desire. It is contextual and regulated to human aspirations. No animal wants money but it is animalistic to want money. A figure of speech that identifies devious natural instinct with animal attachment. The ascetic ideal is to be deprived in an angelic way. Diverse variations but one that attempts to mark the deprivation with a human supremacy. Esoteric and mystical waves seek to recover a human ornament with superior intentions.
Human virtue was the highest of compliments. It was human discipline that derailed its own selfhood in the face of animalistic desires. Yet in this way it was a hatred of true humanity. Human was animal. His determined fate was to be of the animal. He tried to conquer with power and discipline and yet at the end of the day could not muster such iconoclasm. He could resist as much as he could but could not defeat nature. He could not overpower his needs. He could belie objectivisation and other desires but not undeniable urges for satiation. Asceticism is to a degree anti-humanism. Though the ideological front to control is also anti-humanism. There are two extremes that are dually intellectual and not naturalistic. It beckons its own hypocrisy and self-contradiction. To control life is to be above the natural order. Yet he is an animal. He cannot escape his fate but he tries. He prioritise his cognitive power to ponder and excel. The first step was building beyond and then it was destroying beyond. The eternal focus on man’s capability in the aesthetic or ascetic appeal in an ego trip for human centrality. His evolution or his divine gift is a curse. He is an animal but can never truly be one. He is an outcast by nature. Recognising this truth he has envied for more knowledge to outwit his own isolation. To make the most of this and feel better amongst the lonely creatures in the universe. There is no ignorance and no robotic affiliation. Choice rears its head and the mental wounds are apparent.
A balance struck by the near foolishness of intellectual superiority. Desires that compound the rational mind. Contemplating and considering the choice. Individuality is at stake. Losing freedom is dreadful. Integrity and urgency align in a mix of psychotic hope. Demonstrating beyond a doubt that cognitive power is at an all time high. Yet there is no bliss. The balanced pre-naturalist thinking was equally disturbing in many regards. Yet the affinity between man and animal was more aligned. The ethical chamber was not a utopian protection. Yet prior man was an animal. He may have lead the animals but he was a man of the jungle. He was Tarzan incarnate. Animals were respected and sought for moral guidance. Man subdued each other with no selectivity. Naturalism elevated man to equal status then subsequently to penalise those men who didn’t fit in. For a brief window all was equal but then the other animal was associated with the dehumanised. The discontent and the deformed. Logistical amoral decisions were met with an ideological liberation. A liberation that eventually hunted its own kind like dogs. There are things to be remiss about. Their moral carnage holds no bounds. Both ascetic and aesthetic are bound by human elevation.
There are two aspects in today’s world the materialistic aesthetic and the environmental ascetics. The human projection of their own fame and fortune. The adornment with picture perfection. The standard of being and expression. A way of demonstrating superiority is by accumulating the quantity of material qualities. The blatant ferocious autonomy insinuating the ability to do whatever the desire. Not chained down by any system nor be deprived of any liberty. On the other side is the environmental assault on animal rights. Depriving of the natural order for their own moral high ground. Deciding not to partake in the darwinian cycle of life. Preaching as some higher truth for betterment of humanity. Bringing about animal realisation through their picture perfect wisdom. To be individualistic, to be free of the shackles of nature. Both sides play against the natural order. Their naturalism is set in their own alterations of progress. Pushing their own agendas against the chaotic jungle of the universe. Ensuring their own protection under a guise of humanism. It is a deceptive tactic to control the world. A way of breaking the mortal coil. Filling with desires to feel accomplished or campaigning for animal safety to feel inspirational. Both sides are right and wrong simultaneously. The issue isn’t the indulgence or resistance but the extreme engagement in one side. The dogmatic appeal that fails to consider the other side. The extremist who cannot balance himself.
Partaking in the world is not a sin nor a folly. The human intellect is both graceful and devilish. Animals are to be respected but also eaten. It is a part of evolution, a part of all species. Man is to follow his dream. Yet also facilitate the genuine nature of animal progression. His intellect too much drives his ambitions. Animals work in packs. Where is the determined nature of collectivist mantras. Where is the concern for one another. The intellect refuses to acknowledge the weak. It is the emotional instinct that does yield violence but for brethren. Universalism is a lie. Particularism is sacred. A species aiding their own. It is not about us-them but a part of the determined product. A part of the natural cycle. Not too bossed with demonstrating non-human desires in ideological championing. Beauty standards and meditative training are cases of such radical unnatural interventions. Obsession is the danger, moderation is the key. Work alongside animals cherish their existence but do not suppose a superiority complex. Do not place oneself above in some divine nor biological scheme. Such is the flaw of the axial age. Such is the flaw of anthropocentrism. It is not about what you do but what nature does. Falling in line with the natural order is not slavery. It is liberation from existential dread and intellectual fantasies. Part of a collective in the holistic web of creatures. All standing together at Pride Rock to welcome nature and her gracious gift of life.
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