back to
"my AR pages"-index
Animated units-of-meaning
a short essay by Palang Latif
Where it came from
The human sphere has been and is that of shared interest, that of the
political sphere which became political because of equal standards, equal
desires, equal goals, because of all which grew out of the community live of the
human groups. The animal was the classification for a merely animated being, a
being endowed only with "zoe", that was that form of live which is
merely "being" but which is not endowed with a higher "human-like"
meaning and potential. The animal life fell out of any inter-political context
because the borders between nature and man were clear: the world would only turn
around the human interest, around that which represented "will", in a
strictly self-serving and monopolised power.
In ancient times the human setting was tightly hierarchical, and the lowest
end of the human group, the slaves, were surrounded by the vast realm of the
brute life, constituent of that which was defined as being merely animated. The
hierarchy within the human sphere could be secured by granting the lowest in the
ranks of humanhood at least to be "more" than a mere brute, more than
an animal. The human was considered to be political, in a either superior or
inferior form, but still, top and bottom were integrated. Belonging to the human
political contracts in tribes or civilizations, secured by the human group with
the privilege of self-authorized meaning wich in turn had the capacity to bind
the human group together, as humans. The highest in rank with the lowest all
shared to be dominant over the animal world. The gap from the side of being a
human to the realm of animals, had to be big enough in meaningfulness to ensure
solidarity with the own, the human group. Still, taking sides with animals must have
occured, since the individual's desire to get into a positive contact with
animal life could never be totally ruled out with every human individual.
Where it is
Fascination with animals is visible not only there where it is evident and
obvious, but it's also visible in some rudimental forms of relations,
even so remotely as in one perverted way that can be traced up until today: the
fascination with that to which animal life has been merely reduced to, that is
the fascination with the
mere fact of animatedness.
Nowadays in mainstream society the fasciation with that wich is animated seems to be
dominant, in contrast with an "anti-opinion" or the negative fascination
that is purported in relation towards real,
nonhuman animals. The relation to real animals is one that has been turned into a perfection
of negation on all possible levels. But the roots for that trace back a very
long time.
One question is, if the fascination with
animatedness has something to do with that what can be construed under the term
of units-of-meaning? For example human life embodies certain values which form
units-of-meaning. In the same way but with an entirely different set of contents,
nonhuman animal life embodies values which also form units-of-meaning.
Animatedness is for example void of human meaning in itself, it only carries
human meaning when it is a planned or unplanned result of a human action. But
animatedness occurs not necessarily bound to human action and when it is bound
to human action, the intetion is often to keep this bond indirect. Animatedness
is there to have a "life of its own" in a way that must relate to how
we construe units-of-meaning. The combination of the animated "life of its
own" with the units-of-meaning it can bind together with, form a specific
quality of fascination.
Why is it that mainstream society prefers anything they can consider to be
something animated over the existence of "the other"?
Accomodated in an "animated
habitat"!
Not only is
there a failure to regard a plant as more than a living decoration, but also the
machines that are constructed and bought -- as what regards the view of the
natural as a habitat -- are designed in a way that they serve
only to
mirror much of a limited self, which seeks to avoid the knowledge about that
what is entirely different; the other existences overall and natural
correlations overall: beings, entities and their environments. Animals, Plants,
and other natural forms of entities, all are subdued to the wants that stem from
a concept, that limits itself by it's imagination of human omnipotency.
The view onto the outer as being an array of animated
man-made-and-man-serving devices, seems to be less dangerous than acknowledging
a heterogenous reality; on
the epistemological level things can be kept on a slave-like position where they
don't seem to confront the human with a direct moral issue regarding "the
outer" (the environment) and "the other".
Also, the view onto that
which can be easily viewed of as an animated device, neatly looks enough like
you are dealing with that what makes up life: movement, multiple functions that
interact with themselves, a start and an end, change. And the biggest
fascination here lies in the knowledge that humans created a whole animated
environment.
Visit:
The Vegan
Society
Also
visit:
The American Anti-Vivisection Society
|