Anthropomorphism and Nature - Part II

In the first part of this article I argued against the sentiments of anthropomorphism - that is, applying human characteristics to natural elements. Now I would like to continue by arguing that we do not need to make something human in order to be concerned with it, and that we should not harm the 'sacred' phenomena that is life.

Animals do not need to be changed into human shape to qualify as 'moral agents'. If we accept the typically scientific world view that things exist outside of our perception, that the world exists independent of being observed by us, then the implications for all life on the planet should be astounding: if a dog barks in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does the dog still bark? We answer yes. It means that independent of your valuation of life, that life exists and is very real; that life is a valid moral agent. It is not anthropomorphic to suggest that all life shares some kind of perception, and inner driving force; the internal process that goes on inside of you, also exists in that other life. It exists in all life as a universal.

We seem to forget all too often that things exist independently of us. We can only see the world from one perspective, and it is understandable that we cannot see it from all angles and create a total theory of how it works. However, to 'imagine' a universal code of ethics we do not need anything other than our one perspective. It is the work of our powerful minds, not the work of some natural principle, that can lift human beings above nature, and allow us to view the world from a loftier perspective.

The rational mind - which our western tradition has separated from nature for better or worse - can work out how to change this world, but it cannot tell us why we ought to in the first place. For the why, we have feeling. We have the principle of pain and pleasure; to avoid one and to seek the other. With this principle, we can infer that others are capable of feeling some kind of physical pleasure or pain, joy or anguish. Even if those feelings are different to ours in degree, they are not different in kind - a jellyfish may experience pain in a way different to you, but nonetheless it is still some kind of pain. (Whether it is possible for scientific research to contradict this is unknown to me at this point. However, the appeal of a universal driving force within all living entities seems more intuitive). Even if a creature is incapable of emotional suffering (whatever that means), it's actual body can still be hurt.

Weighing it up -

The question remains as to how much we value pleasure and pain, and how much more we consider human beings over other entities. I do believe we should consider human beings as most valuable (perhaps due to nothing more than a species bias). This 'humans first' attitude does not give us the right to do as we please. Whilst human suffering should be averted over animal suffering, human pleasure should not be placed above animal suffering. In effect, I do not feel that one 'unit' of human pleasure is worth causing one 'unit' of animal pain, and we can therefore only accept pleasure provided it causes no, or minimal, pain.

Which immediately leads to the following question. What is this grounded in?

You might be asking how an entity being able to perceive gives it the right to live. It doesn't. It just means that it's existence is as real as yours, even though it exists differently to you. However, just because something does not have a magically-generated, "god given" right to live free from pain, nor then do you have the right to inflict it, unless you have a good reason to.

Both of these 'rights' are based on mischief - the right to live is just random sentiment, based on nothing more than ones own displeasure at suffering. But equally the right to kill something is based on being able to kill it, and enacting upon that urge; effectively, it is the right of the intelligent and strong to overcome a weaker adversary. This is nothing if not the basest and lowest means to determine who should have what in life. It is an appeal to force, and humanity should be long past such a poor weighing up of the value by this stage in our evolution.

The safest bet in this instance must be to assume that nothing has rights to protect it, yet no one has rights to harm it, outside of necessity. Which means we are agnostics, and can but leave it alone. Except to avert catastrophe, or harm to humans, and to study it, I do not believe nature should be interfered with, nor romanticised. It is a complex system, and it may well be beyond our reach altogether.

Animals in our societies -

To my mind, once we come to the conclusion that personifying nature is a distortion of reality, we lose the notion that nature is specifically designed for us, and we become more cautious about tampering with nature, and we change the way we perceive animals in nature, and we then lose the 'right' to harm animals in our own societies. This is because we are no longer a part of nature, and it is in fact we who shape nature with our minds, and then profess to learn from it! As such, any appeals to nature are null and void. Whatever 'natural laws' may or may not exist out there are irrelevant to our profoundly unnatural species.

Worse than our treatment of animals outside of our societies are those distorted by romantic sentiments and comfortable lies - those creatures directly under our control. By anthropomorphizing 'culturally relevant' animals as happy dairy cows, as jolly sheep, as singing and dancing hens, we are hiding the truth behind industries that are a blight on our ethical record. Iron shackles, killings gone wrong, a world without sunlight, warehouses full of blood and shit and suffering; this is the price people are willing to pay for their pleasures.

To see the scale of this reality requires a clear and rational mind, to understand the full ethical implications of our cultural practices and our personal choices. It then requires an emotional commitment to wish no-harm upon creatures quite radically different from us, but nonetheless sharing one of the universal principles of all life; to avoid suffering.

We must first dispel the myths, and confine the romance of anthropomorphism to where it belongs. Such romantic perceptions are the most innocent form of tyranny, but they allow mass-violence to triumph, and drain reality of its urgency, trivializing the massive, unnecessary suffering we cause on a daily basis.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

Anthropomorphism and Nature

The vast and wonderful Greek word in the title is a combination of 'anthropo' meaning human, and 'morphe' or shape. Anthropomorphizing something is to give it human attributes or appearances. For instance, if I was to say that the volcano had something like Elise's temper when it erupted last week, I would be giving this natural phenomena an emotional motive; the fury of Elise. The biggest 'culprits' for this kind of thing can be found in the creatives who dreamed-up their gods, who often just so happened to be shaped like attractive people or cool animal-human hybrids in so many different mythos and religions.

Though I can only speak for the modern mind, I think the following motive explains why anthropomorphism still exists. It comes down to a deep wish that nature was designed for us, filled with hidden meaning for us to discover. This gives nature a mystique, or an extra layer of meaning. As we can never reach or understand this mystique, we never have to see reality in all of it's coldness.

Anthropomorphism makes nature seem like a created order to be enjoyed by us, and used by us. This is problematic because this idea of 'created for' does not imply a sense of the permanent flux we exist in. If something is designed, it implies permanence. If the order of nature is therefore permanent and 'for us', then those who reflect these 'natural values' are of a similar unchanging and entitled mindset. The greatest example of this indirect anthropomorphism can be found in fundamentalist religion's argument from design. It is just ever so slightly silly that Man has created a creator God, and then had Him create nature for Man!

In reality Man is recreating nature in his own image. We have always looked to nature for the correct way to live, or appealed to the word 'natural' as a justifier: the Cynics of ancient Greece spoke of living the way of nature, venerating the loyalty and resourcefulness of the dog; the Taoist sage was said to live the way of nature in a more easy-going sense;

Social 'Darwinists' pick and choose the violent aspects of (our) nature to justify all sorts of capitalist nonsense. Yet now, with the fall of religious belief for so many of us, believing in mother nature is more appealing than it ever has been. As a result, we still anthropomorphize nature, to give it a shape we can identify with. Then we profess to learn from it, taking from it what was never there in the first place.

We also have to quite cynically remember that crafting something into a human shape means it has no value outside of us. If it did have value, why would we need to craft it into human shape in the first place? Why couldn't we stretch our minds to accept or scrutinise something as it actually is, or just feel what is there without the intrusion of prejudice? Anthropomorphism makes things 'human', and of course, only that which reflects humanity can have value. This is nowhere more obvious than the word 'humanity' being used as a positive term: 'Put some flowers up and give the place some humanity' or 'That cow is being treated in an inhumane fashion'. We may use these terms innocently, but their meaning is clear enough. It is the simplest form of prejudice, only reacting positively to something which is similar to yourself. I am not saying that we should be ashamed of our humanity, far from it! Only that we do not need to consider something human, or 'humanized' for it to possess value. This makes any scientific or psychological examination of animals for behaviours similar to us unnecessary for us to consider those animals as valuable. To summarize: animals and plants and natural phenomena do not need to be humanized for us to consider them.

What is there by nature?

I do not know what the actual 'values' in nature are, I must admit it. It seems like a bit of a jungle where animals attract, repel, cooperate, compete, fight, fuck and feed (all-in-one where the praying mantis is concerned). But whatever those 'values', if they exist at all, they do not change with our re-valuation of them. They exist beyond us. We cannot transplant our values upon nature. Even the animals we take into our direct concern, or enslave for use in our archaic industries, are apart from us in that we can never communicate with them in the same way as we can another human being. 

This is not to say that we share nothing with the animal - we do. Animal kinship is extremely important and enriching. It is sharing with an animal something deeply internal in ourselves. We have similar components, and can recognise one another as alive – the most profound recognition possible. A cat for instance can feel a sense of attachment, and so can we. A large spider can recognise you as a threat and duel with you, feeling something similar to you. We 'risen primates' have evolved out of nature after all. The problem is we have also diverged greatly from all other animal life, such that outside of instinct and an understanding of physical pain / pleasure principles, we share nothing with the animal. If we assume that Mr.Cat can 'human love' us back, we are wrong. A cat can only 'cat love', and nothing will alter this fact.

Another problem with anthropomorphism is that it is greatly prejudiced. As children we were all forced to endure humanoid turtles attending to various banal adventures, and we are all familiar with the ubiquitous teddy bear wearing some kind of human pyjamas. But where were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Nematodes? Is the microscopic worm not also worthy of care and consideration - it is after all the main prey of flesh-eating fungi. What about the passion and grief of the sea sponge? It is only recently that we have come close to appreciate such a creature in our artistic output. Anthropomorphism does not give us any universal principle with which we can create a system of ethics. It is only the large-eyed fawn, and the cuddly kitty, and the awe-inspiring bird, and so forth, who we wish to accept into our bosom as being worthy of consideration. Even then we often 'misinterpret' an animal's attributes, and create a false view of it.

The symbolism of animal and plant has soaked itself into our culture. Birds and predators make great mascots or patriotic symbols, representing the values of a nation in all its glory (presumably the lion for its pride and the unicorn for its stiff-upper lip in the case of Britons!) This is the same kind of pick-and-choose attitude toward nature that limits our understanding of it. Whilst it may be artistically and visually impressive, it does not bode well for our minds, or our environmentalists. We need to take nature seriously, and to do this, we need to take a step back from our human prejudices. Besides, which will be the first nation to sport an armadillo in it's colours; is her stern shell and defiant heart not also worthy of patriotic grandeur?

Our strange duality toward animals can be summed up in a single image; the impressive head of a stag upon the wall of a hunter's cabin. Simultaneously the animal is admired, and yet was killed for no real reason at all. A DVD copy of 'Bambi' lies under its lifeless eyes. The hunter's children love animals. Apparently.

As for the animal ethics which may arise in our societies once when we de-anthropomorphize nature, I will save that for my next article on this topic. To summarize: it will concern the way our attitudes change toward plants and animals once we stop seeing them purely in relation to how useful they are to us, but what they are worth in and of themselves.

Selim 'Selim' Talat (the vegetarian anti-anthropomorphism advocate who nevertheless loves the owls and kitties in the Phil Tak newsletter!)