In this session we will discuss different ways of perceiving relationships between human beings and the more-than-human world of nature. Drawing on three texts by women raised in the Western culture, yet confronted with the very different cultural worlds, we will examine the assumptions that our culture makes about the relationships between different forms of life. We will also notice how the denial of our biological vulnerability in terms of injury, illness, and death, prevents us to notice the shared kinship with other living beings.

For each of these three authors, this realization is brought about by an encounter with another animal – dingo, crocodile, and bear. For two authors, Val Plumwood and Nastassja Martin, his ‘meeting’ presented an existential danger, and the very painful survival lead the authors to question their ‘ordinary’ understanding of the world. Engaging with alternative cultural worlds, such as those of animism, allows them to unearth the multiplicity of meanings of what it means to be alive, and on what different kind of forms this can take. For the third author, Deborah Bird Rose, the facing of death is related to the harm to the living world, and the possibility of extinction.

readings

Deborah Bird Rose. Wild Dog Dreaming

Chapters 1 – Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? (1-16)

Chapter 2 – Looking into Extinction (17-28)

Chapter 4 – Ecological Existentialism (42-51)

Chapter 6 – Singing Up the Others (59-70)

Val Plumwood. The Eye of the Crocodile

Chapters 1 – Meeting the Predator (9-21)

Chapter 6 – Animals and Ecology (77-90)

Nastassja Martin. In the Eye of the Wild.

questions for discussion

Was there in your life a situation that reminded you of your mortality? Or any situation, that changed your perspective completely/made you realize something you didn’t before?

What tradition related to someone’s death and funeral you practice in your family/country/religion/ethnicity?

Nastassja Martin is an anthropologist working with a remote indigenous group in Russia, who is attacked and almost killed by a brown bear. Her area of research is about animism, and shamanism.  From the reading what do you think shamanism – for this writer – consists of? Can you describe her relationship to bears after she was ‘kissed by the bear’?  How was that different to how she related to bears before that time? How does that compare top your own relationships to bears?

Deborah Bird Rose describes the relationship of one group of indigenous Australians to dingos. How would you describe that relationship? She uses the word ‘kin’, meaning family, to describe this relationship; do you find that helpful?

Val Plumwood describes being taken by a crocodile who then went into a ‘death roll’, but somehow she miraculously survives. How does she describe her relationship to the crocodile? 

What are the similarities and differences between these writers’ relationship to totemic animals (crocodile, bear, dingo)?  And how does that compare to your own relationship to animals that are/have been important to you personally?  And what about animals that are less personally important?

Can you imagine that you are not special as a human being, not somehow above the rest of creation, but just mere food in the eyes of a predator? 

Deborah Bird Rose, developing the position outlined by Val Plumwood, explores in some detail the ethical dimension of our relationship to the more-than-human world; what do you consider to be the core principles of her thinking here? For instance, the idea from Levinas that we are all in relationship to others, that who we are is defined by our relationship to others (humans), but that the other is ultimately unknowable. How does this compare to your own ethical relationship to the more-than-human? 

Has reading these tests made you reconsider your own ethical relationship to the more-than-human? How might this ethical perspective play out in both in your daily life and in your practice as doctor?

If, as Deborah Bride Rose writes, (some) animals are kin – family – how would that change your relationship to those animals?  Think, for instance, about your pet dog or cat.  How might it change your ideas of what happens to you after you die?

Val Plumwood suggests that seeing the more-than-human as kin is also seen in cycles of life and death – do you agree with that? Can you think of other examples where there is a continuity between both human culture and ecological embeddedness, and that of the more-than-human? 

“I see human/nature dualism as a failing of my culture, time and history.” Val Plumwood wrote that in 1985. Do we still fail to acknowledge and address the human/nature dualism nowadays? 

“Nature and animals are seen as mindless bodies, excluded from the realms of ethics and culture.” Plumwood mentions the human/nature dualism as one of the possible explanations for western societies ignoring the ‘natural’, equal position of humans and animals on Earth. How, in your opinion, can we correctly position us as humans in the rest of the animal world again?

Are there even any distinguishing characteristics between humans and the rest of the animal world, and if so, what are they?

“In a good human life we must gain our food in such a way as to acknowledge our kinship with those whom we make our food, which does not forget the more than food that every one of us is, and which positions us reciprocally as food for others’”. Our relationship to food and diet is undoubtedly one of the most important choices in human life that directly influence our impact on the earth. With accepting and considering the fact that even humans can be food for other species, she offers one example of how to incorporate this idea into our thinking. What else can we do to remind ourselves and others of the importance of seeing us as a part of nature, rather than a separate, privileged entity?

How unique are we? Are we just one of 6,500 mammal species on Earth, or do we stand above the others?

How does this go together with our responsibility for this planet? Are we SPECIAL and supposed to take care of our planet? Or are we just part of the whole system trying to survive as any other species?

Do we have the right to regulate other species and make decisions about their lives? (What about invasive species?) Which species do we prioritize? Is it okay that we protect animals that we like and find cute (like Dingo :))? 

In envisioning an ecological existentialism, do you believe humanity can transition to a mutually beneficial co-existence with nature, or are we hindered by the inertia of modern lifestyles, resistant to the necessary shifts in values and behaviors?

How might the accelerating development of artificial intelligence intersect with ecological existentialism, prompting us to reevaluate the nature of our relationship with the natural world and our place within it?

In the perspective of ecological existentialism, we do not exist as separate entities, but are always in the process of becoming through relationships with others – and that means that ethics are absolutely central. Who are these others who are so important to my becoming, and what ethical consideration do I give them?

In the book, the concept of ‘hyperseparation’ portrays culture and nature as stark opposites. However, could there be a harmonious coexistence where culture and nature are not seen as separate entities but rather as interconnected parts of a unified whole?

Given the current and projected future global population, is it feasible to maintain ontological veganism or ecological animalism as sustainable dietary practices capable of nourishing the entire population without adverse consequences? What adverse consequences might there be? And what would the alternative be?

For millennia, humans have engaged in livestock farming. Why do you think it’s only in recent years that people have begun debating the treatment of animals and explore concepts like ecological animalism?

The shift towards intensive industrial farming practices intensified after WWII. Instead of a handful of chickens scrabbling in the fields, we now have industrial units of a quarter of a million birds with a strict regime of 6 weeks from egg to chicken meat in the supermarket shelf – there is a fairly high mortality rate among chickens in this process, but that is considered by the industry to be economically insignificant (and let’s not even mention the ethical dimension).  Chickens have been reduced to protein production units, and as they are the most efficient ‘machines’ for converting vegetable protein into animal protein (and are now genetically altered to maximise meat production), chicken meat now fills our supermarkets and our sandwiches. For me this raises the question: who or what are we turning into – who are we becoming –  through this relationship with chickens?  

And if we can do this to chickens, what does it allow us to do to human beings who we classify as animals – and thereby remove them from ethical consideration – in order to facilitate their killing?

additional resources

Robin Wall Kimmerer. Speaking of Nature. Finding language that affirms our kinship with the natural world (essay)

Deborah Bird Rose. Dingo Makes us Human. Life and Land in an Aboriginal Australian Culture (book)

Deborah Bird Rose. Shimmer. Flying Fox Exuberance in Worlds of Peril (book)