Of Course people are animals – get used to it

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, human nature, animal nature

My parents made sure I (and my brothers) knew that humans are animals from a very early age. They led us to understand that animals feel pain, fear and loss, and also joy, pleasure and fulfillment. We were not to be cruel. Of course, the peskiest insects and other vermin had to be expelled or killed, but we were to be humane about it, killing even an insect quickly.

Even as a believer in God, I learned the principles of the facts of evolution and the theory of natural selection when I was young, and from careful searching in the Bible I learned that evolution, specifically descent of humans from animals, does not threaten the reality of God, nor does it either prove or disprove His existence. I choose not to go further into detail here.

As a result of the above, I have always been puzzled by those who make charges of "anthropomorphism" whenever they encounter statements about the feelings or purposes of animals, whether domestic or wild. Nobody who understands evolution should think that only humans have a full range of emotions, or a feeling of purpose, or the ability to plan a course of action or decide between alternatives using reason. We have such faculties because our forebears had them! When any human does something another kind of animal can do, that is "zoomorphism"!! At best, there is a range of skills and competencies that we have developed further than any other animal.

The case for what I would call "advanced zoomorphism" is made by Melanie Challenger in How to be Animal: A New History of What it Means to be Human. Coming on the heels of a book I reviewed just a couple of weeks ago, MetaZoa by Peter Godfrey-Smith, it represents a healthy trend in recent writing.

Ms Challenger points out the hypocrisy of modern culture, which is still based on long-held opinion that humans are either not animals at all, or are categorically different in some way. Even as America, the most Biblically religious nation, turns away from that religion, and from its supposed denigration of animals in favor of Man (not so...stay tuned); even as American culture, and Western culture in general, becomes increasingly eco-centric and claims greater environmental sensitivity, that same culture destroys animals and entire species at an ever-increasing rate.

I must make a diversion here. Prior to the writing of Leviticus, everyone except a few slave-holders worked every day, from sunrise to sunset, and frequently long into the night. Domestic animals were worked to death, as were many slaves. There was a common practice that a domestic meat animal wasn't killed outright, but only partly dismembered, to keep most of it "on the hoof" to preserve the remaining meat; a 3-legged steer can still walk once it recovers. If any foreigners had the temerity to travel abroad, they were systematically exploited or mistreated and frequently enslaved, unless they traveled with a great band of bodyguards. Leviticus made huge social changes in God's name:

• One day in seven was to be a day of rest, not only for the people of Israel, but for their slaves, visiting or sojourning foreigners, and domestic animals. All were to enjoy a weekly Sabbath. That includes the household cook; on the Sabbath, everyone ate leftovers.
• Animals to be eaten (or sacrificed and then partly burned and partly eaten) were to be killed quickly, with a minimum of fuss, and the blood was to be poured out. The words against "eating the flesh with the blood" specifically forbid cutting part of an animal off to eat and leaving the animal alive.
• Visiting and sojourning foreigners had the same rights as all free persons.
• Slaves were to be indentured, not owned, unless a slave who had a particularly kind master volunteered to remain enslaved for life. "Bought with money", a phrase that appears a few times, refers to the work a slave could do in a typical term of six years or less, until the Sabbatical Year. The slaves' time was bought, not his or her body.

A big reason given for the destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah was that they didn't do these things. The 70-year captivity was in part so "the land could enjoy her Sabbaths", which had been neglected for hundreds of years.

Back to the book, and I'll cut to the chase. All of the things that have been proposed as specially human gifts are found in animals, just to a lesser degree. Writers touted "Man the tool-using animal" until it was found that all apes make and use tools, as do many monkeys, also certain birds, plus some dolphins and a few species of fish. Only humans have language, others said, until a few apes were taught ASL; later it was found that certain species of parrot can learn our language well enough to hold simple conversations; prairie dogs don't have just one alarm call for "predator", but they distinguish hawk from snake from fox, and can indicate color and size (prairie dogs may have a small dictionary, but it includes a number of nouns, several adjectives, and a few verbs. That's language to me).

How to be Animal has lots of material about our fraught relationship with being animal. What it lacks is anything actionable. I was expecting some sort of manifesto, I suppose. But no, this is a catalog without anywhere to go. Sadly, it took me longer than I expected to read because the writing is rather dull. It doesn't carry one along, neither does it induce reflection as well as it might.

It is left for future writers to show the way to a new attitude, one that piques the conscience more keenly, and induces larger numbers of people to see animals for what they are, and see themselves for what they are.