Theoria

I am working on the last parts of my dissertation and have been wondering about the concepts of human and animal. It is commonly observed in animal studies that the concept of human is constituted through the expulsion of the animal. That is, humans are humans because they are not animals. Obviously, it is recognized on some levels–even in the least thoughtful of people–that humans are, nonetheless, animal in some respect: we are living creatures in more or less the same way. However, humans are nonetheless different than animals and this (minor) difference makes all the difference in the world. Thus, if a creature can speak, it is human; if a creature cannot speak, it is animal; if a creature is made in the image of God, it is human; if a creature is not made in the image of God, it is animal. Those working in animal studies like to “complicate” this distinction. After all, the internal diversity of the two concepts suggests a greater range of difference within the category of animal than between the categories of human and animal. For instance, estimates range from between three and over thirty million distinct species captured within the category of animal (ranging from single-celled organisms, to sponges, to chickens, to gorillas), but only one species captured within the category of human. This strategy seems like a failure to me and I think it has to be with the more or less disavowed category of the pet in animal studies. It is true that animal studies scholars are disproportionately in support of animal rights as a moral theory and, thus, are disproportionately concerned with the fate of animals used for food. Gary Francione, for instance, likes to point out that just as there is no meaningful distinction between fur and leather, there is likewise no meaningful distinction between a dog and a pig. The animal rights position tends to obliterate differences between animals and, thus, between humans and animals. While this is powerful move in moral theory, it is a strange and weak move when we look at animals (or, better yet, human/animal relations) sociologically or anthropologically. (Having said this, the sociology and anthropology of human/animal relations remains comparatively underdeveloped relative to the moral theory.)

The thought that I am having difficulty expressing is that the distinction between human and animal is only marginally worth preserving, but only because we, as sociologists, tend to disavow the boundary concept between the two: viz., pets. This disavowal is clearly obvious in the only major survey of the sociology of animals, Adrian Franklin’s Animals and Modern Culures, where his analysis of pets is, in essence, that modernity creates conditions wherein intimate contact between humans breaks down, but that this intimate contact is nonetheless desired. As a result, animals become surrogate humans. Pets are both animal and human, but it is this very lack of distinction between the two categories that troubles Franklin: pets are animals, we are mistaken when we believe that they are human. He may be right, but I doubt it.

What needs to be done is to study the domain of the home more carefully (the history and sociology of the family/home tends to ignore pets, domesticated animals and vermin), especially as a site of domination. As Yi-Fu Tuan points out, pets (and topiaries) are the product of dominance and affection. It is at this point that we would want to also bring in children, servants, slaves, and parents.

I started drawing a diagram in my notebook today, attempting to make sense of these distinctions. I’ve reproduced it here. My handwriting is terrible! Obviously, I don’t intend for the diagram to be definitive, but suggestive.