Word Length:2000
Due Date: 02/06/2008
Lecturer: Dr. Sylvie Shaw
Raymond Lam
INTRODUCTION
The ‘personhood’ of non-human entities is a concept common to many traditions of animism. A common theme emerges when applied to the context of modern environmental earth care. This essay will put forward an approach that abandons the commonplace anthropocentric worldview, and re-engage with the Earth and its beings in three different aspects of being: giving, moral, and relational. What is offered is not a mere bastardization of animist values, which in itself offers nothing truly innovative or daring, but a re-imagining of the personhood of non-human subjects (I intentionally do not use the word ‘object’), which not only brings neglected animist ideas back to the forefront, but has the potential to even transcend cultural boundaries. The understanding of all beings on Earth as ‘persons’ is not limited to one people; it belongs to all. For lack of a better word, humans (people) and non-humans (animals and other non-human subjects) are all ‘persons’ in the truest sense of the word: worthy of care and protection.
Through a new understanding of this ‘personhood’ , the animism of the future becomes an ethical contribution that awakens us to our oneness with Earth and non-human subjects. Human beings have potential to care for non-human subjects by generously giving to them, encompassing them within the moral sphere, and establishing relations with them like the animist of old. This essay attempts to demonstrate the validity of ‘personhood-based’ animism as a modern environmental approach, and then build on the three animist concepts (giving, morality and relations) to present a modern ethic of care through which people can put into practice.
ANIMISM
In the next century, the sixth mass extinction is foretold to be a human-caused catastrophe. However, the endeavour to preserve the world so that humans can continue to benefit from it or be ‘spared nature’s wrath’ remains trapped in anthropocentrism. A higher, deeper end to this cause is required. But ignorant of this reality, modern discourse has continued to exclude animals from the domains of self-awareness, intention and communication, which have been held to be the exclusive attributes of the human race. This denial not only cuts away at little remaining time humanity holds, but continues to foster indifference and ignorance to the plight of the Earth. This is almost an unnecessary problem, because even now archaeologists and palaeontologists can only make their judgments about what constitutes a ‘human specimen’ within the limits of material evidence. Thanks to new evidence, the line between humans and ‘primates’ is thinner than ever. There is no clear-cut line between humanity and animals – in fact, there is none. Without the scientific justification to claim human difference and superiority over animals, some have appealed to emotions and prejudices by appealing to our self-awareness, intention, and self-reflexiveness, which are traits apparently exclusive to humans.
However, in current scientific studies much of the results are indicating that this convenient illusion can no longer be upheld. Such research has shown that different animals possess different unique qualities that are ‘human’: self-motivation, communality, and degrees of individuality and solitude. The British philosopher Anthony Grayling gives a powerful example of apes: ‘dehumanized’ in literature and media as ferocious or stupid, apes are in fact ‘inquisitive, affectionate and sociable, with capacities for suffering and grief that match our own.’ Animists observe that animals are not simply ‘living beasts’ but persons because they relate, communicate and perform actions that are directed toward humans. Animals exercise choice, intention, and purpose, towards each other and towards humans. Seen this way, it becomes unreasonable not to treat an animal as a ‘person’ with ‘personhood’.
Accepting animals’ essential ‘personhood’ also helps us to understand animism (at least, the animism which is potentially relevant to a modern ethic of Earth care). Derived from the Latin anima, or literally, ‘breath’ and later some form of soul, animism sees the spirit or soul as a personal entity, which is ascribed to humans, other animals, and objects alike. It must be clarified that animism does not draw a distinction between animate or inanimate objects. This personal soul, which ‘animates’ any physical entity, possesses human characteristics of perception, feeling, and thought, and is also capable of producing influences or effects in the physical world. Having replaced the lifeless ‘object’ with a relational ‘subject’ for everything on Earth, the understandings of ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ suddenly becomes more diverse. The spirit can be understood as an additional component apart from the material composition which enlivens, individuates and socializes them, or as varieties of elusive persons who could have no material form, or shift between apparent physical manifestations. Or, in the Ojibwa worldview, there is an idea of metamorphosis, where both living and dead humans can assume the bodies of animals. This indicates that as far as appearance is concerned, there is no hard line between animals and humans. These diverse opinions are all in agreement with the current discourse on non-humans’ personhood because there is now awareness of the acute degree of ignorance with which we have treated the ‘unaware’ subjects of the world. Therefore, with an understanding of ‘personhood’ and a humbled approach to the problems Earth faces, the animism of old becomes an aspect of ‘sacred science’. A sacred science is different from common perceptions of science because it entails morality and action, something that conventional science looks to the moral philosophers for advice. But to a ‘sacred scientist’, nature becomes a ‘cosmic book’, where a person’s very actions within the natural immediate world speak of her morality. With a foundation in animism, a human’s ethic of ‘personhood’ becomes a science wed to sancitity. Now it remains to apply this ethic of care to a wounded world.
SAVING THE EARTH IN THE MODERN ANIMIST CONTEXT
The first step in humanity’s plan of action is the generous act of giving. Often this giving is a countergift, a return for favour already bestowed. For example, plants, like humans and animals, give parts of themselves to other creatures. They contribute to the Earth, whether through wood or tobacco. Animism does not simply demand an reciprocal obligation to animals, but to all non-human subjects. Yet the respectful and gentle communion with plants such as trees is ridiculed in superficial circles of society because the conventional treatment of trees is to cut them down to use as timber, not to tend to them or to raise them. It is a similar reason as to why it is seen as ludicrous to commune with cows; because the common interaction with such creatures is to milk or kill them for their nourishment. Therefore ‘giving back’ to the Earth that has sacrificed so much for our existence is a spiritual imperative. The reflective animist understands that the trees and the cows have given her life and health, and it is her turn to return a part of herself as an offer of reconciliation. It is through gift and countergift that relations of friendship are established and maintained, whether among men or between man and god. To re-establish our friendship with Earth and Earth’s beings, then, a modern animist also must give freely to the natural world in whatever way she can.
Another powerful manner of ‘giving’ is verbal in nature and a common study in academic research of animism: the shifting of language use. As demonstrated earlier, it becomes important to speak of all beings as ‘persons’, of all non-human things as subjects as opposed to objects, and give equal consideration to both animal and human as persons with capacities for suffering. Mutual obligation is present in much of animist thought, including the Ojibwa. As hunter-gatherers, humans depend on beings who are under the control of ‘masters’ or ‘owners’ who, as other-than-human persons, must be treated with respect, and ensure that there is no unneccessary cruelty involved. The change in language use is not big, but it is a modern foundation of applying, in principle, what ‘giving’ can constitute in animism, because animists offer gifts to subjects. They give away to those who will receive gifts within a relationship. Furthermore, gift-giving creates order and stablizes these honour-bound relationships. From an objective perspective, the Earth nourishes humans and has done so for thousands of years. For one to ‘offer’ oneself in return (every gift implies an expectation, or even obligation, of a countergift ) is to fundamentally re-establish order between the spirits of Earth and humanity. Order is an idea that so many humans outwardly value, but possess little awareness of. Giving is very practical activity that can lead to a deeper understanding of how we should tend to the Earth.
Aside from the order that is re-established through generous giving, humanity must engage in an ‘expansion of the moral sphere’. Grayling is correct when he remarks that we would be horrified to eat our own pets, non-human creatures whom we accept into the familiar domain of our own family, as quasi-citizens of the human world. The relationship between a householder and a pet is, in fact, a relationship between two persons because human treatment of pets is premised on the same manner of concern for other humans. Logically, it is not only pets who deserve attention, affection and care, though the concern for pets (who are almost certainly close members of the family) may be understandably more immediate. Many moral philosophers talk of extending care beyond one’s familiar sphere to encompass all humanity, and this has practical consequences. For example, humans share half their genetic makeup with worms and fruit-flies. To extend our sphere of to these non-humans would entail that the reflective person eventually decides to abstain from fishing practices that require her to spear said worms on fish-hooks. This brief instance undercuts the idea that once the moral sphere is enlarged, there is no rational reason to stop it from expanding. It makes no sense to stop the ethical expansion in relation to pets and animals in general. This conscious aesthetic can be cultivated by all peoples, because it is intellectually understood that the world is an intimate family, both for scientists and for animists. Scientists become engaged in a ‘sacred science’ once they adopt animist principles of treating everything on Earth and the Earth itself as ‘persons’, capable of love, sacrifice, and suffering.
Through examining the spiritual significance of Nature itself , the modern animist also discovers an opportunity for ‘relational re-enactment’. Superficially speaking, it is applying animist principles from animist belief to one’s treatment of the natural world, but the relational aspect entails a much deeper engagement. An animist is not simple a moral philosopher who rationalizes forth a universal love for all sentients, but is personal in her approach. For example, in the analysis by Tawhai about Maori religion, spiritual activity is closely tied to the violence and conflict-resolution between humans and non-human neighbours. The idea of genealogy, or ancient ancestry, connects us all and it manifests in kinship, guesthood and even relations between enemies which, for Maori belief, is expression of mana or tabu, which can be compared to electrical forces or souls in operation. These forces, quite literally, form us – from immanent persons to ancestral persons and future progeny whom we wish to populate the Earth with. We are formed also by the interplay of seasons, climates, places, and many other conditions. Although this is a gateway to understanding Maori life in a relational universe, a more general, starker reality is revealed: an animist is not simply ‘broadly’ compassionate towards the entire Earth, although that certainly contitutes part of her approach. A more detailed and sustainable ethic is through the relations between oneself the individual human subject and the Other non-human subject. Re-enactment of these complex yet essential relationships helps us to come to terms with the problem that to live is to take life. This forms much of the impetus to animist activity. Relational re-enactment is directly related to the practice of ‘giving’ and the extension of the moral sphere because Maori do not predicate the right to use Earth’s natural resources on claims of difference or superiority, and emphasize greatly the etiquette of relationships. Offerings are made, gifts are given, and excess profits are returned. This is the correct way to treat life-givers.
Of course, the practice of this principle may be different between a Maori and a modern Westerner (the Maori will, with appropriate invocations, placating and requesting of permission, take wood from trees to craft into a culturally recognised and celebrated treasure). The modern citizen living in an urban apartment in a bustling metropolis will, by necessity, will approach giving, morality, and relating in different ways. She will have to be creative in imagining methods to ‘give back’ to the Earth, especially in a city that has taken much from the Earth. But it is a progressive step when one ‘asks for permission’ from the Earth, the sea, or the forests. When the transformation from tree-things to tree-persons is complete, the unfolding of further events is within the relationship of the human and the tree-person. Animism is concered with the unfolding of potential in relationships. New relationships entail new personhood rather than the mere discovery of life in certain non-human subjects. The respectful treatment of nature whether in a ‘benign’ or ‘hostile’ relationship can now unfold.
CONCLUSION
The approach of an animist towards other persons, not just people, is through an ethic of relation, empathy, and oneness. This is the foundation for genuine ecological awareness and action. Understanding the severity of humanity’s impact on the world is one important perspective of the current crisis. But another important perspective is from the non-human world: that is, the suffering of animal and plant persons; along with the person of the Earth itself. Giving back to the Earth oneself as a ‘gift’, extending one’s moral reach to non-humans, and ‘relational re-enactments’ are three ways to remedy their suffering. This model of care will not only bring the animist spirit into a light relevant to the modern world, but provide some frameworks in which for human beings to enact change. Although the movement back to peaceful coexistence is an urgent one, seen positively, there has also never existed a better time to re-establish harmony. The time to give, extend one’s hand, and enter into relationship is now.
REFERENCES
Bleakly, Alan (2000) The Animalizing Imagination: Totemism, Textuality and Ecocriticism. Great Britain, United Sates, Macmillian Press Ltd.
Burkert, Walter (1996) Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Cambrdige, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press
Clodd, Edward (1905) Animism: The Seed of Religion. London: Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd.
Dunlap, Knight (1946) Religion: Its Functions in Human Life: A Study of Religion from the Point of View of Psychology. New York, London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.
Grayling, A.C. (2002) The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life. London: Phoenix
Harvey, Graham (2006) Animism: Respecting the Living World. New York: columbia University Press
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1993) The Need for a Sacred Science. United Kingdom: Curzon Press Ltd.
Smith, Theresa S. (1995) The Island of the Anishnaabeg: Thunderers and Water Monsters in the Traditional Ojibwe Life-World. Moscow: University of Idaho Press
Tawhai, Te Pakaka (1988) ‘Maori Religion’ in Stewart Sutherland and Peter Clarke (eds) The Study of Religion, Traditional and New Religion. London: Routledge, pg. 96 – 105. Reprinted in Graham Harvey (ed.) (2002) pg. 237 – 249
A. Irving Hallowell, ‘Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View’ in Tedlock, Dennis and Barbara (1975) Teachings from the American Earth: Indian Religion and Philosophy. New York: Liveright, pg. 141 – 178
Trompf, Garry (1990) In Search of Origins. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd.
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