This week we turn slightly from the philosophical and biological questions we've been addressing for the first 7 weeks toward some more literary questions, but let's not leave the philosophy behind. My hope is that these essays will not only provide fodder for some post-paper 20-minute writes and for some good discussion in class, but that they will inform our viewing of Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man.
Jack
ReplyDelete“…animals were used as machines. As also were children.”
Berger’s ‘Why Look at Animals’ was more than an enjoyable read, it was insightful and full of useful analogies applicable to this week’s ‘why do we look’ question. Malamud on the other hand probably raised the standard for how far a comparison must be taken to an extreme to make a very unsubtle point. Since I was as turned off by Malamud’s delivery as his subjects were turned on, let’s return to Berger.
Singapore was among the many stops along our return course from the Persian Gulf following Desert Storm. One of the most recommended sites to visit in Singapore is their zoo – a huge campus where many exotic special usually only kept in captivity behind bars are allowed to roam, separated from visitors only by a series of moats and on their best behavior because of a proper feeding regime. I remember vividly the different feeling this created – while it was still consciously artificial, it was much closer to an interaction than the ‘one-way observation’ zoos I had previously visited. I also recalled thinking about how these animals, with just enough more perception of freedom than that of their caged zoo counterparts were not too unlike our situation in the Navy after spending 6 months on the ship at a time. Berger’s discussion of domesticated animals (pg 256) made me revisit these thoughts:
“The small family living unit (insert ‘Navy ship’) lacks space, earth, other animals, seasons, natural temperatures, and so on. The pet (insert ‘Enlisted Personnel’) is either sterilized (the legends of British Navy serving salt peter to their crew) or sexually isolated (there are famous Navy ports for many reasons), extremely limited in its exercise, deprived of almost all other animal contact (outside of the crewmembers), and fed artificial foods (our meat came in boxes labeled ‘Grade D – not for human consumption’)………..They are creatures of their owner’s way of life (not too many Desert Storm volunteers that I recall).
Aside from animals helping us reflect on our own lives, Berger makes some very insightful comments, such as….’during the 20th century, the internal combustion engine displaced draught animals in streets and factories…….Eventually, Descartes’ model was surpassed. In the first stages of the industrial revolution, animals were used as machines. As also were children.’ So too were the discussions of dualism with respect to both the peasant (pg 253) and Descartes’ human relation to animals (pg 255), Desmond Morris’ comparison of captive animals to our consumer societies (pg 261), and Grandville’s ‘Public and Prival Life of Animals’(pg 258).
Should class discussion focus on all the upside potential of the introduction of this topic instead of the ‘What’s Wrong with Kansas’-style desperate comparisons to marginal topics to sway readers opinions as Malamud introduced, it should make for another enlightening evening.
March 4, 2009
ReplyDeleteJohn S. Sonin
Eng. 418—Maier, Klein
Blog—7
I’m interested in what Berger said about parallel existences for the animal and human crossing over at death, what does he mean? He does say at death they converge and “perhaps” cross-over so maybe he’s leaving open the possibility of reincarnation to the animal for humans, but then he’s also saying that animals get a chance to be human. This has a lot to say about the soul; as if the number were a zero sum. That might explain geo-population growth in humans and endangered species; the more humanity, the less wildlife. And I’ll be darned if Hindu teaching isn’t becoming more popular. If the science/theories of biological and cultural evolution have any applicability, it would make much sense and universal unity would be converging to a singularity.
The “spectators” have to take a turn at being the “spectacle,” as Malamud might say. That could easily be a metaphor for my life. I grew-up in a world of self-consumption where the “strong take what they will” and now I’m like the zoo animals “suffering what I must.” The Maury Povich, Jerry Springer reality, watching Other things (non-entities’) struggle, standing on the side throwing things or verbally prodding those “things” to a stressful state of acting-out, is not one I want to become a part of—falling into the rhythm of another’s masturbation efforts.
It’s time we used our heads and acted on our ultra-conscious motives. It’s the only way out of this “dead-end” side street with its cornucopia of distraction.
“Why Look at Animals?”
ReplyDeleteJohn Berger’s title is probably a good place to start for this post. His look at our changing relationship with animals through history as we have become less reverent and then less dependent on animals for labor is compelling, to say the least. For Berger, animals were once a part of our existence and part of the world in a way unseen of in modern society. Without going overboard, he laments the loss of this connection but refrains from romanticizing the topic. So why look at animals, then? Something that Berger overlooks in the essay is the fear of animals that has played a huge role in human culture as well. This may have been accompanied by far more respect for the animal than is witnessed today, but fear has always been present. As conscious animals, people have felt the threat of animals to their survival as long as they have coexisted. This has undoubtedly been a driving force in the changing status of the animal kingdom to people. It’s true that this connection once existed for people, but people have raised themselves from a level to a level of independence and consciousness unmatched in the past. This comes at a price that is, to echo Berger sentiments, lamentable and “unnatural,” but it’s unrealistic that at any point in man’s bloody history, they would want to remain in social stalemate, even it if meant maintaining closer animals relations. Ok, so maybe I take it back, I do think Berger romanticizes the connection- people back in the day were kind of out there a lot with their relationships with the natural world and it’s one thing to write essays in your heated cottage in the alps, or wherever he wrote from, and re-read your marked up copy of the Iliad as your brew coffee all night, but it’s another thing to go commune with nature, eat berries, and stare into a cow’s eyes to see if they notice you.
Colin K.
ReplyDeleteFor this post I want to look at the John Berger reading, “Why We Look at Animals.” In his essay, (chapter, article—whatever) Berger talks about the parallel lives that animals have had throughout history. He writes about things like the zodiac and the Iliad and Peter Rabbit and Donald Duck and the like as things that marginalize the presence of animals in our culture. Then he goes on with how having pets and zoos have become the monuments to the marginalization of animals. I find myself a little conflicted as well as confused here. On the one hand I can see where Berger’s line of thinking lead him but on the other hand I think that I have a respect for animals that I would not have had without having pets or reading about animals like in the scenes he pointed out from the Iliad. I am having trouble seeing where these kind of things brings about a strict marginalization of animals. Maybe they lead to the destruction of animals identities and that is the marginalization Berger speaks of? I have to agree that I probably see animals differently than I might have a thousand of years ago and was void of the pleasure of visiting my aunt’s zoo. But if that is the case would I still have the fascination and respect that I have for animals or would I just fear them or see them only as tools. I really don’t know and this is the question I am hoping to have answered in class. What is the balance from Berger’s point of view of what we gain and what we lose? What is the balance from Berger’s point of view of what animals gain and what animals lose?
If we consider for a second what John Berger is saying about animals and their increasing marginalization in our society, maybe the question shouldn’t be “Why Look At Animals?” and instead “Do We Really Need Animals?” I know, I know, green-peacers everywhere just released their trees and whales to scream in my direction, but really, are they necessary? We could all be vegetarian, so there goes the food angle. And according to Berger our pets aren’t really anything more than a feel-good system for ourselves, and isn’t that what drugs and stuffed animals are for? Really the only valid argument is brought up by Malamud - and that is that some people need them to get their rocks off. Now that is irreplaceable.
ReplyDeleteBesides the fact that we could live without animals, if we want to keep them around, Berger raises some good points. We don’t see animals anymore; we look at them, or regard them, or ogle them. They are our pets - marginalized, sterilized, deprived - or animals in a zoo or on a documentary. Planet Earth, the amazing, best-selling DVD collection from the Discovery Channel, proves Berger’s point. Now we don’t have to even leave our couches to view animals. And what is so amazing about the footage is that animals really are amazing. We’re trained to view animals as they’re depicted in cartoons, movies, zoos, but Planet Earth showed us another side - their natural side. But therein lies the catch 22. If we want to stop looking at animals and instead see them (and not through the filter of our television) then we must go into the wild, into their natural habitat to see them. But if everyone went out to see animals, then wouldn’t their wild, natural habitats become similar to the zoo?
On page 259 of Berger's 'Why Look At Animals?' he states that zoos, “however supportive of the ideology of imperialism, had to claim an independent and civic function . . . to further knowledge and public enlightenment.” As parents take their children to zoos, which are they encouraging? Which do they intend to encourage?
ReplyDeleteAs kids, almost everyone has had at least one and more often many stuffed animals. Berger suggests that this national obsession with animals originated in the family's preoccupation with visiting zoos. But why would this result in families buying stuffed animals, rocking horses, really any kind of animal toy for their children? More importantly, why did the children start wanting them? Perhaps, in visiting these zoos, these menageries displaying the country's foreign trophies and conquests (Berger 259), the children were picking up on these institutions imperialistic roots, and coming home to build menageries of their own.
Despite the pretty promises that zoos should “further knowledge and public enlightenment,” it's clear that zoos have little actual influence on public knowledge. When you visit a zoo, or bring your small relatives to the zoo, do you really stop and read them every information plaque in every exhibit? Even if you did, do you really think small children will really listen and/or remember most of it? No, of course not. When you bring your young relatives, you buy an ice cream cone or some fluorescent slush drink, and you spend 5, maybe 10, minutes at each display, before shuffling the now exhausted kids to the gift store where they have the choice of dozens of exotic animals in fuzzy, stuffed polyester. Ultimately, the stuffed animals and the cheap postcards last much longer than any knowledge the tiny metal placards feebly try to instill. When real knowledge becomes less important than having stuff, it's no wonder that imperialism is so widespread in our politics, our economy, and our thoughts.
How did industrialization impact our relationship with animals?
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though a lot of the movement for the ethical treatment of animals coincides with the environmental movement, which make sense since there is a lot of overlap between the two. I thought Berger’s somewhat idealized understanding of the relationship between peasants and animals was interesting. In some ways, it reminded me of claims that the author of “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?” critiqued. For instance, would working with animals bring about some sort of enlightened folk wisdom? While the claim is appealing, I question its validity and practicality. The discussion of the impact of industrialization on our relationships with animals reminded me of an article I read a while ago in the New York Times about several slaughter-house workers who came down with a mysterious illness. All of the workers who became ill worked at a table where they would spend several hours using an air gun to blow the brains out of an animal’s head. The factory was set up like an assembly line. Animals were not animals but parts to be worked with and used. Living in cities results in less interaction with animals but how is this situation to be remedied? Zoos are a form of voyeurism or a place to display socially deviant and potentially violent behavior. Malamud writes “I believe television shows can accomplish ecological advocacy as effectively as zoos- probably even more so, since the medium of television is so conducive to promotion .” However, at the time he was writing most of the nature shows were on public channels. When corporate channels begin to make nature shows, how much ecological advocacy is taking place? Is educating the viewer as much of a priority as entertaining him? Nature shows seem to be incredibly viewer-reliant, shows like Meekrat Manor rely on anthromorphism to create storylines and plots. Berger suggests that anthromorphism is good because it reminds us of the parallelism between men and animals. Interestingly though, it seems as though children’s movies and media are starting to use anthromorphism to understand computers and robots more. If zoos are a form of voyeurism and nature shows are a slightly less offensive form of the same thing, how does one regularly interact with ‘real animals’? It seems as though there is no readily available solution.
-Katie
It is interesting, the correlation between the two definitions given by Webster for the word, zoo.
ReplyDeleteThe first, a garden or park where wild animals are kept for exhibition. First of all, of the few zoos I have visited none have seemed anything like a "park" or "garden," for either the animals or the humans. This definition paints an idealistic picture of how we confine animals for our enjoyment, and education. Why is this? Why do we use a completely inacurate definition? Is it to preserve the zoo system? I don't think so. Instead, I think it is because we don't want to face the reality.
The second definition that is given is: a place, situation, or group marked by crowding, confusion, or unrestrained behavior. Now that, seems more like the zoo's I have been to. Yet this definition is more often used as an analogy for human, behavior and situations. Such as, "the shopping mall was a zoo today." If the first definition of zoo, was what we actually thought of when we imagined a zoo, then saying "the shopping mall was zoo today" wouldn't have the same meaning.
So then what creates the confusion, chaos and crowding, and unrestrained behavior that is associated with a zoo, the animals or the humans?
Ahh...yes.
Do the majority of people visit a zoo and leave with a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation for the animals they visited? I think not, most if not all, people leave with the same ignorant pre-conceived notions that they had before they visited the zoo.
I will stop here, as to not simply develop an endless amount of disdainful questions.
-Taylor
Part of John Berger's essay got me thinking. His argument is essentially that animals haven't always been viewed as commodities, and that in fact for most of human history they've been worshipped, respected, and used to embody human virtues such as courage and strength and cunning and such.
ReplyDeleteLet's just deconstruct this idea.
First of all, it's a fact that humans have been on top of the food chain for a very long time. We've hunted animals for food quite effectively for well over a million years, so we've indisputably been the number one predators.
Now, Berger posits the idea that we used to treat animals more fairly. They were food and leather and such, sure, but they were also Zodiac symbols, sacred to some peoples, and respected. On page 254 he uses Homer's "Iliad" to show that animals are used as representations of positive human traits, what with "the courage of the panther" and other animals metaphors he shows. His assumption is that calling the panther or lion or wild-boar courageous is respectful.
I see it differently. The Romans used to pit gladiators against lions. Europeans hunted wild boars, as well as foxes (an animal noted for its cunning and agility). For millennia rites of passage for young males has been to hunt and kill certain dangerous animals. It doesn't sound like these traits are attributed to animals as a sign of respect for the animal, but rather as a form of bragging on the part of the human hunters. If you kill a bear it's all well and good, but if you kill a bear that's said to embody the spirit of strength and endurance, well, then you've got to be above and beyond the very embodiment of strength and endurance, right?
This isn't to say past peoples didn't respect animals more than we have in the last 150 years or so, but to go so far as to say that they all lived in harmony or respect with those animals is fallacious. I'm sure there have been cultures like that, but for the majority of the world animals were still just meat, leather, bone, and whatever else can be made from their carcasses. They were considered inferior, if not subservient, to people. The only big difference these last couple centuries is the advent of industrialization and mass production, which makes killing and oppressing animals possible on a much larger scale than every before.
Brian Nichols
ReplyDeleteEnglish 481
Maier/ Krien
John Berger’s essay argued that corporate capitalism has separated human from animal worlds. He supports his argument by giving an historical account of human’s relationships to animals. He proposes that in the past animals were more central to humans. For example, humans depended on animals for food, work, transport, and clothing. Berger than argues that humans had distanced themselves from animals with the advent of new technology which replaced the work that animals had once done.
Berger also argues that animals were not always thought of as milk or food; rather, in one point of time, they had spiritual significance for humans. Foe example, cattle had magical functions sometimes oracular, sometimes, sacrificial (252). He states that the choice of a given species as magical was do to proximity. He cites Levi-Strauss who wrote that humans know animal’s habits and needs because human men were once married to them and they acquired this knowledge from their animal wives (252). Berger than proposes that there is a similar/dissimilar parallelism between humans and animals. For example, animals are similar to humans, in the fact, that animal blood flowed through the body like human blood.
However, animals are dissimilar to humans because they do not have language. In class, we have been in debate as wither animals have consciousness or not and some of the reading have suggested that animals cannot have conscious because animals do not have language. But others, such as Nagel, as suggested that humans cannot know if animals have conscious or not because we can never really enter the conscious of the animal. Berger seems to agree with this and suggests that the essential relationship between human and animal was metaphoric (253). Through metaphor humans begin to be able to understand what they shared in common with animals and what differences they had and this lid to some kind of social organization leading to language. This argument is confirmed by Marks who had suggested humans had gained language as a means of propagation and nourishment. Marks theory confirms that humans evolved to have a social structure for the breakthrough to language