Darwin believed that all living creatures were
descended from just a few or one original species. Man and the apes had a common
ancestor, and for all the imperfections of the geological record, there can be
no doubt that in terms of skeletal structure, organs, senses, reproduction,
digestive processes etc., all mammals have a vast array of common features. The
inference that they are variations on a theme seems inescapable, and from this
we can extrapolate all kinds of fascinating insights into the nature both of
animals and of man.
One of the most important has to be the fact that the distinction I have just
drawn is false. Man is an animal. It is therefore a mark of intellectual
arrogance to denigrate the instincts, feelings, sensitivities and capabilities
of animals as being somehow different from those of man. Mammals (I shall
confine myself to these, as they are our closest relatives) can only survive by
reproducing, caring for their young, feeling and responding to pain, finding
food and drink, protecting themselves against their enemies, etc. If they are
“programmed” to do this, then so are we. (We shall not delve here into the
question of who devised the “programme”.) Our means of survival are precisely
the same as those of other animals, and the idea that animals feel what we feel
is not an anthropomorphic projection, because it is the other way round: in the
evolutionary order of things, they came before us, i.e. we inherited the
programme from them, and so we feel what they feel. An elephant mother loves its
baby, nurtures, suckles, protects it just as we do, and if the baby dies, the
elephant grieves. There are countless examples of animals expressing emotion,
and you don’t even have to be a zoologist or a wildlife observer to experience
this. Anyone who has lived with a cat or dog will know that it has feelings.
Another vital element in survival is communication. We pride ourselves on the
complexities and range of our languages, but again these are only extensions of
animal language. Scientists have observed that different animal sounds have
different meanings, and it is known that there are sounds we cannot hear, and
some may travel over vast distances. Our senses in many areas are inferior to
those of other animals, and it may even be that our superior brain power has
adversely affected those senses, as we do not rely on them so much. Natural
selection may emphasize that which is advantageous, but perhaps it also creates
a balance whereby one feature is enhanced and another shrinks. A heightened
sense of smell may accompany a diminution of vision (or conversely, a diminution
of vision may be compensated for by a heightened sense of smell).
The point I am making here is that we have lost sight of our animal origins, and
because we have done so, we have misunderstood a huge area of our own behaviour.
Before we discuss the animal nature of man, however, we should consider human
influence on other animals.
Knowing as we do that they are our fellow creatures, and share so many of our
traits, we should not assume that their suffering is any different. They cannot
describe their feelings in our language, but a cry of agony is the same in any
language, human or animal. To inflict pain on an animal is in principle no
different from inflicting pain on a human, and anyone who uses the excuse that
they are different from us is merely one step away from the most appalling
crimes in human history: Europeans enslaved Africans; Hitler murdered Jews;
Sunnis and Shias, Tutsis and Hutus, Israelis and Palestinians slaughter one
another with the same excuse. Difference is no justification for cruelty or
destruction.
This is clearly an argument in support of the animal rights movement, but it
needs to be tempered. Even though there can be no excuse for deliberately
inflicting suffering on animals, this is not a reason to reverse processes that
appear to be natural, and it most certainly is not a defence of violence to
prevent violence. For an animal rights supporter to go round killing medical
scientists is equivalent to a member of the Zebra Protection Society shooting
lions. If we use animals for meat or for vital research, for instance in
combating disease, then that is part of the whole evolutionary pattern by means
of which survival depends on advantage. But on the other hand (agnostics cannot
help waving the other hand), we must impose limits on our advantage if we are to
maintain it. By over-exploiting or killing off other species, we will ultimately
deprive ourselves not only of our own food sources, but also of the biodiversity
and the ecological benefits that those species bring to our planet.
As far as our own animal nature is concerned, so caught up are we in our
self-awareness that we forget what we are. It is a similar process to that by
which we build streets and houses to form a city, and then forget that
underneath is a layer of earth, and if we once more removed the streets and
houses, there would once more be earth. We cover up nature, and we cover up
ourselves. This is not to say that we do not differ from other animals, but
until we recognize the common points, we shall never attain a proportionate view
of ourselves or of them.
3854 Postings in 258 Threads, 36 registered users, 3 users online (0 registered, 3 guests)
RSS Feed