How can modern animism, through the idea of ‘personhood’ and ‘giving, morality, and relations’ lead to a more effective care of the Earth?

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.

by stephen s4078770



Religion 2010
Ethnographic Research Project
With Marge Entermann
Seventh Day Adventist Church, (SDA) Ipswich QLD

AND

Mary (not her real name)
Exclusive Brethren (Plymouth Brethren)
Brisbane QLD


Introduction

This research project is made up of two interviews. The first, I conducted with Marge Entermann, an Adventist in her late 60s who has been a believing and practising member of the SDA Church since birth. The second was conducted by Carla with ‘Mary’ a member of the Exclusive Brethren Church since birth. The theme of this research is to explore how the interviewees’ religious background has informed their attitudes to the environment in general and how what they have observed or experienced in nature may have informed their religious beliefs

Method

My interview was carried out over one and a half hours on Sunday April 20 at the home of Mr and Mrs Entermann on the rural outskirts of Ipswich. The interview consisted of about 20 prepared questions which were added to during the interview as the topic of conversation shifted and as time allowed. The interview was tape recorded. Marge kept a copy of the Bible beside her on the armchair from which she quoted liberally throughout the interview.
Carla’s interview was conducted in Brisbane at Mary’s workplace. Mary is a receptionist for an accountant on Brisbane’s southside. This interview was carried out during Mary’s lunch break in order to ensure that other Exclusive Brethren Church members did not find out.

The interviews

Carla’s interviewee Mary reveals opinions that are very similar to those expressed by Marge. The natural world has been provided by God for the nourishment of the human race. Humans are permitted indeed expected to dominate over the land and all that dwells upon it because it is ordained by God. This notwithstanding, both interviewees did express a concern for the way that the environment has been exploited and destroyed by humans. Mary, Carla’s interviewee expressed a feeling of concern for the extinction of many ‘beautiful creatures’ which have been put here for the ‘aesthetic improvement’ of the world. Marge expressed the same by saying that all the plants and animals were put here by God for ‘me to enjoy’ and their extinction, which she conceded was sad, is due to our Original Sin. Even though both Mary and Marge do express the view that the environment has a value that is separate from any value that people may give to it, nature is still subordinated to the sustenance of the human race.

Marge was born ‘sixty something years ago’ in Ipswich. She was born an Adventist and has been one all her life just as Mary was born an Exclusive Brethren and has always been one. As a child in Ipswich she once found a baby leveret in a shallow ditch in a paddock, she brought it home. It died. She became distressed and her father told her that it had died because she had taken it out of its native environment. While she remembers this after more than fifty years, it was not any sort of ‘turning point’ in her attitude to nature. Marge said that in her childhood she was aware of the presence of God all around her. Although she never had a particular, favourite place she did like to go outside and walk in the garden or in the bush- a place where she could feel God’s presence by looking at creation all around her. Her father had come from a dryland farming background in South Australia and was very aware of conservation- something she absorbed by listening to him. Marge said: “We SDA believe when God made Adam and Eve and put them in the garden He told them to care for it and we have a responsibility and this has been part of my upbringing”.

This notion of ‘looking after the environment’ comes out clearly in Marge’s interview. Her view is one that could be described as a sort of human ‘stewardship’ over the earth. White’s 1967 Thesis on “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis” however claims that the duality in Christianity that separated Humans from Nature placing us above the rest of creation has been the cause of today’s environmental catastrophe. White argues that Christianity is a highly anthropocentric religion that has given humans a divine justification to exploit nature with indifference and impunity. The implication being that the further humans were from nature the closer they would be to God. However this view is highly contested. Harrison (1999:86) says that White’s arguments of a cause-and-effect relationship between Christianity and environmental degradation are false. In history there has been environmental destruction without Christianity and at the same time many Christians have been more environmentally aware than adherents of other faiths.



Sanitarium Health Food Factory, Warburton, Victoria- Marge lived in the Adventist Community here for 8 years

Marge trained as a nurse, got married and went down to Warburton, Victoria which was and still is known for its large Adventist community and the famous Sanitarium Food Factory. She lived in Warburton for 8 years. Later she moved to Newcastle and worked in Newcastle Hospital. She was always honest and up front about her religion. She always observed the Sabbath and practised and preached vegetarianism as God’s plan for humanity.



We then focussed on vegetarianism. For SDA nutrition is very, very important. When SDA say that their body is like a sacred temple, they mean it. The centrality of ‘good food’ is inescapable- it’s part of worshipping God. Marge quoted from Genesis 1:29-30, God said:
“Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree, in the which (sic) is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat”.



And so God’s original diet for Humans was nuts, grains and seeds. This, Marge told me was what we were designed to eat- we were designed to live forever on that diet. After Adam and Eve sinned they could no longer leisurely pick seeds, nuts and berries, they would have to cultivate the earth and only by the sweat of their brow (agriculture) would they eat. It was only after the Flood that God allowed humans to eat flesh. Marge quoted Genesis 9:1-3:

"Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all of the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands”.

Not just any flesh could be eaten- only animals that both chew the cud and have a split hoof- cows, goats, and sheep. But not pigs- they have a split hoof but don’t chew the cud- and not camels, they chew the cud but don’t have a split hoof.



Sanitarium is an Adventist-owned Australian company with a huge range of vegetarian foods that promote a healthy lifestyle.
Good nutrition is a very important part of the Adventist way of life

In later life Marge also worked as a missionary in India. She worked near Hyderabad and then Bangalore in South India. She gave health talks to villagers on everything from nutrition to promiscuity to the effects of smoking. Here again I understood how for Seventh Day Adventist people their body is like a temple. Marge has never been a smoker or drinker. To do so would be like defiling a temple. And the results can be seen in their life expectancy. Adventists have a longer life expectancy than the rest of the population, Marge said. They suffer less from cardio- vascular disease and lung cancer and are less stressed.

When she came back from India Marge realised that she had accumulated too much ‘stuff’. Her house was full of it. What was it all for? Marge told me that seeing the Indians in the village with a simple life made her realise that she had cluttered her life with too much stuff that had no importance to her.
“Do you think perhaps people in this society have too much?” I asked.
“Of course” she answered. “We’re burdened down by it”. Marge stated that she recognised the environmental ‘unsustainability’ of the present growth-oriented system.

During her life Marge also used her background in nursing to be active in what she called, “health evangelism” using the knowledge that her religious background had given her. She ran get-fit classes for the over-40s in the days when they didn’t have many classes for older people. She assisted in ‘quit smoking’ campaigns starting in the 60s and ran nutrition courses in Ipswich; she did displays at the Ipswich Show and even organised health camps where people could come and eat healthy food and take health walks.

I asked Marge if people can know God by themselves, can they experience God, the divine, the Spirit without being taught it. Marge gave an interesting answer. Yes, of course you can experience God. God is all around us in nature but to know what God expects of us, where we come from and where we’re going we have the Bible to show us. The stories in the Bible show us how to lead our lives.

I told Marge that I grew up in the Catholic tradition but that I wasn’t very ‘practising’ anymore. As the interview came to an end she leaned forward in the armchair. She said something that I wasn’t expecting.

“Not every Catholic will end up in Heaven, you know” she said. “Not every SDA will end up in Heaven either. There are those who want to live their lives in harmony with God’s word. They are God’s People no matter what name is attached to them”.
“There are God’s People in every religion.
This is what we call the Church Universal”.


REFERENCES

Cohen, J. (1985). The Bible, Man and Nature in the History of Western Thought: A call for Reassessment. The Journal of Religion 65(2):155-172

Harrison, P. (1999). Subding The Earth. Genesis One: Early Modern Science and the Exploitation of Nature. The Journal of Religion 79(1):86-109

Holy Bible: New International Version. (1978). New York: American Bible Society.

White, L.(1967). The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis. Science 155: 1203-1212

interesting webpages related to christianity and/or vegetarianism:

http://www.all-creatures.org/fol/index.html
http://www.all-creatures.org/cva/mission.htm
http://www.christianecology.org/BiologicalBasis.html
http://www.counterbalance.net/enviro/intro-frame.html
http://www.jesusveg.com/qow699.html
http://www.sdada.org/index.htm
http://www.ivu.org/congress/wvc65/golden.html