Confusion Behind the Barrier

So I know this is not the way I am supposed to begin a critique or discussion of the reading, but the truth is, I am extremely frustrated. For as long as I can remember, I have created a barrier between myself and animals. But the more articles I read, the more my stance on animals has begun to shift. Sitting here, writing this blog, I am completely uncomfortable because I keep drifting further and further away from my previous beliefs. Everything is sort of falling apart for me, but it is my hope by the end of the semester I’ll have been able to pick up the pieces to make a new puzzle – one that hopefully takes a stronger, more ethical stance on my relationship with animals. Since I am far from having any of the answers, I thought I might pose some of the questions I had while reading the texts.

The first and most frequent question I had while reading was what creates the barrier between animals and humans?

Derrida seems to provide the best response, claiming that their inability to “respond”(288) has allowed humans to narrow a vast spectrum of the living into one category – “animals.” He writes that “Animal is a word that men have given themselves the right to give. These humans are found giving it to themselves, this word, but as if they had received it as an inheritance. They have given themselves the word in order to corral a large number of living beings within a single concept: ‘the Animal’”(228 I loved what Josephine wrote in her blog regarding Derrida’s comments about the great barrier: “He believes that man has a need to group animals into a collective sub-species, a species that can never rise among the ranks of humans. On this planet, on this earth, on this land that both humans and animals inhabit, there exists a great divide. On this planet, on this earth, on this land exist organisms that man will never esteem as his equal, his peer, his brother.” It is as if we have created this word in order to create an entitlement – a justification for treatment that is far from just. The barrier, then, seems less physical and more mental and reflects our own inability to see animals as “peers,” as Josephine writes. I never once considered how vague the term animal is and how genuinely inappropriate it is to create a category that encapsulates everything that is living but not “human.” If we can group such creatures of “infinite space,” such as, “lizard from dog...the shark from the lamb, the parrot from the chimpanzee, the camel from the eagle...”(228), what is keeping us from placing humans in the same category as “animals?”

Apparently, however, we have also created a hierarchy of animals – deeming some more important than others. We seem to use these hierarchies to build even higher walls between ourselves and the “animal” world that surrounds us. In the third definition of “animal” provided in the text, it says that “In common usage” an animals is defined as “one of the lower animals; a brute, or beast; as distinguished from man”(229). Firstly, what defines a “lower” animal and secondly, what separates us from a “brute” or a “beast” if we are so mercilessly abusing these animals? While I agreed with the larger part of Justin Locasio’s blog, I am not sure I agree with the idea that we are the “advanced race” anymore. Reading Derrida and these vague and unjustified definitions of animals and humans, I’m no longer confused as to why my stance on animals versus humans has been so easily broken down. It is because the terms were without evidence in the first place.

The second question I had in reading these texts was if there is such a thing as animal humanity? I know this might seem like taking a step back, since the more I seemed to read, the more I realized that the line between “animals” and “humans” is blurry, to say the least. But it is questionable to me if we can apply the same treatment of humans to animals.

Above all else, what the reading, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, seemed to imply to me was that an empathy for animals is what in fact makes us human. It is with the measure of how Rachel feels about the objectification of animals that determines whether she is an “andy” or not. When Rachel’s response to Rick’s babyhide briefcase is delayed, he is more clear than ever that she cannot be fully human. Although Rick sees “the two dial indicators gyrate frantically,” he realizes they do so “only after a pause. The reaction had come, but too late”(59). This is what it means to be human – the ability to empathize with the living beings that surround us. According to Dick, humanity and animals are inextricably tied together.
Even realizing the importance of how we treat the natural world that surrounds us, my gut feeling says there is something wrong about comparing the mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust to our daily assault on animals. My third question, and the one I am still struggling with the most, is if there is reason in the comparison between the Holocaust and the mass maltreatment of animals is justified?






It seems from these pictures that there is, indeed, reason for comparisson.

Derrida writes, “As if, for example, instead of throwing people into ovens or gas chambers (let’s say Nazis) doctors and geneticists had decided to organize the overproduction and overgeneration of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals by means of artificial insemination, so that, being more numerous and better fed, they could be destined in always increasing numbers for the same hell, that of the imposition of genetic experimentation or extermination by gas or fire?”(225-226) I agree that the human treatment of animals is as appalling as it is unjust, but the parallel drawn here disturbs me – and I still do not know why. Perhaps it is because I am not yet willing to treat animals with the same level of humanity as I do to other humans on a daily basis. I agree that they deserve a great deal of respect, but as blurry as the lines become between animals and humans with each reading, I am not sure I can (yet) provide the same level of humanity in my treatment of animals.

The “Sympathetic Imagination” helped clear away some of the blurriness that Derrida’s comments created for me. “Sympathetic Imagination” is taking a step beyond empathy – it is the act of traveling into the object itself. It “consists not in reading into the object subjective feelings aroused by it in the observer, but in perceiving, by instinctive but sagacious insight, the essential character and reality of the object itself”(241). This theory is fascinating to me because it involves more than learning to sympathize for these animals – it is about learning how to recognize ourselves as these animals. As common beings, rather than animal vs. man, I might be less appalled by the parallel made between the Holocaust and man’s treatment of animals.

But there is undoubtedly something terrifying in what I have read in these texts and seen in Earthlings. I cannot say it has induced the same response as the first time I read Elie Wiesel’s Night or saw pictures of victims of the Holocaust with their cheeks caved in and their bones practically pushing through their skin. More than pictures, there is a power in the “response” that the survivors could show the world when the Holocaust ended. What would we think of the Holocaust if there were no testimonials? Would it be easier to ignore its existence in history? The truth is, Bentham is right when he says “the question is not to know whether the animal can think, reason, or talk, something we still pretend to be asking ourselves”(226) – it is whether they have suffered. If we could eliminate the barriers created by the word “animal” and follow the theory of “Sympathetic Imagination,” perhaps we could give voices to the animals we’ve deemed voiceless, and thus unimportant. Moreover, if we could describe these animals pain, maybe we could break down the walls between animals and humans that have become so high that I can barely see over them.