{"id":2140,"date":"2015-07-02T13:33:18","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T20:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.org\/weblog\/?p=2140"},"modified":"2015-07-23T22:38:08","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T05:38:08","slug":"becoming-turtle-becoming-animal-becoming-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oliverk.com\/blog\/?p=2140","title":{"rendered":"becoming turtle becoming animal becoming human"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"a<\/a>

a life companion<\/p><\/div>\n

To be, just for a moment, in the mind of another is a worthy ambition\u00a0\u2013\u00a0all the more so if the being<\/i> whose head you want to get inside is a non-human being.<\/p>\n

As I type these words, my box turtle Marmaduke is staring up at me from the floor beneath my desk. Having lived with him for than 48 years, I know this particular expression means something<\/em>: very likely that he has noticed his\u00a0dinner bowl is empty or that the\u00a0leftover food therein has dried out. In his own reptilian way, he is telling me that this will not<\/em> do!<\/i><\/p>\n

After\u00a0the very many years of our\u00a0relationship,\u00a0I have\u00a0learned to\u00a0recognize that look.<\/p>\n

But what would it be like to be<\/em> him? To look out at the world through those\u00a0baleful, red eyes? To truly experience it all\u00a0from his point of view, without the baggage of anthropomorphism so drilled into us through too many\u00a0childhood Disney films?<\/p>\n

I am not, nor ever will I be – a turtle, though\u00a0I would very much like to understand something of a turtle’s\u00a0subjectivity.<\/p>\n

The bio-semiotician Jakob von Uexk\u00fcl<\/a>l made great strides in such imaginings, laying out a detailed framework on how we might perceive the perceptual\u00a0worlds of the animal other.<\/p>\n

He begins his (1934) \u2018A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Man\u2019<\/em> with an entreaty to participate in a thought experiment,\u00a0to imagine ourselves\u00a0wandering through a flower-strewn meadow, blowing:<\/p>\n

\u00a0a soap bubble around each creature to represent its own world, filled with it perceptions that it alone knows. When we ourselves then step into one of these bubbles, the familiar meadow is transformed. Many of its colourful features disappear, others no longer belong together but appear in new relationships. A new world comes into being. Through the bubble we see the world as it appears to the animals themselves, not as it appears to us. This we call the phenomenal world or the self world of the animal.<\/i><\/p>\n

Von Uexk\u00fcll goes on to visualize\u00a0what the world might look like from the point of view of a host of\u00a0creatures \u2013 ticks, sea urchins, jackdaws, flies, dogs, chickens\u00a0\u2013\u00a0each living\u00a0within its\u00a0<\/span>Umwelt;<\/i>\u00a0 the German\u00a0translating\u00a0literally as \u2018surrounding world\u2019, of a given subject, perceived and interacted with through its own organs<\/em>. This\u00a0seminal text, a combination of astute scientific observation and self-described \u2018ramblings\u2019, influenced everyone from Deleuze<\/a> \u00a0to contemporary UX designers. \u00a0In it, Von Uexk\u00fcll\u00a0 challenges\u00a0us\u00a0to reconsider the universe from the non-human point of view, which is after all something people have been obsessed with since our very beginnings.\u00a0Even in the\u00a0earliest cave paintings, we see a longing to inhabit,\u00a0to become<\/em> the animal; at once the\u00a0object and the\u00a0subject of our desire; much more\u00a0than\u00a0simply an\u00a0aesthetic preoccupation. Depictions of\u00a0becomings animal, of interstitial states, of hybridity, have appeared throughout\u00a0human\u00a0culture, from the\u00a0falcon-headed Egyptian god Horus, to the Minotaur, to the shape-shifting \u00a0Japanese tanuki<\/a>, to the vampires,\u00a0werewolves, the princes disguised as frogs, Batman, Spiderman – you name it!<\/p>\n

We\u00a0wonder what it might be\u00a0like to be an eagle, soaring over mountain peaks, its\u00a0eyes far superior to ours, scanning the barren\u00a0wastelands for a\u00a0glimpse of the\u00a0scurrying marmot? Or to put ourselves just for\u00a0moment, inside the head of our trusted dog, for whom the air we breath\u00a0is redolent of convoluted odour narratives and invisible signifiers.<\/p>\n

The minds of our\u00a0pets are frequent objects of our narcissistic conjecture: What do they think of us? Do they love<\/i> us? Do they miss<\/i> us when we are away? and so on.<\/p>\n

Though we share our homes and lives with them, and have substantially altered\u00a0their genetics to suit our sense\u00a0of \u2018what an animal should be like\u2019, the power relationships between us\u00a0aren’t\u00a0completely one-sided, which\u00a0any pet owner can verify. Yes \u2013 pets\u00a0are objects, but they\u00a0are also\u00a0articulate subjects; compliant enough and yet\u00a0quite adept at getting what they want.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not just talking about belly rubs here. The hunting relationship that emerged\u00a0between early man and certain wolves, fundamentally changed the fortunes\u00a0of both and caused\u00a0far-reaching consequences\u00a0for entire ecosystems. There is considerable evidence that this\u00a0brutally efficient partnership pushed\u00a0our cousins the Neanderthals, who\u00a0were reliant on the same food supply,\u00a0toward\u00a0extinction<\/a>, as well as wiping out such iconic\u00a0megafauna as\u00a0woolly rhinoceros, mammoths and giant bison. These big, dangerous beasts\u00a0could\u00a0be tracked down\u00a0and held at bay\u00a0by the wolves-becoming-dogs<\/em>, until\u00a0Homo sapiens<\/em>\u00a0could catch up with them,\u00a0wielding\u00a0spears and arrows lobbed\u00a0from a safe distance, reducing the risk of themselves being killed or injured\u00a0in the hunt. These early human-imprinted wolf lineages gradually morphed into the\u00a0manifold forms that are\u00a0the domestic dog today\u00a0\u2013 everything\u00a0from teacup Chihuahuas to French bulldogs to Great Danes; the beloved beneficiaries of canned food, over-priced veterinary care and doting human companions\u00a0who\u00a0reverentially follow them around wrapping their hot\u00a0faeces up in plastic bags.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, one of the key factors facilitating the success of our co-mingling\u00a0seems to have been the whites, the\u00a0sclera<\/em> of our eyes; an unusual trait in animals shared by both man and dog, which enabled\u00a0us to quickly and noiselessly perceive\u00a0what the other was\u00a0looking at\u00a0\u2013\u00a0\u2018I am seeing\u2013you are seeing me\u2013seeing\u2019<\/em> \u2013\u00a0an immense advantage in the fast-moving context of the\u00a0hunt.<\/p>\n