Da molti anni viaggio per l’Italia con i miei studenti americani, e per qualche anno abbiamo anche soggiornato in Campania. Senza anticipare troppe informazioni ai miei studenti, li ho accompagnati a visitare alcune delle famose tenute dove le bufale (Bubalus bubalis) sarebbero “massaggiate e felici,” e quindi la mozzarella, e le carni, sarebbero ancora più deliziose. Mi ha meravigliato l’ampio spettro di reazioni dimostrate dagli studenti, dall’orrore per lo stato degli animali, all’assoluta noncuranza sottolineata da immediate richieste di assaggiare il gelato fatto con il latte delle bufale. Quello che sto scrivendo non è il risultato di un’inchiesta investigativa stile “Report,” ma semplicemente quello che ogni turista può vedere in una qualunque di queste tenute.

Ogni volta che sento parlare delle “bufale felici”, quelle che nei video e articoli promozionali ascoltano musica, si grattano con spazzole rotanti e vivono una vita bucolica su prati verdissimi, provo una rabbia profonda. Per anni siamo stati abituati a un immaginario pastorale, come se la mozzarella di bufala fosse il risultato naturale di un’armonia tra esseri umani, territorio e animale. Ma basta scavare un po’ — e leggere alcuni studi scientifici, non solo inchieste attiviste — per scoprire che la verità è molto diversa. In realtà basta una veloce visita turistica in una delle famose masserie felici, magari dopo una visita alla bellissima Paestum, per constatare che si tratti… proprio di una bufala. In tutte le mie visite non ho mai sentito una sola nota musicale, e le spazzole per alleviare i pruriti delle povere bufale erano sempre malfunzionanti…

La bufala è un animale che trae benessere psicofisico dall’accesso all’acqua e all’ambiente umido (Napolitano et al., 2007; De Rosa & Grasso, 2012) e ha un pelo ispido e una pelle particolarmente soggetta a pruriti. La letteratura etologica documenta come il pascolo e la possibilità di immergersi o sostare in acqua siano comportamenti naturali fondamentali. La privazione di questi elementi provoca stress, maggiore incidenza di zoppie e problemi podali — un fenomeno ben documentato nelle bovine da latte allevate su cemento, e che vale a maggior ragione per le bufale (Cook & Nordlund, 2009). Gli allevamenti bufalini intensivi in Campania sono ormai la norma, non l’eccezione. Già vent’anni fa, Masucci et al. (2003) avevano rilevato criticità significative nelle aziende bufaline campane, anche in quelle biologiche, utilizzando l’indice ANI (Animal Needs Index). Lo studio mostrava problemi di spazio insufficiente, carenze di stimoli e arricchimenti, e condizioni sanitarie non ottimali. È doloroso pensare che ciò che già allora risultava problematico oggi sia diventato strutturale: densità elevatissime, pavimentazione in cemento, condizioni igieniche insufficienti.

[Le vere condizioni delle bufale durante una normale visita turistica: niente pascolo, niente musica, e nessuna spazzola per grattarsi. Le bufale mostrano chiaramente ansia, malessere, sofferenza o completo sconforto e apparente distacco. Tutte le foto di questo articolo sono dell’autrice.]

Quando poi leggo rapporti scientifici come quelli di Campanile et al. (2010), che analizzano la fisiologia della bufala in lattazione, capisco quanto sia fragile l’equilibrio biologico di questi animali. Le bufale, come naturalmente le mucche, non sono “macchine da latte”, come spesso vengono trattate: sono animali con esigenze etologiche precise, fra cui ambienti umidi e possibilità di movimento. Il confinamento intensivo, unito alla pressione produttiva, altera profondamente il loro benessere. E poi c’è la questione dei vitelli, forse la parte che più colpisce emotivamente. La separazione precoce dalle madri è una pratica diffusa, benché la letteratura sul comportamento materno nei bovini dimostri l’importanza del legame madre-figlio per la riduzione dello stress neonatale e per un corretto sviluppo comportamentale (von Keyserlingk & Weary, 2007; Flower & Weary, 2003). Gli studi sull’impatto psicologico della separazione precoce nelle vacche segnalano vocalizzazioni prolungate, agitazione, riduzione dell’ingestione e comportamenti stereotipati: fenomeni osservati anche nei bufali, come documentato da De Rosa et al. (2009). Nelle cosiddette aziende delle “bufale felici”, i vitellini vengono lasciati con le madri solo per dieci giorni, poi trascorrono alcune settimane da soli in gabbie buie, affrontando alti tassi di mortalità e condizioni durissime. Questi vitelli non sono nemmeno nascosti: basta esplorare oltre i piazzali sporchi e sovraffollati dove si trovano gli adulti per imbattersi nei piccoli. Anche solo il letame raccolto mensilmente per produrre biomasse fattura circa 50 mila euro al mese, dunque gli introiti non mancano e si potrebbe benissimo reinvestire per migliorae il welfare e la cura di questi animali, fra l’altro indubbiamente intelligenti e sensibili (con ciò non intendo dire che sono solo gli animali intelligenti a meritare maggiore benessere: tutte le forme di vita lo meritano).

Niente di tutto questo compare nelle brochure patinate delle masserie. Più che pratiche mirate al benessere, La musica classica e le spazzole sono invece un tentativo di distrarre i consumatori e di ripulirne la coscienza. La letteratura accademica è chiara: il benessere animale non può essere affidato a gadget, a ideali capitalistici antropocentrici, ma dipende da accesso al pascolo, spazio, qualità della gestione, autonomia degli animali e rispetto dei loro comportamenti naturali (Fraser, 2008). Anche la tecnologia delle “smart farm”, tanto celebrata dai media, risulta ambigua alla luce degli studi. L’automazione può facilitare la gestione, ma se l’animale resta confinato su cemento per tutta la vita, l’impatto sul benessere resta marginale (Gasparotto et al., 2021). Le tecnologie digitali, da sole, non sostituiscono ciò che gli etologi chiamano “natural living” o “species-appropriate environment” — uno dei tre pilastri fondamentali del welfare animale. Sul piano sanitario, le controversie sugli abbattimenti per sospetta brucellosi e TBC sollevano ulteriori quesiti. Diversi report tecnici e parlamentari hanno evidenziato come gli abbattimenti abbiano riguardato numeri enormi di animali, ben superiori ai casi realmente positivi, generando conflitti tra allevatori e istituzioni (Relazione Senato della Repubblica, 2022). Non servono studi scientifici per capire che quando un sistema di allevamento è fragile, sovraffollato e stressato, le malattie trovano un terreno fertile. È semplice epidemiologia. La letteratura veterinaria aggiunge un altro elemento cruciale: l’accumulo di deiezioni, se non gestito correttamente, aumenta il rischio di mastiti, infezioni podali e contaminazioni ambientali (Smith, 2002). Una stalla pulita non è una mera questione estetica: è una condizione strutturale della salute animale. E non posso fare a meno di pensare che tutto questo debba cambiare. Non per idealismo, ma perché ce lo dice la scienza. Gli studi sugli allevamenti estensivi mostrano che un maggiore accesso all’esterno riduce stress, malattie, mortalità neonatale e bisogno di antibiotici (Olmos et al., 2009). È quindi possibile una filiera più etica? Sì, ma a patto di rimettere l’animale — non la produttività — al centro del sistema.

[Maggio 2024, vitellini di bufala isolati in gabbie scure che esibiscono comportamenti stereotipati.]

A questo punto, i consumatori dovrebbero almeno pretendere la verità. Se vogliamo davvero parlare di bufale felici, allora dobbiamo fare in modo che lo siano davvero: che abbiano spazio, erba, acqua, relazione materna, dignità. Nel caso degli animali da latte, i vitellini non dovrebbero essere prematuramente separati dalle madri solo per assicurarsi di commercializzare tutto il latte. Se ci vantiamo di essere una specie evoluta, siamo certamente anche in grado di conservare una parte del latte per i vitelli, senza doverli allontanare completamente dalle madri o per lo meno da una vacca “nutrice”. Se non fosse la scienza a dircelo, basterebbe un minimo di empatia, che è poi anche etica. Ma più passa il tempo, più sento che per lo meno la scienza dovremmo ascoltarla.

[Anche altri animali ospiti di queste tenute vivono in condizioni di negligenza, con il benestare dei veterinari responsabili delle tenute (che ignorano ogni segnalazione). Purtroppo ho riscontrato molta insensibilità tra i veterinari italiani che lavorano con gli animali da allevamento, un tratto che di norma non caratterizza questa categoria.]

Bibliografia

Campanile, G., Neglia, G., Di Palo, R., Gasparrini, B., Vecchio, D., Russo, M., & Zicarelli, L. (2010). Physiological and productive responses of dairy buffaloes to different feeding and management systems. Italian Journal of Animal Science, 9(2), 245–257.

Cook, N. B., & Nordlund, K. V. (2009). The influence of the environment on dairy cow behavior, claw health and herd lameness dynamics. Veterinary Journal, 179(3), 360–369.

De Rosa, G., Grasso, F., & Napolitano, F. (2009). Metodologie di valutazione del benessere nelle bufale da latte. Large Animal Review, 15(3), 123–130.

De Rosa, G., & Grasso, F. (2012). Behaviour and welfare of buffaloes. Italian Journal of Animal Science, 11(2), 220–230.

Flower, F. C., & Weary, D. M. (2003). The effects of early separation on the dairy cow and calf. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 80(4), 301–318.

Fraser, D. (2008). Understanding animal welfare: The science in its cultural context. Wiley-Blackwell.

Gasparotto, P., et al. (2021). Precision livestock farming and dairy buffalo production: limits and opportunities. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8, 1–12.

Masucci, F., Di Francia, A., De Rosa, G., & Grasso, F. (2003). Problematiche alimentari e del benessere animale in aziende bufaline della Campania. Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.

Napolitano, F., Pacelli, C., Grasso, F., & De Rosa, G. (2007). The behavior and welfare of buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) in dairy farms. Italian Journal of Animal Science, 6(S1), 333–336.

Smith, K. L. (2002). Mastitis in dairy animals: a review. Journal of Dairy Science, 85(5), 1141–1149.

Von Keyserlingk, M. A. G., & Weary, D. M. (2007). Maternal behavior in cattle. Hormones and Behavior, 52(1), 106–113.

Olmos, G., Boyle, L., Hanlon, A., Patton, J., Murphy, J. J., Mee, J. F. (2009). Calf health and behaviour in dairy systems with high versus low outdoor access. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 120(1–2), 35–41.

Nel panorama marcatamente antropocentrico dell’umanismo italiano, Giacomo Leopardi costituisce un esempio particolare non solo per la radicale critica all’antropocentrismo, ma altresì per la particolare sensibilità che introduce nella sua poetica, che precorre l’esistenzialismo esteso della filosofia postumanista. Leopardi nello Zibaldone ci mostra la materia come un’entità poietica e potenzialmente capace di pensiero, in una sorta di panismo che rompe qualunque forma di barriera all’interno della fenomenologia della vita. In questo continuum vitale e pensante, il poeta di Recanati sottolinea la pluralità dell’essere, di cui l’essere umano non rappresenta il vertice o la perfezione, bensì una fase transitoria, ponendo così una critica all’universalismo vitruviano.

Possiamo dire che Leopardi sia il poeta della condivisione, del sentire comune diffuso tra tutti gli esseri viventi, un con-sentire che si manifesta attraverso predicati di somiglianza e comunione. Ne è un esempio esplicito il Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’Asia, in cui la trasversalità predicativa viene tradotta nei versi: “in qual forma o stato che sia”. Tra i predicati condivisi ritroviamo innanzitutto la fragilità, quell’essere esposto alla crudezza del mondo che rende la vita commovente per certi aspetti e nello stesso tempo dotata di una sorta di eroismo inerente, di un valore morale in sé. In questo senso la fragilità dell’essere-in-vita e l’inevitabile caducità di questa condizione, un destino ineluttabile, induce un senso di fraternità, che assegna alla pietà non solo un significato emozionale ma altresì una valenza etica. Per altri versi, la fragilità se contrapposta allo slancio vitale che caratterizza la natura naturata, proprio in virtù della tensione eroica della vita – dotata al tempo stesso di eros e di coraggio – è di insegnamento all’essere umano.

Leopardi è altresì il poeta del corpo, un corpo commovibile nella sua dimensione affettiva, in quanto emozionabile e desiderante. Il desiderio viene interpretato da Leopardi non più come una meta, un proposito, un’ambizione, il bisogno di colmare una mancanza e tanto meno uno specifico desiderato, bensì nei termini di predicativo del soggetto, di qualità implicita, in quanto predicato verbale, che indica una tensione espressiva più che un bisogno effettivo di qualcosa. Il desiderante leopardiano viene descritto con il termine di vaghezza, espressione intensiva dell’essere-in-vita, potremmo dire dotata di un carattere copulativo, che ne dà un’apparenza teleologica, ma in sé è indefinita nei contenuti ovvero vocata a dotarsi solo successivamente di contenuti. Nella poesia Il passero solitario, la vaghezza di questo uccello – Monticola solitarius – non è verso qualcosa di preciso, ma si risolve in uno stile di vita, che nell’esprimere la propria natura dà un significato effettivo al desiderante, offrendo all’uccello la propria dimensione di appagamento, per cui “erra l’armonia per questa valle”, che ci offre l’immagine plastica della gioia di essere-in-vita.

La fenomenologia della vita in Leopardi si manifesta pertanto in una teoria del desiderante che da una titolarità di agency all’individuo, per quanto non eradicata dalla propria dimensione esistenziale. Difatti, la tensione desiderante: i) da una parte è radicata nella natura di chi desidera – “di natura è frutto ogni vostra vaghezza” – è cioè predicativa del soggetto; ii) dall’altra, proprio grazie al suo non implicare un contenuto bensì esprimere un predicato verbale inerente al soggetto, resta in sé indefinita, per l’appunto dotata di vaghezza. Da questo si sviluppa una titolarità dell’individuo nell’agire, perché la condizione indefinita del desiderante lascia spazio alla traduzione intenzionale – per dirla con le parole di Franz Brentano – ossia consente al soggetto l’estro e la libertà di completarla di contenuti modali: verso cosa dirigere l’azione intenzionale, cui aggiungere tutti i complementi circostanziali a essa riferiti. Questa prevalenza dell’espressione nella concezione leopardiana del desiderio, ritorna più volte, per esempio nella poesia Il sabato del villaggio, in cui prevale la gioia dell’immaginazione, il piacere dell’indefinizione. Si tratta di una condizione di languore espressivo, che spinge all’azione ogni essere vivente, “Gli altri augelli contenti, a gara insieme / Per lo libero ciel fan mille giri”, affratellando tutte le creature.

Leopardi mette in rilievo un altro aspetto di comunanza tra gli esseri viventi e potremmo dire lo pone come problema filosofico centrale nello Zibaldone, la dimensione temporale della vita. Il piacere è sempre temporaneo, per cui la felicità non può mai aspirare all’assolutezza, perché resta sempre confinata nel relativo e nel transeunte. Anche l’esperienza viene riportata in una condizione diacronica attraverso il principio dell’assuefazione, un processo di conformazione al mondo che si realizza nel tempo e attraverso il tempo. Ancor più che lo spazio è il tempo infinito a portare Leopardi nel naufragio, a fargli provare il sentimento ambivalente del sublime. La stessa consapevolezza di una caducità implicita nella vita suscita in Leopardi la vertigine temporale, che per certi versi toglie il fiato di fronte all’immensità delle “morte stagioni”, dall’altra mostra la risonanza, crea cioè quella dimensione immaginifica che da una sostanza diacronica all’esistenza stessa. Per Leopardi il transeunte non conduce a un’enfatizzazione del presente, all’imperativo del cogliere l’attimo o al sentimento sincronico del vivere il qui e ora, bensì allarghi lo spazio temporale creando un senso di sospensione cairologica – come se la dimensione cronologica del tempo di colpo perdesse consistenza – per cui l’attimo diventa espressione della risonanza.

Nella poesia La sera del dì di festa, questo senso di smarrimento temporale è sottolineato più volte, per esempio già nella prima strofa “Dolce e chiara è la notte e senza vento”, che ci trasmette una sensazione di sospensione, di presenza al di là del tempo stesso, col suo silenzio notturno e la sua chiarezza spaziale, non interrotto dal vento e dai suoi inevitabili fruscii. Nella poesia ogni altro riferimento – il sogno della donna amata, il solitario canto dell’artigiano, la consapevolezza della propria mortalità, le gesta dei popoli antichi – tutto è risucchiato nel vortice del tempo. Il tempo diviene metrica dell’esistenza, ma proprio per questo l’elan vital della pianta, nella poesia La ginestra assume una rilevanza ontologica ben precisa, perché consente all’essere umano di guardarsi da una prospettiva differente. In questo senso la critica leopardiana all’antropocentrismo riguarda anche l’importanza del decentramento esistenziale, l’unico modo per potersi vedere. In questo senso per Leopardi le alterità nonumane non sono mai estranee o a lui aliene, non sono mai altro-da-sé, bensì rappresentano uno specchio in cui il poeta si rivede o meglio riesce a svelare qualcosa di nascosto della propria esistenza. La natura per Leopardi è già di per sé epifania in versi e si presenta come una rivelazione che dev’essere ascoltata con attenzione e accolta come estensione di sé.

Possiamo a questo punto chiederci se Leopardi possa essere considerato, pur all’interno di una cornice culturale umanista, un poeta e filosofo del più-che-umano, se in qualche modo la sua poetica si avvicina, e quindi precorre, il postumanismo esistenziale. Dal mio punto di vista questa vicinanza per quanto azzardata possa sembrare non è priva di fondamento. La sua sensibilità lo porta a una critica dell’antropocentrismo pensata, tuttavia, primariamente sotto il profilo ontologico ed estetico – potremmo definirlo con la sola parola “poetico” – vale a dire sentito ancor prima che ragionato. L’essere parte di un destino comune consente al poeta una riflessione sull’umano scevra da distorsioni, vanità, autocelebrazioni, ma profondamente vissute, scritte sullo spartito esistenziale non attraverso una chiusura nella sofferenza ripiegata in sé ma nella partecipazione. E si tratta di un essere partecipe che non è mai chiuso all’interno dell’umanità, ma che coinvolge ogni essere vivente e che si riflette su tutte le creature divenendo un’espressione più-che-umana. In alcune poesie apparentemente svolte su un pessimismo cosmico, troviamo al contrario un vero e proprio afflato di condivisione esistenziale con tutte le creature, un sollievo nel sentirsi parte di qualcosa che va al di là della morte, perché nell’espressione generosa della vita, anche di fronte all’inevitabilità della fine e nella cieca banalità del male, scaturisce il senso stesso della morale.

Leopardi è un poeta dell’esistenzialismo esteso, che anche nella tristezza mai si rinchiude in se stesso, mai si concede a un solipsismo disperante, ma sempre si apre alla comunione con il mondo, sempre apre tutti i pori della sua esistenza alle voci che gli provengono dalla natura. C’è in lui la necessità impellente dell’accoglienza, del riflettersi nelle creature che lo circondano. La vita che si esprime attraverso le creature, la natura naturata, diventa così un’Epifania, una rivelazione capace di trascendere la dimensione individuale, la solitudine mortifera dell’individuazione, perché crea una trasversalità esistenziale. È un’epifania che riguarda anche la dimensione temporale estendendo il sentire oltre il qui e ora, in una partecipazione diacronica. Leopardi crea poesie dai forti contenuti sensoriali e sinestesici. Per descrivere il passero solitario che mostra la sua gioia cantando e volando usa il verso “erra l’armonia per questa valle”. Così facendo ci fa partecipi di una visione e di una musicalità che non resta nella dimensione fenomenica, non è uno sfondo, perché riverbera nella condizione del poeta, diviene esistenziale.

Confrontando questa poetica con il postumanismo esistenziale non possiamo non rilevare rilevanti punti in comune. La filosofia postumanista è un movimento di pensiero molto variegato al suo interno, tuttavia possiamo rinvenire alcuni temi o impostazioni comuni che la rendono riconoscibile e nello stesso tempo mostrano la discontinuità che essa inaugura. Tra gli aspetti che tuttavia mi sento di dover mettere in evidenza in questa filosofia vi è sicuramente quello della condivisione. Il postumanismo si caratterizza per la prevalenza della dimensione orizzontale dell’esistenza, al contrario del pensiero umanista in cui prevale la dimensione verticale: l’aspirazione umana a disgiungersi dal mondo, a ritagliarsi da ogni sfondo e a elidere ogni possibile condivisione, perché nella smania ascensionale e individuativa l’umanista tende a disgiungere. Nel postumanismo, viceversa, occorre favorire il flusso che intercorre nella fenomenologia della vita, mettere in rilievo le aree condivise, allargare le braccia in segno ospitale, immergersi nel continuum dionisiaco e organico. È una filosofia della sovrapposizione degli enti, dell’essere-con, dell’interconnessione e della reciproca ibridazione, della convivialità nell’essere-per-la vita. Va ribadito il carattere coniugativo del postumanismo: una filosofia che considera l’ente nei suoi predicati come espressione emergente dal carattere relazionale e dal momento relazionale instaurato dall’ente stesso. In pratica il postumanismo rigetta la visione essenzialista ed emanativa. In questo senso notiamo una profonda differenza rispetto all’impostazione umanista.

Uno dei caratteri principali della filosofia postumanista riguarda il suo mettere al centro la dimensione vitale, per certi versi incarnata, della relazione, la prevalenza del corpo nella fenomenologia della vita, per cui ogni separazione è apparente, è una distorsione prospettica, perché la vita è un continuo meticciamento esistenziale. Noi siamo attraverso gli altri. La vita per Leopardi è soprattutto tensione desiderante, inerente il soggetto nella sua specificità, ma nello stesso tempo proiettata nel mondo e condivisa tra le creature del mondo, presente in tutte le forme di vita. Leopardi utilizza un termine significativo per descrivere il desiderare come carattere proprio della vita: vaghezza, che richiama la tensione verso l’indefinito. Siamo di fronte a una tensione desiderante che non mostra il suo volto rapace, il suo desiderio di appropriarsi del mondo, ma che si traduce in un desiderio espressivo, in una partecipazione alla vita che in certi momenti diventa persino donazione. Ne è un esempio la poesia dedicata alla ginestra che anche davanti alle avversità del luogo e delle circostanze dona il suo profumo.

Parole come sensitività, affettività, fragilità, ospitalità, bisogno, donazione e persino caducità costituiscono la geografia concettuale che permette al postumanismo di tracciare una mappa di proiezione orizzontale nel mondo. Una ontologia basata sull’accoglienza e sull’ibridazione trasversale che interconnette ogni esistenza nel tempo e nello spazio. In questo senso parliamo di un esistenzialismo esteso, un essere-per-la-relazione e nello stesso tempo un essere-per-la-vita, che si differenzia in modo netto dall’esistenzialismo individuale, tipico dell’umanismo, che inevitabilmente cade nell’essere-per-la-morte. L’esistenzialismo esteso pone la relazione ibridante come evento ontologico fondamentale. L’esistenzialismo esteso si realizza in tre direzioni principali: la sensitività della carne, l’affettività del corpo, l’espressività del soggetto. Le relazioni che intesse sono espressione di una co-implicazione, l’espressione delle predisposizioni degli enti in relazione, e di una co-esplicazione, l’emergenza e lo sviluppo di nuovi predicati attraverso l’ibridazione. Ho voluto ricordare alcuni principi della filosofia postumanista, come la sua visione orizzontale nell’ambito della fenomenologia della vita, negli aspetti di condivisione di una condizione esistenziale che nella precarietà, nella fragilità e persino nella caducità esprime la sua forza. In questa direzione, Leopardi è il poeta che rompe le barriere tra l’umano e il nonumano.

L’abbraccio fraterno che Leopardi auspica tra tutte le creature diventa un messaggio oggi più che mai attuale di fronte alla gravissima crisi ecologica. Il postumanismo, infatti, ha un senso se sarà in grado di cambiare le nostre prospettive isolazioniste, se sapremo andare oltre al bisogno di disgiungerci dal mondo e segnare distinzioni per sostenere di Esistere. In questo Leopardi ci manda un messaggio di eco-politica non più eludibile, non solo mostrandoci l’insussistenza dell’antropocentrismo, ma ricordandoci come solo in una dimensione partecipativa l’essere umano può ritrovarsi e dispiegare in pienezza le sue qualità esistenziali, perché le altre creature non sono uno sfondo ma ci riportano il senso dell’esistenza.

Angela Merkel is afraid. The most “natural” explanation for fear is the presence of an actual danger. For example, being bitten or attacked by a wild animal, shot by a killer, falling while mountain climbing, or forgetting your lines while reciting on stage in front of an audience.

Zoophobias, however, are fears that do not solely arise from the presence of dangerous animals. They manifest regardless of whether wild animals are locked in zoos, dogs are kept on the leash or cats roam freely around the house when you visit their humans. A zooanthropologist knows very well that the history of civilization would have been different if our ancestors had not been scared of species such as mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, bears and wolves.

Angela Merkel is scared of dogs – cynophobia. For her, this fear is neither imaginary nor an expression of social reserve. It stems from a very real experience: she was once bitten by a dog. We know that Merkel and her family lived under Russian influence in former East Germany. Like Merkel, Putin’s cute dog might also know what it means to “be kept” by Russians.

Without jumping to conclusions, we notice that Angela Merkel shares her fear of dogs with Michael Jackson. Yet, despite his fear of mice, someone like Walt Disney could create the world’s most famous movie mouse, Mickey. However, it’s not my intention here to describe how Adolf Hitler curbed his cat phobia.

Personally, I struggle to understand why some people would like to keep fighting dogs, admire their fighting abilities and biting strength, and walk them in city parks. Nevertheless, it is absurd to assume that Putin acted in bad faith when he allowed his Labrador to roam freely during Merkel’s visit. This would only seem plausible to people who are either scared of dogs or lack knowledge about them. In fact, since in common parlance Labradors are considered “social” and “friendly” dogs, to cater to prejudices Putin should have welcomed Merkel with a German shepherd. Would that have scared her more?

In her memoirs, Merkel recalls having told Putin about her cynophobia a year before their meeting. How could someone like Putin have forgotten? Perhaps it was similar to when I, while skiing down a black slope, shouted at my little sister: “Come on, don’t be scared! It’s fun!”. Was Putin just overjoyed, caught up in the moment, or exhibiting machismo?

When in 2007 Putin hosted Merkel after Sochi had been chosen to host the 2014 Olympic Games, he was in a good mood, surrounded by friends. He probably simply wanted to share with others his joy of feeling at home – which included the joy of being with his dog. Did Putin simply forget, downplay, or intentionally disregard Merkel’s cynophobia? We will never know for certain. However, he has recently apologized formally to the former Chancellor. Merkel, for her part, never said anything at the time.

Putin speaks fluent German and Merkel fluent Russian. Could a dog have been the cause for the tension between the two political leaders? And could this incident have contributed to the strain between the two nations? Possibly. This is a strategic victory only for those who have no interest in peace between Germany and Russia. To treat cynophobia, experts recommend a progressive and gradual habituation through controlled encounters with dogs, supported by a psychotherapist or a dog trainer. This is because dog fear is often persistent, irrational and exaggerated. Here’s an urgent call to action for dog trainers: leverage your expertise and conduct controlled “encounters” — not just between people and dogs, but also between hostile political factions. The world could benefit from zooanthropology to also foster political reconciliation, sooner rather than later.

Students today are facing a mental health crisis. According to surveys of college students, the percentage of students diagnosed with an anxiety disorder varies by source, but is generally between 34% and 37% according to this article, this study and this article  -> web surveys taken by 96,000 U.S. students across 133 campuses in the 2021-22 academic year. It found that 44% of students reported symptoms of depression.

I was born in the city of Bari, Southern Italy, with an inexplicable passion for horses since I can remember. As an early teen and without a driving license, I frequently and in a somewhat rocambolesque manner, managed to escape the concrete of the city to spend time with horses in our beautiful Apulian countryside. At age 25, I moved to the USA and began my graduate studies, during which these happy escapes became a lot harder and infrequent but I could never completely disconnect from horses. In 2022, as an assistant professor at Colorado College, I founded a nonprofit organization, the Equine-Guided Learning and Healing Experience (EGLHE) to help students develop meaningful relationships with animals, with a special focus on equines. EGLHE is my personal approach to supporting learning while paying attention to mental health, one that fosters a deep and transformative relationship between humans and equines, and which ultimately benefits everyone involved. My goals are to uproot anthropocentrism, to nurture emotional well-being, self-awareness, and mindfulness through equine-assisted learning. I studied equine behavior and ethology, as well as Warwick Schiller’s Attuned Horsemanship, Lockie Phillips’ Emotional Horsemanship, Rupert Isaacson’s Athena and Movement Method, Masterson Method, Balance through Movement Method, and horse brain seminars. I created my own ethology-based and ethical method blending principles from each of these approaches, especially Warwick Schiller’s Attuned Horsemanship, with a student-centered pedagogy, focusing on trauma-informed practices and the healing power of the human-animal-nature connection.

As a donors-supported nonprofit organization under IRC section 501(c)(3), all activities offered through EGLHE are free of charge. I believe that horses, as sentient beings, can play an essential role in promoting mental health and personal growth, which is why I focus on creating an environment where young people, especially students, can connect mindfully with horses and gain valuable insights into themselves through a relationship where horses are the leaders of the interactions, they are listened to, and the sessions develop on the equine’s own terms. My own Thoroughbred horse Jimmy (Brown Almighty, born in 2010), a horse with a past of behavioral issues, is the one who inspired me to move from a more traditional and anthropocentric way of interacting with equines, to a consent-based approach, at the basis of which there is a lot of try, mutual trust, love, and understanding.

With my background as an experienced educator and human/equine relations advisor, I developed the EGLHE method to integrate academic learning with the healing power of horses. The horses involved in our program are treated with the utmost care and respect. They live in species-appropriate environments, receive top-notch veterinary care, and are given the freedom to express themselves. Importantly, they also have the choice to opt out of a session if they do not wish to participate. Sessions start and develop through observations and asks, never with demands.

At the heart of EGLHE is my belief that equines are highly emotionally intelligent beings who can play an essential role in supporting mental health and personal growth in humans, while also gaining something themselves. It is not difficult to read signs of curiosity and willing engagement in the equines involved in sessions, and often I have observed them having excellent moods lasting even a day or two after a session. I believe horses also benefit from the activities of this program because they enjoy our efforts to understand their requests, collaborating for a game, or communicating how and if they want to play, be touched, scratched, or left alone. I work with a wide range of people, although my specialization is college students, to create an environment where they can learn to connect mindfully with horses and, through this connection, gain insights into themselves. The horses involved in the program (as of today they are a Thoroughbred, a Mustang, and 5 miniature horses), are treated with the utmost care and respect, living in species-appropriate environments and receiving the best possible veterinary care. Horses are also given the freedom to express themselves, and they also have the choice not to participate in a session should they feel that way. However, typically horses are asked to participate in 1-3 sessions per month, with each session lasting about 1.5 hours. Until now, they all have chosen every time to leave their pasture, mates, and food to come and play with humans. Whenever possible, the EGLHE activities are conducted with horses at liberty (for safety issues, and because we operate at a boarding facility which we do not own, when moving from one area to another we have to lead horses with halters and lead ropes).

I rooted EGLHE in the principles of Equine-Assisted Learning (EAL), a field that has demonstrated promising results in improving mental health, particularly for individuals dealing with trauma, anxiety, ADHD, and PTSD. Although my EGLHE method is relatively new, there is a growing body of research supporting the effectiveness of EAL in enhancing emotional regulation, focus, and interpersonal skills. As an educator whose training includes autism-awareness, I have been able to find common principles between student-center pedagogies (including pedagogies focused on neurodiverse students) and attuned horsemanship. For example, both humans and equines learn better if they feel safe, well-rested, and in a supportive environment, but how many educators are truly aware of the emotional state of each students, each day? Additionally, both humans and equines benefit from a learning environment that allows for freedom of physical movement. This is something neuroscientists have known for a long time, and yet we still make our students sit at their tables for hours (I make efforts to set up a much more active classroom, and I would really welcome the support of my college administration to fund the necessary changes, as well as the EGLHE activities).

EGLHE’s Mission and Goals

EGLHE’s foundational goals are multifaceted and focus on both mental health and fostering a deeper connection between humans and horses. The program seeks to:

1. Support Mental Health and Focus: Recognizing the therapeutic effects of horses on individuals, EGLHE works to improve students’ emotional well-being, particularly in areas like anxiety, PTSD, and ADHD. Even students who do not have identifiable mental health conditions benefit from the calming, grounding presence of the horses.
2. Develop Self-Awareness and Empathy: Students engage in activities that promote self-reflection, non-judgmental connection, and empathy. By observing and interacting with the horses and with each other in a beautiful, natural environment, students learn to acknowledge and regulate their own emotions and reactions, as well as how to recognize and respond to the emotions of others, both human and non-humans, which helps them achieve emotional and somatic congruence.
3. Encourage Mindful Interactions: The program encourages students to interact with horses in a way that respects their autonomy and equality. The emphasis is on mindfulness—being present in the moment and engaging with the horse in an authentic, congruent, and non-hierarchical way.
4. Teach Non-Hierarchical, Relational Horsemanship: One of the core philosophies of EGLHE is that horses are not tools to be trained for a goal decided by a human, but sentient beings with their own needs, desires, and boundaries. The program emphasizes a partnership approach with the horse, where both the human and the horse work together and the horse’s input is taken seriously and with careful consideration. This philosophy challenges traditional notions of “training” and promotes a more equitable and compassionate interaction. It also shows how equines may have valuable lessons for us humans if we are willing to listen and put the time it takes (what I call “horse time”).
5. Have Fun: While mental health and learning are central to the program, EGLHE also strives to make the experience enjoyable for both equines and humans. It recognizes that joy, play, and fun are crucial components of personal growth and healing for everyone involved. The addition of five mini horses to the program, in collaboration with our sister organization, The Biscuit Buddies, has added a notable “cute factor” that, however, does not diminish in any way the stakes of being in a relation with a different species.

Key Principles of EGLHE

The EGLHE method is underpinned by several guiding principles that inform both the interactions between humans and horses, as well as the relationships between students and their own learning processes. These principles include:

– Attunement: This refers to the emotional connection between individuals—human and horse alike. According to Sarah Schlote, a trauma and attachment psychotherapist, attunement involves “being seen, being heard, feeling felt, and getting gotten.” It is about recognizing and responding to the emotional states of others with sensitivity and care. Horses, being highly perceptive animals, excel at attunement, making them ideal partners in therapeutic learning.

– Connection: Gareth Mare, the founder of Heartfelt Horsemanship, defines connection as a horse knowing that any request made of them is considerate of their well-being and safety. This principle highlights the importance of mutual respect in human-animal relationships and aligns with EGLHE’s emphasis on equality and mindful interaction. I learned more ways of connecting with equines from Warwick Schiller, recently featured on the NY Times Magazine: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/magazine/warwick-schiller-horses.html

– Horsemanship: Mark Rashid, an expert in humane horsemanship, states that “horsemanship is the art of mastering our own movements, thoughts, emotions, and behavior, not the horses.” This definition reinforces the idea that true horsemanship is about self-awareness and self-regulation, rather than dominating the animal. In the EGLHE program, the focus is on understanding the horse’s needs and behaviors, not controlling them.

Student Experiences with EGLHE

The feedback from students who have participated in EGLHE is overwhelmingly positive. Many students say that their experiences with the horses during EGLHE sessions have helped them feel more calm, centered, and emotionally grounded. For example, students who experience anxiety, particularly around exams, have shared that spending time with the horses helped them relax and focus, reducing their stress levels. Some students noted that interacting with the horses helped them sleep better, as they no longer felt as anxious when they returned to their dorms. Several students also mentioned the therapeutic benefits of connecting with a sentient animal in a mindful and non-judgmental way. They observed how horses like Jimmy respond carefully to human cues, and many noted how their interactions with him helped them develop a deeper understanding of how much more there is to understanding animal behavior and mutual communication. Some students who had previous experience with horses were struck by how different the EGLHE approach was from traditional methods of “training” horses. They appreciated the non-hierarchical interaction, where the horse was seen as an equal partner, rather than an animal to be controlled. The key is listening, not “whispering” to horses. In addition to the emotional benefits, students also learned valuable lessons about patience, empathy, and communication. Through the process of leading and working with the horses, they became more attuned to their own emotional responses and began to see how their feelings and behaviors impacted others. This understanding of non-verbal communication and empathy extends beyond the interactions with horses and influences students’ relationships with their peers and academic work.

Students who have been part of the program have made a short documentary to describe their experiences. Available for free on the EGLHE website, https://amandaminervini.weebly. com/eglhe.html it won the Best Student Documentary Award at the Equus International Film Festival, Dillon, MT in September 2024.

For more information and donations, please visit:  https://amandaminervini.weebly. com/eglhe.html

Photocredit: Photos 1, 2, 4, 5 by Lonnie Timmons III; all other photos are by the author.

As we observe daily, the anthropocentric vision and the concept of dominance over nature have led humans to treat the entire planet as an object of greed. This distorted relationship, based on the exercise of power over fellow humans and other living beings, reflects a deeper issue. Often addressed both by the media and institutions, the relationship between human and non-human animals is affected by strong biases due to widespread sensitivities and economic interests. Unfortunately, common sense does not always align with sound judgment or current scientific knowledge, while economic interests often clash with the actual needs of living beings, particularly in terms of animal welfare.
First, we must take into consideration that there are different animal species, and our ways of relating to them differ based on individual sensitivities and cultural contexts. We can speak of animals that live more or less freely in nature, that are confined in zoos, species that have now adapted to urban environments, and wild animals forced to seek food in urban centers due to habitat invasion. There are also animals that have been selectively bred or genetically modified for ornamental purposes or used in experimentation and research.
While sensitivities vary, in our everyday lives we tend to experience two extreme and often paradoxical situations in our relationship with other animals. While we witness the commodification and objectification of living beings as production machines, we also anthropomorphize the so-called “pets”, the small companion animals who live with us.
The terms “pet” and “farm animals” epitomize the distortion we face in relation to non-human animals and our lack of respect for animal life. Pets have entered nearly every household and, notwithstanding an increased sensitivity towards them, our limited knowledge and lack of respect for their needs prevent us from recognizing their species-specific traits and individuality. Consequently, we cannot form healthy and respectful relationships with them. Some breeds are actually mistreated both physically and cognitively, leading us to the issue of suffering breeds and genetic abuse. In some cases, we want them to resemble humans, especially children. The most striking example is provided by brachycephalic breeds, those with ‘flattened faces’. Over time, these breeds have been selected due to the high demand for ‘small’, ‘sweet’, ‘tender’ animals, with round ‘faces’ and ‘large eyes’ – features that satisfy our caregiving (epimeletic) motivation. Yet, many of these dogs struggle to breathe: to comply with aesthetic demands, breeding has exacerbated certain somatic characteristics resulting in real malformations of the airways that often require surgery. This is but one example of how we manipulate the lives of sentient beings for selfish reasons. We often force them to live by human standards. We choose dogs based on their adaptability to human environments, preferring toy breeds, mini toy breeds, and even breeds with less hair not to dirty our homes. We often see that small dogs are denied intraspecific socialization, confined to indoor spaces with pads instead of grass, and offered plush toys as substitutes for social interactions with conspecifics. Besides socialization problems, reproduction in some breeds has become difficult without artificial insemination and cesarean sections. Moreover, predation no longer exists. Socialization, reproduction, and predation – key aspects of animal life – are partially or entirely denied to many animals.
Dog breeds, much like fashion trends, fluctuate in popularity, with factors like health, longevity, and behavior playing hardly any role. In fact, many of the most popular breeds are those prone to serious health and behavioral problems. Despite copious scientific evidence of their suffering, the popularity of some small and medium-sized brachycephalic breeds, such as the Pug, the French Bulldog, and the English Bulldog has continued to rise internationally over the past ten years. The same is happening to cat breeds, such as the Scottish Fold, which suffers from bone problems caused by a genetic mutation. These are but a few examples of the ongoing genetic abuse of animals to meet human aesthetic standards. It is not easy to understand the motivations behind adopting dogs from the so-called “suffering breeds”, but the market determines selection (hence “production”) and the demand is driven by the “consumer”. The contradiction between an increasing sensitivity to animal welfare on the one hand, and a persistent lack of empathy on the other, are two conflicting aspects of our social and moral evolution.
At the opposite extreme of companion animals there are farm animals, namely those raised in intensive farming. Intensive farming prioritises maximum production in minimal space, at the lowest cost and highest profit margin. High-production dairy cows are the most striking example of exploitation, but similar conditions plague poultry and pigs. High-production dairy cows are regarded as machines to be pushed to their physical limits. While intolerable farming conditions have somewhat improved over the past century, economic considerations remain paramount, and attention to animal welfare often ends when profitability is at stake. This mirrors the historical fight for human rights and the abolition of slavery: animal welfare must remain compatible with production; animal welfare cannot jeopardize production, and the condition of “economic sustainability” is non-negotiable. Notwithstanding some improvements, such as broader spaces and the availability of food and water, current farming practices are far from acceptable based on today’s scientific knowledge. For example, genetic selection has led to increased milk production, minimizing genetic variability, with some cows so morphologically altered that even walking becomes difficult due to their oversized udders. Intensive farms operate like ‘factories’, where the rhythm is always the same: constantly alienating. Animals are treated as ‘machines’ – they need vast quantities of fuel (food) to produce a lot and when they are no longer profitable, they are replaced.
Ultimately, we are living in a state of cognitive dissonance regarding our relationship with animals – an issue that requires urgent rethinking. We are no longer in the age of Descartes when most intellectuals and the public believed that non-human animals lacked sensitivity or cognitive abilities. Over a relatively short period, we have selectively bred countless animals, significantly reducing their genetic diversity to create subspecies and/or breeds that meet our needs, whether for food, aesthetics, or companionship. Extreme selection has led to debilitating deformities, often preventing animals from adapting to their living environment. The distortions of what nature has created over millions of years often result in maladaptive, debilitating or even lethal traits. We are facing a serious form of abuse that affects not only individuals but also entire generations and, in some cases, entire species.
While conditions outside of Europe may be worse in terms of animal welfare, in liberal and democratic societies, the rejection of unnecessary suffering is not only embedded in laws and rights but serves as a structural and inspiring principle of democracy itself, which, hopefully, all its members accept and support (Pollo 2021: 69). What constitutes “necessary” suffering can be debated, but the principle must be upheld.
With regard to the genetic abuse of pets, the situation is aggravated by the fact that it is often culturally tolerated although it is totally futile and unnecessary. When it comes to the moral responsibility for this, three categories of citizens can be identified:

• Lawmakers and institutions bear the primary responsibility. The scientific evidence of unnecessary suffering in many breeds is clear, and legislative inaction is no longer acceptable.
• Breeders and traders who continue to perpetuate these injustices, share equal responsibility, even though they operate within the bounds of inadequate legal frameworks.
• Pet owners also bear moral responsibility, which grows in proportion to their awareness of the issue.

In consideration of all this, we urgently need changes at the legislative and cultural levels. Some European countries have already enacted laws that prohibit certain breeds:

• in 2020, the Dutch government banned 12 breeds;
• in 2022, Norway put a legal ban on the breeding of French Bulldogs and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

National laws are urgently needed to prevent the continuation of genetic abuse and to address the problem at multiple levels.
However, as long as animals are viewed as legal property, it will be difficult to eliminate the dysfunctional relationships that stem from this view. In addition to banning the breeding of suffering breeds, particularly those classified as pets, perhaps the time has come to shift entirely to a system of adoption or fostering, eliminating the commercial trade in pets. This proposal does not question the concept of ownership per se but rather acknowledges the need for legal reforms that foster respectful relationships with non-human animals, as outlined in Article 3 of the Constitution, which promotes environments conducive to the development of all individuals, human and non-human alike. This abolitionist position is supported by American activist and philosopher Gary Lawrence Francione. While such a vision might still be inapplicable to farm animals for economic and cultural reasons, it is certainly achievable for “pets” or “companion animals”, potentially marking the start of a more virtuous and enlightened path.
The conspicuous and courageous work of Charles Darwin has shattered the illusion of discontinuity between non-human animals and homo sapiens. Yet, beyond anthropocentrism and the exercise of dominance, the banal belief in our radical difference from other animals still has to be culturally dismantled. Modern studies increasingly show that other animals resemble us more than we ever believed, or perhaps, more accurately, that we resemble them more than we previously wanted to admit. Darwin opened a crucial breach, which we cannot obstinately continue to ignore. Today, as we bridge the gap in our knowledge, we must embrace a relationship with animals that recognizes their equal place in the natural world, respecting their otherness.
Throughout history, the moral status of non-human animals has been a contentious issue, with ongoing debates about their inclusion in the moral community. Opinions vary widely – some advocate for full equality between humans and animals, while others continue to see animals as mere objects to be used. These are, of course, extremes. While the debate continues, a key difficulty lies in accepting that animals can possess rights when they are unable to claim them or fulfill corresponding duties. Most often, animals are considered bearers of interests to which we have responsibilities – either directly or indirectly. Laws are generally framed around indirect responsibilities. In fact, in many countries, duties towards animals are viewed not in relation to the animal’s status as a sentient being, but as someone’s property. Once again, what emerges are our duties towards humans: our duties towards animals are merely a collateral result of our obligation not to offend human feelings and sensitivity.
Ethical approaches based on compassion and responsibility are frequently proposed to address these concerns, encouraging empathy and care in treating animals. However, relying solely on individual sensitivity is both naive and insufficient. Without the support of a robust legal framework, it is much more difficult to foster an ethics of care and responsibility.
While zooanthropology seeks to create awareness of the value of cross-species encounters and relationships, encouraging a deeper understanding of animal “otherness”, of its enriching value, perhaps it is time to establish an interspecies agreement that fosters constructive relationships curbing our desire for dominance. Such a “contract” could encourage encounters and relationships promoting cultural and emotional growth.
Interspecies contractualism is an ethical proposal advanced by Donald Van De Veer and inspired by John Rawls’ famous essay A Theory of Justice. Rawls’ contractualist theory, however, applies only at intraspecific level. In fact, since animals are incapable of reciprocity, they are considered outside the bounds of the ethical contract. Peter Singer disputes this argument by citing cases such as severe disabilities or future generations, where reciprocity cannot be expected (Singer 1989: 67). According to Singer, the lack of reciprocity cannot limit the application of the criteria of justice.
Rawls envisioned a hypothetical “original position” where societal norms would be established from a perspective of equality, with individuals “under a veil of ignorance”, unaware of their future roles. In this position, it would be in everyone’s interest to create a society that minimizes injustices and maximizes opportunities.
Not unlike Singer, for Van De Veer the criteria of justice concern all sentient creatures – not exclusively those endowed with a sense of justice. Therefore, he extends Rawls’ theory to all sentient beings. According to this view, the human being must abandon the requirement of reciprocity in ethical relationships with animals, and adopt an impartial perspective, imagining a pre-original position that seeks principles of interspecific justice (De Mori 2013: 64).
Midgley’s criticism of radical antispeciesism (Midgley 1985: 106-121) is accepted by Donald Van De Veer in his proposal for interspecific contractualism (De Mori 2013: 65). The latter envisions a speciesism that is receptive of the interests of sentient beings – a speciesism aware of the differences among species, acknowledging their otherness, and focusing on responsibility, care, and respect. This specisism nurtures the lives of other sentient beings and is willing to renounce reciprocity in order to recognize a moral status and the possibility of interspecies contractualism.
Van De Veer identifies two principles applicable to multiple circumstances: 1. no sentient creature should endure treatment that makes its life not worth living; 2. no rational being should deliberately bring a sentient creature into existence when it is certain, or highly probable, that non-existence would be preferable to existence (De Mori 2013: 65).
It has been objected that the contract should be established between subjects interested in themselves, i.e., that it should be rational and communicable to all subjects. Yet, this is not an insurmountable obstacle, as humans can represent the interests of sentient beings, assuming moral responsibility for their well-being.

Ethical frameworks may vary, but they all contribute to an evolving understanding of our moral obligations to animals. Whether through an ethics of care, compassion, or justice, the fundamental principle is respect for life. Albert Schweitzer, a philosopher, theologian, and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1952, championed this view more than a century ago. His vision of respect for life is often seen as utopian, as human interests will inevitably conflict with those of other living beings. However, this conflict should arise out of necessity, not frivolous desire. Some decisions will involve tragic choices, but they must be made with the weight of moral responsibility. Even in the preamble to the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals, concluded in Strasbourg on 13 November 1987, it is written, “Man has a moral obligation to respect all living creatures.” (CETS 125 – European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals (coe.int)). Only in 2010, with the enactment of Law No. 201, did Italy ratify the aforementioned European convention. While this may seem like an abstract ideal, it is a principle that must be taken seriously if we are to create a more just and compassionate world for all sentient beings.

Schweitzer writes:

Respect for life stems from a will to live that has learnt to think; it is, therefore, a YES to life, which becomes collective ethics. Its primary task is to realize progress and to create values that foster the material, spiritual, and ethical growth of both the individual and all of humanity (Schweitzer 1994: 17).

References
CETS 125 – European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals (coe.int) https://rm.coe.int/168007a67d [accessed 02/09/2024]

De Mori B. (2013). Che cos’è la bioetica animale. Rome: Carocci

LEGGE 4 novembre 2010, n. 201 – Normattiva
https://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:legge:2010-11-04;201 [accessed 02/09/2024]

Pollo S. (2021). Manifesto per un animalismo democratico. Rome: Carocci.

Rawls J. (1999). Una teoria della giustizia. Milan: Feltrinelli.

Schweitzer A. (1994). Rispetto per la vita. Turin: Claudiana.

Singer P. (1989). Etica pratica. Naples: Liguori.

Written by E. B. White in 1952, Charlotte’s Web continues to rank high in children’s literature. It is a bittersweet story featuring a diverse cast of characters, both human and non-human. It begins at the farm of Mr. Arable, where piglets have just been born. Mr. Arable’s little daughter Fern prevents her father from taking the life of the one runt in the litter, whom she names Wilbur and raises herself.  As Wilbur grows, he is transferred from the Arables to the bigger farm of Fern’s uncle, Mr. Zuckerman, where he befriends other animals – geese, sheep, horses, cows, Templeton the rat, and the spider Charlotte. As the Zuckermans and the farmhand Lurvey plan to butcher Wilbur with the coming of the cold season, Charlotte pledges to save his life by spinning words in her web that celebrate Wilbur’s virtues. Her plan is successful. The phrases “some pig”, “terrific”, “radiant” and “humble” that Charlotte weaves into the web persuade the Zuckermans’ of their pig’s exceptional qualities and everybody marvels at the miracle. This earns Wilbur the first prize at the annual county fair, celebrated at the end of summer. Once the festivities are over and everybody prepares to return to the barn, Charlotte announces that she is close to death and will not be going back. Wilbur promises to care for her eggs and, as spring arrives, hundreds of spiders are born. All of them leave, except for three who decide to stay with him at the barn as a token of friendship.

Charlotte’s Web has been considered a story about life and death, about the inexorable passage of time that marks the life stages of all living creatures, human and non-human alike. The emphasis on nature’s cyclical rhythms – the rhythms of life and death – is evident through the strong sensory (and sensual) appeal of the descriptions. Wilbur is a “spring pig” (CW 11). As he grows and the seasons pass, the natural and social landscapes also change. The former are characterised by the metamorphoses in the colours, smells and sounds of nature (leaves, flowers, fruits and birds), while the latter follow the rhythms of human labour, summer festivities, and the end and beginning of school. Significantly, as the story unfolds, we witness Fern maturing from childhood to adolescence, Wilbur growing into a pig that is threatened to be slaughtered, and Charlotte laying her eggs and exhausting her life as a spider. Besides its symbolic value, Charlotte’s Web also offers interesting insights from a zooanthropological perspective: the book criticises anthropocentrism on at least two levels: at the level of the story and at the level of characterization.

Let us begin with the former. As the relationship between Fern, Wilbur and the other animals at Zuckerman’s farm unfolds, we witness the little girl interacting with these characters in at least three of the five relationship domains defined by zooanthropology: the affective, social, and epistemic domains (Marchesini 2015: 105-234; Marchesini 2016: 115-144). When Fern takes care of the piglet like a baby, she is operating within the affective domain – holding Wilbur against her cheek (CW 4), feeding him with a bottle (5-6), worrying about him feeling warm and protected (9), walking him in the pram together with her doll (10). Fern sees no difference between her life and that of the weakest piglet in the litter: “If I had been very small at birth, would you have killed me?” (CW 2) she shouts at her father to defend the runt’s right to life. The affective dimension expresses itself in the dispensation of care (epimelesis) in response to requests of care (et-epimelesis) (Marchesini 2021a: 395-406). A strong motivation in mammals, epimelesis developed because, due to their limited offspring (compared to fish, for example) and their long developmental period (think of us humans!), they require a prolonged period of nurturing. Fern becomes Wilbur’s caregiver, a role that makes her feel fulfilled, satisfied, and empowered. Caring and nurturing open the girl up to the world and prepare her to become an adult, a future mother herself – “Fern was seated on the floor in the corner of the kitchen with her infant between her knees, teaching it to suck from the bottle” (CW 6-7; my emphasis).

Living on a farm makes the animals part of Fern’s social circle. During a Sunday breakfast, while telling her parents about the happenings in the barn, Fern uses the first-person pronoun “us” to describe the animals’ shared antipathy towards Templeton, the rat: “None of us likes him much” (CW 52). When her mother asks “Who’s ‘us’?”, the girl replies: “Oh, everybody in the barn cellar. Wilbur and the sheep and the lambs and the goose and the gander and the goslings and Charlotte and me.” The repetition of the conjunction “and” emphasises the emotional bond that ties Fern to her non-human friends. She eagerly recalls each of them, all individually. She sees them both as persons – hence the conjunction – and as part of her community – as “us”. The little girl considers herself an integral member of this interspecies group. Not only are species-specific differences maintained (sheep, geese, spiders), but, within the species, their gender and developmental stage are also specified (goose and gander, lambs and goslings). At the same time, however, these differences blur into an “us”, a pronoun that underlines an underlying connection. Additionally, the species-specific differences are softened by a certain common dislike for the rat’s temperament.

Ultimately, no matter how hard her squeamish mother attempts to discourage Fern, she is simply happy in the company of animals: «“You’re spending too much time in that barn – it isn’t good for you to be alone so much.” “Alone?” said Fern. “Alone? My best friends are in the barn cellar. It is a very sociable place. Not at all lonely.”» (CW 107; my emphasis). Significantly, Fern is the sole character in the story who can understand what the animals say. She can understand them because she has learnt their language – even the spider’s: “She doesn’t talk very loud, but she talks” (CW 105) she retorts to her mother when the latter argues that spiders don’t tell stories because they can’t talk.

Fern’s relationship with Wilbur and the rest of the animals at her uncle’s barn exemplifies very well what Roberto Marchesini (2022b) calls the animal’s “pedagogic role” (“ruolo magistrale”). Whether consciously or not, in Charlotte’s Web this role is clearly recognized by its author, E. B. White, as he describes Fern attentively observing her uncle Zuckermann’s animals. The interspecies relationship she develops with the non-human animals in the barn allows them to become more and more familiar with each other:

Fern found an old milking stool that had been discarded, and she placed the stool in the sheepfold next to Wilbur’s pen. Here she sat quietly during the long afternoons, thinking and listening and watching Wilbur. The sheep soon got to know her and trust her. So did the geese, who lived with the sheep. All the animals trusted her, she was so quiet and friendly. […] [Mr. Zuckerman] told Fern that she could sit on the stool and watch Wilbur as long as she wanted to. It made her happy just to be near the pig (CW 15-16; my emphasis)

By watching and observing in silence, Fern learns. She learns what the animals do, how they move and behave, and who they are. This description brings to mind Konrad Lorenz’ humorous suggestion that a good ethologist needs to have the temperament of a “patient and lazy person” because much of their work involves quietly observing animals over extended periods (Lorenz 1969: 62). This is what Fern does, and what allows her to recognise all the animals in the barn as individuals. It’s not just Fern who learns about the animals, though – they learn about her too: they understand that they can trust her.

Several times in the book, we notice Fern watching the animals in stillness: she is observed (by her parents, by her uncle, by the reader) as she intently observes her non-human companions. Zooanthropology refers to this attitude as the “epistemic relationship dimension”. Fern recognises herself as both similar to the other animals and different from them. Therefore, she can both empathise with them and admire them: “Don’t you think that’s fascinating?” (CW 105) the bewildered girl asks her mother after describing how a fish was caught in Charlotte’s cousin’s spiderweb.

Fern learns from the animals. She views them not only as subjects but also as referents; she credits them with a pedagogical role. Her understanding and interpretation of the world are mediated by animals; she grows through them. Mr. Arable and Dr. Dorian, Fern’s two human, adult and male pedagogical figures seem to endorse this approach whereas Fern’s mother, Mrs. Arable, does not. We could almost suspect the author of misogyny, as the most important parental figure in the story ostentatiously resists her daughter’s interaction with animals. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Arable displays epimeletic inclinations towards her daughter (she is obviously worried about her); however, she lacks sensitivity towards the non-human world. She betrays greater preoccupation with her young girl fitting a conventional and stereotypical bourgeois female role: finding a good match.

It may be fair to say that the adult human figures in the story are only silhouettes, approximate drafts not devoid of contradictions. For example, at the beginning of the story Mr. Arable speaks in totally utilitarian terms, referring to pigs as objects, commodities that can be disposed of (“[the runt is] very small and weak, and it will never amount to anything” (CW 1); “I only distribute pigs to early risers” he reproachfully replies to his rascal son, as if piglets could be handed out like candy (5)). Later in the story, however, Mr. Arable’s attitude seems to have softened: he enjoys his daughter’s accounts of what is going on at the barn and, like Dr. Dorian, he admits the possibility of animals talking (“Maybe they do talk […] I’ve sometimes wondered […] Maybe our ears aren’t as sharp as Fern’s (CW 54)). Fern’s father ultimately seems to acknowledge that his daughter learns by observing animals, that her knowledge of the world expands through them, and that the world becomes familiar to her because she can also get to know it through the animals.

In essence, if we want to read Fern’s interaction with the animals in Charlotte’s Web in zooanthropological terms, we can observe the following. Care drives Fern to look after the piglet because she recognizes in him a next-of-kin – a fragile creature (epimeletic dimension) as well as a social partner (social dimension). Epimelesis activates observation (Who is the other? What are its needs? How can I fulfil them?), thus paving the way for the epistemic dimension, the observation, interpretation and understanding of the world. Fostered by curiosity and exploration, the epistemic dimension helps the little girl integrate thinking and reflection into her behaviour as she embraces life. Significantly, as Fern’s fondness for Henry Fussy increases towards the end of the story, we can retrospectively interpret Dr. Dorian’s response to Mrs. Arable as an anticipation of Fern’s maturation mediated by her growing up in the company of animals: “Let Fern associate with her friends in the barn if she wants to. I would say, offhand, that spiders and pigs were fully as interesting as Henry Fussy. Yet, I predict that the day will come when even Henry will drop some chance remark that catches Fern’s attention”. (CW 111)

Dr. Dorian is the figure to whom the author entrusts some insightful reflections on the pedagogical value of children’s relationship with animals and nature. When visited by a concerned Mrs. Arable, who is worried about her daughter’s physical and mental health, Dr. Dorian displays both curiosity and calmness. He finds it “enchanting” that Fern is spending so much time observing and listening to animals (CW 108). The choice of the adjective is interesting: it evokes the idea of “enchantment”, which is also a synonym for “miracle”. And a miracle is what everybody believes the words in praise of Wilbur, appearing in the spiderweb, to be. Unlike the rest of the adult humans in the story, however, Dr. Dorian considers the miracle to lie elsewhere:

“Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider’s web? ”

“Oh, no,” said Dr. Dorian. “I don’t understand it. But for that matter I don’t understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.” […] “A young spider knows how to spin a web without any instructions from anybody. Don’t you regard that as a miracle?” (CW 108-110; my emphasis)

Dr. Dorian exposes the “anthropomocentric gaze” of Mrs. Arable’s and the rest of the human characters in the story with the exception of Fern. In fact, Mrs. Arable admits that she does not understand how the words came into the spiderweb and confesses “I don’t like what I can’t understand” (CW 110). Caught up in a narcissistic loop, the anthropocentric perspective assumes that, because of attributes such as reason, intellect or cognition (all terms which would deserve a separate analysis), humans can see and know everything; hence, that they are above, better, and more important than the rest of the living world. To this mindset, nature and animals are merely resources available for human use.

Mrs. Arable insists that her daughter’s interest in animals is not natural, because humans should concern themselves with humans and not with animals. The nature-culture dichotomy could not be more explicitly stated. Mrs. Arable, her cousin Zuckerman, their helper Lurvey and the rest of the inhabitants of this agrarian world are incapable of noticing the wonders of animals, except when these deviate from what a long process of habituation has made them take for granted. Mrs. Arable asks: “What’s miraculous about a spider web?”, and insists: “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle – it’s just a web.”

E. B. White makes a very clear point about human presumption and the gullibility of their notion of “miracle” by bestowing the role of a Deus ex machina on a spider. While contriving a plan to save Wilbur’s life, Charlette muses to herself: “If I can fool a bug […] I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs” (CW 67). The author of Charlotte’s Web could not have anticipated how true his words would ring more than seventy-years after the release of his book. Between 2020 and 2022, as the Covid-pandemic wreaked havoc worldwide, inducing people and governments to shout almost in unison “Fight the virus!” it became apparent that, as Charlotte says, bugs can indeed be smarter than people – all the more so, when the hidden power of the mass media disseminates ad hoc information, pulling the strings behind the scenes. As Charlotte also says: “People believe almost anything they see in print.” (CW 89).

By disconnecting themselves from the world – Mrs. Arable even calls her daughter’s fascination for animals “unnatural” – humans have made themselves easy preys to bugs. As Roberto Marchesini observes in The Virus Paradigm (2021b: 1), we deliberately turn a blind eye to the fact that we are infecting the planet with overpopulation, we are exploiting every last remaining piece of greenery and forest, and clinging to the illusion that technology will save us! The mottos of our busy times are “rush” and “hurry”. Incapable of sitting still and admiring the natural world like Fern, humans, in their solipsistic and self-directed gaze can only tend to themselves. We view animals either as tools and instruments, or as a projection of ourselves, forgetting that they have played a major role in shaping our species.

Besides being rich in botanical imagery and extraordinarily evocative of the scents, smells and textures of what must have been farm life in the times of yore, Charlotte’s Web gently peers into the dangers of our anthropological biases, especially in our attitude towards animals. It’s a book that invites us to pay attention, keep silent, watch and listen. Only then will we be able to reawaken our senses and heed what they have to say:

“I never heard one [animal] say anything,” he [Dr. Dorian] replied. “But that proves nothing. It is quite possible that an animal has spoken civilly to me and that I didn’t catch the remark because I wasn’t paying attention. Children pay better attention than grownups. If Fern says that the animals in Zuckerman’s barn talk, I’m quite ready to believe her. Perhaps if people talked less, animals would talk more. People are incessant talkers – I can give you my word on that.” (CW 110)

References

Lorenz, K. (1969) L’anello di re Salomone. Milano: Adelphi

Marchesini, R. (2015) Pet Therapy. Manuale pratico. Firenze-Milano: Giunti.

– (2016) Il bambino e l’animale. Fondamenti per una pedagogia zooantropologica. Roma: Anicia.

– (2021a) Le radici del desiderio. Alla ricerca delle motivazioni umane. Bologna: Apeiron.

– (2021b) The Virus Paradigm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

– (2022) “Zoomimesis: imparare dalle altre specie”. Animal Performance Studies, edited by Laura Budriesi, Accademia University Press.

https://doi.org/10.4000/books.aaccademia.12310.

White, E. B. (1952) Charlotte’s Web. New York: Harper & Row

The Εnd of the Anthropocene?

The term ‘Anthropocene’ was coined by Paul Crutzen, Nobel Prize laureate for his contributions to atmospheric chemistry, during an IGBP (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme) conference in 2000. On that occasion, Crutzen surprised the attendees with a speech later published in Nature in 2002. In his thesis, he posited that the Holocene epoch had concluded and given way to a new geological era inaugurated by the advent of the Industrial Revolution. In his opinion, this new era was characterized by a significant acceleration in the Earth’s transformations, largely due to human activities after the end of the last ice age².
Initially considered controversial, the Anthropocene hypothesis has gradually gained ground within the Earth science scholarly community, evolving into an almost universally accepted concept. It has influenced contemporary political and philosophical debates on climate change, ecological crises, the sixth mass extinction and broader environmental concerns³. The debate on the Anthropocene has also guided the contemporary imagination, fuelling catastrophic narratives and encouraging the development of a new literary and cinematic genre, known as eco-fiction. This genre depicts future scenarios of environmental damage caused by our species.
This consensus persisted for at least twenty-four years. Early in 2024, a commission of geologists decreed that there had never been an Anthropocene⁴.
End of the story?

In the Wake of a Fading Anthropocene

As Matteo Meschiari pointed out in a recent contribution on Doppiozero, the Anthropocene has been a product of the colonial imagination, birthed by white Western males for the use of other white Western males who had begun to mourn – rather badly, moreover – the loss of the Earth.⁵ This debate generated a hybrid monster, somewhere between dystopian nightmare and anthropocentric delusion of omnipotence. Anthropologists like Meschiari on the other hand have long
embarked on the path of de-colonisation and ‘indigenisation’ of the Anthropocene. In Meschiari’s words, «indigenising the Anthropocene means reflecting on and learning to think in alternative terms, beginning with indigenous interpretations of climate change, environmental collapse, and the dramatic losses already occurring in the peripheral zones of the planet. In the first instance, we notice that a Native of Alaska, the Amazon, or Australia does not experience the Anthropocene as a new, vertical, and completely unprecedented event; the Anthropocene is just the latest declination of their colonial past and present. In other words, after two hundred years of local dystopia, Natives do not experience the dire prophecies of the Anthropocene with our same paralysing fear. In the second instance, this same resistance and survival to disaster makes Natives both more adaptable to, and already engaged in, seeking pragmatic solutions. In short, less talk and zero melancholy» (my translation).
However, the fact that a commission of geologists has decreed the end of the Anthropocene does not entirely dispel the melancholy it has generated. Elvis is dead, but many continue to believe he is still alive and worship him as an idol. The Anthropocene is dead, but the discourse it leaves in its wake drags on. And the sense of loss and mourning it has left in the West – with good peace of mind of the climate change deniers – still pervades us.

Ovid and the Fragility of Human Beings

But what is the connection between Ovid and the still warm corpse of the Anthropocene? There seems to be hardly any, actually. Indeed, Ovid’s perspective in the Metamorphoses appears markedly distinct and diametrically opposed to the narratives predominant in Anthropocene discourse.
In the world of the Metamorphoses, humans do not reign supreme over the Earth; rather, they are depicted as fragile and susceptible beings, subject to the caprices of gods who, akin to the emperors Augustus and Tiberius – whose authority Ovid had experienced firsthand – whimsically and arbitrarily exert their control over the cosmos. In this context, in the introductory essay to the edition edited by Alessandro Barchiesi for the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, Charles Segal (2005, 17) reflects that «Metamorphoses is a poem about bodies: bodies that, in an uncertain world, are imperilled by sudden assaults of physical or carnal violence, and bodies whose transformations, whether just or unjust, unveil something about the gods or the human character beneath the physical façade; and it is from desires stemming from the attraction between bodies that all manner of
destruction arises, from sexual violence to homicide» (my translation).
In Ovid’s work, the human is depicted as a figure on the edge, lacking a fixed form and position in the universe. It is portrayed as closely connected to the numerous other living (and non living) forms into which it can transform. In this connection, Italo Calvino (1991, 36 ff.) pointed out that the entire poem is permeated by the idea of a universal contiguity between existing entities and species: marble can transform into flesh (as the woman sculpted by Pygmalion, in Met. 10.243-297); flesh can petrify (as in the story of Niobe, who was turned to stone by the anguish of losing her children: Met. 6.146-312); a man can metamorphose into a wolf (as in Jupiter’s punishment of Lycaon: Met. 1.196-239), or into a flower (as in the tales of Hyacinth and Narcissus: respectively Met. 10.162-219 and 3.339-510); and a woman can change into a spider (as in the punishment
inflicted on Arachne: Met. 6.1-145).

Chaos, the Cosmos and the fabricator mundi.

In Ovid’s perspective, chaos preceeds the origin of all creation. Indeed, the very first metamorphosis in the annals of the universe involves chaos transmuting into ‘cosmos’ through the agency of an unspecified demiurge, the fabricator mundi. The actions of this enigmatic figure are described as follows: «Scarce had he thus parted off all things within their determined bounds, when the stars, which had long been lying hid crushed down beneath the darkness, began to gleam throughout the
sky. And, that no region might be without its own forms of animate life, the stars and divine forms occupied the floor of heaven, the sea fell to the shining fishes for their home, earth received the beasts, and the mobile air the birds» (Met. 1.69-75; Engl. tr. by MILLER 1916).
The Ovidian demiurge operates either akin to a fabricator, laying brick upon brick himself, or to an architect who furnishes the world and its spaces by positioning objects within it, or to a land surveyor who delimits and divides the universe through something similar to a centuriatio. This process mirrors the Roman method of subdividing agricultural land using orthogonal grids of roads, canals, and plots assigned to settlers. The imposition of boundaries by the demiurge, resulting in separation and distinction, forms the foundation for the emergence of species. Once elements are partitioned and differentiated from one another, living beings can take on their own distinct formae, each inhabiting its natural realm.
However, in the Ovidian cosmos, forms are far from stable. The act of differentiation and allocation of space initiated by the fabricator mundi is precarious. Instead of definitively resolving the primordial indistinction between things, it merely disguises it. Chaos remains the magma-like and enduring legacy of the ‘universal contiguity’ governing the world.
Despite their apparent stability, forms are mutable beneath the surface. Nature itself remains fundamentally unified, with its elements dangerously prone to metamorphosis: earth blends with air, water, and fire, each element capable of transforming into the other. In essence, everything is in a state of flux.

An Anti-Progressionist Vision: Humans as ‘Garments’ of the Cosmos

An important event in Ovid’s narrative of the cosmos is the emergence of the human species. Ovid draws upon several tropes of ancient anthropocentrism: it is suggested that humans were fashioned to assert their dominance over the world; that they were created in the likeness of the gods; and that unlike all other animals who are forced to direct their gaze towards the ground due to their quadrupedal stance, humans are unique because they can cast their eyes towards heaven and the stars (Met. 1.78 ff.).
However, each of these widely held beliefs is contradicted by the unfolding stories. The notion of a life form destined to rule over the world is repeatedly challenged and replaced through more or less chaotic and arbitrary tales about the origin of humans. Initially, the human species is said to have been created by Prometheus (Met. 1.76 ff.), only to perish and be reborn following a global deluge with Deucalion and Pyrrha (Met. 1.244 ff.). Humans are also said to emerge from the stones cast
behind by the two characters, thus originating from what was considered the lowest element in the natural hierarchy.⁶
In order to grasp the implicit implications of this series of extinctions and speciation, we might call upon the notion of ‘progressionism’, a theory developed in the 19th century by naturalists such as Heinrich Georg Bronn, Karl Ernst von Baer, William B. Carpenter, and Richard Owen. According to this theory, the history of life on Earth is characterised by the emergence of increasingly complex and specialised structures, purportedly the result of a divine design.⁷
However, while divine intervention certainly plays an important role in the Ovidian worldview, it does not seem to follow any discernible intelligent design. If the gods intervene in worldly affairs, in fact, this is often because they are driven by their capricious or all-too-human emotions, such as anger, lust, or jealousy.
Moreover, little suggests that Ovid views humans as the pinnacle of successive mutations in nature. In fact, their origins seem to unfold haphazardly, in a trial-and-error dynamic more than in a carefully orchestrated progression. As to humans looking up to heaven, we must recall and contrast this aspiration with the scene where Juno violently grabs Callisto by the hair and throws her to the ground before transforming her into a bear (Met. 2.476-481). Similarly, the transformation of Lycaon into a wolf (Met. 1.232-239) is strikingly in conflict with to the idea of human supremacy over nature.
One of the metaphors used to account for the emergence of the human species is particularly intriguing: «So, then, the earth, which had but lately been a rough and formless thing [in Latin, sine imagine], was changed and clothed itself [induit] with forms of men before unknown» (1.87 f.; Engl.tr. by MILLER 1916).
Here, the use of the verb induo (‘to wear’) invites us to imagine human forms as garments that embellish the Earth. This metaphor undoubtedly evokes a major theme in ancient civilisation (and beyond): the idea that the invention of clothing marks the transition from a primal, semi-feral human condition akin to beasts towards a more elevated state. In this context, humans are the ‘clothes of the Earth’; they elevate the world and make of it a mundus – or, in Greek, a kosmos –, namely a seemingly ‘ordered’ and refined whole. As Ovid is also the author of the Remedia amoris, however, he is too astute and ironic not to suggest between the lines that what refines and brings order to the cosmos is nothing else than ‘cosmetics’ and adornment. The ‘human clothes of the Earth’, while also embodying various anthropocentric clichés, provide merely a façade that can revert or change. Below the external surface, the fundamental substance of the universe continues to be shapeless and disguise its formless nature – without fixed and precise boundaries it is concealed by the flimsy veil of the bodies.
This idea is restated in Pythagoras’ enigmatic discourse to Numa in Book 15 (Met. 15.60- 507): by asserting the perpetual flux of everything, he suggests that while mythical narratives have led us to perceive the metamorphoses of mythical narratives as definitive and irreversible, they may be much less so. The underpinning idea may be that the state of the world is not permanent and that what lies behind humanity is only the raw nakedness of matter and, ultimately, the indistinctness of Chaos. In essence, Ovid’s world never truly transitions from Chaos to Cosmos.

Ovid as Antidote Against the Risks of the Anthropocenic Narratives

With the advent of Darwin and Copernicus, a new narrative emerged: humanity was no longer at the centre of a universe crafted providentially and purposefully by a benevolent God. Instead, humans were perceived as evolving creatures among many others, inhabiting a planet similar to countless

others orbiting one of the numerous stars scattered throughout the cosmos. Over the past 24 years, the Anthropocene hypothesis has significantly altered the narrative, reinstating humanity – for better or for worse – as the primary influencer of Earth: humanity was viewed as capable of disrupting the Earth’s climate by profoundly impacting on nitrogen and carbon cycles, causing ocean acidification, increasing radiation levels, promoting deforestation, and precipitously diminishing biodiversity.

This shift in perspective has brought forth intriguing implications. The recognition of our renewed centrality and dominance over the Earth has compelled us to accept our responsibilities and make a serious effort to contain the catastrophic consequences of our actions on the planet. Conversely, this renewed sense of prominence has fostered a new form of anthropocentric and technocratic arrogance that could lead humans to succumb to the temptation of believing they possess the ability to manipulate everything according to their own desires and plans.

A profound reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses could serve as an antidote to avoid a similar drift: the poet from Sulmona dared to envision humanity as an unstable realm of intersections, while also portraying Earth itself as a mosaic of transformed consciousnesses and a network of interconnected entities. In essence, preceding the post-humanist thinkers, Ovid had already crafted a fictional universe wherein ecological equilibriums were inherently disrupted and subject to continuous – and often violent – flux. Within this universe, humans are not isolated from other species; while species serve as mechanisms for separation and distinction humans remain precarious, interstitial entities akin to garments, fur, or hair that are donned, discarded, or turned inside out. Ultimately, humans are symbionts of the species they will eventually become, and non-human species, in turn, encapsulate human past and present consciousnesses.

This implies that the transition from one nature to another is never absolute. Sometimes, we remain in a state of transition, becoming an ethological ‘hybrid’ (as the metamorphosed characters, who change bodies while retaining their essence); at other times, the nature of all beings turns out to be contiguous and co-existent.

In the Metamorphoses’ uncertain and precarious world, boundaries, if they exist at all, are fleeting and tenuous. They are not permanent. The focal point or, rather, the victim of this constant flux is whoever occupies a position of vulnerability: humans, nymphs, and other natural elements are subject to the capricious, lustful, temperamental, and vindictive whims of the gods.

Within this framework, the human condition mirrors the universal fragility experienced by everything that falls prey to the whims of the gods: if everything is interconnected, it means that we are affected not only as human beings but also as living beings entwined within the biosphere, rather than standing outside it. The anguish of Actaeon, transformed into a stag and torn apart by his own hounds (Met. 3.138-259), which inevitably prompts us to empathise with hunted animals is more compelling than Pythagoras’ ambiguous advocacy for vegetarianism in Book 15 (Met. 15.60-507). Similarly, in Book 10, we cannot help empathising with the plight of Myrrha, who metamorphosed into a plant before giving birth (Met. 10.298-502): she reminds us that plants possess perception and consciousness.

In essence, whereas the anthropocenic narratives have appointed us as arbiters, guardians, and gods of the planet we inhabit, Ovid urges us to experience firsthand the agony of a wounded plant, or the anguish of a deer dismembered by dogs. The gods remain indifferent to such suffering; sometimes they actually seem to derive pleasure from it. This ultimately underscores the peril of anthropocentric technocracy, which risks transforming us into something similar to Ovidian gods: indifferent and callous, they shape the world according to their whims, heedless of the suffering inflicted upon the matter they manipulate. While typically perceived as alien, this matter, as Ovid reminds us, is intimately connected to us.

Bibliography

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In December 2018 a funeral for 62 AIBOs, robotic dogs made by Sony, was held at Kofukuji Temple in Isumi City, Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo. It is not the first time the 450-year-old temple offers such a service and with time it seems the request for it is growing. Thanks to a strong media coverage that reached overseas, this phenomenon has sparked curiosity and debate among Buddhist communities, robotic enthusiasts and scholars. I think that such events, despite their small scale, perfectly fit in contemporary anthropological debates about agency, technology, non-human beings and I argue they may even lead us to challenge our own assumptions about how humans generate processes of social engagement with non-humans or artificial entities.

Living and dying as a robot

The funerary rite for AIBOs, conducted by the Buddhist priest Bungen Oi, does not appear to be very different from the ones usually performed for humans. The priest recites and chants sutras surrounded by incense smoke, addressing the dead robots frontally, and praying for their soul. Many owners attach to the body of their robot dogs coloured letters in which they write prayers, biographical details and goodbye messages. Together with traditional Buddhist decorations such as flowers and fruits, the altars are adorned with pliers, wire clippers, and circuit testers. In some occasions the sutras are recited by AIBOS specifically programmed to do so. After the ceremony, components of the bodies of the ‘deceased’ AIBOs will be recycled to repair other robots (Maiko 2019).

The funerals started in 2015 thanks to the effort of Nobuyuki Norimatsu, a Sony ex-engineer and founder of A.FUN, a company specialised in repairing electronic devices. After Sony shut down their repairing service in 2014, A-FUN received an increasing number of requests for help. Norimatsu, who claims to have fixed more than 2000 robotic dogs so far, came with the idea of holding funerals in 2015, when many owners of unrepairable AIBOs donated their ‘bodies’ to the company. When confronted with the feeling of unease at the idea of disassembling the pets, Norimatsu felt the need to organise funerals in order to permit the owners to properly say goodbye to them before the process. More than 500 AIBOs have received an official funeral so far and the demand seems to be increasing (Narumi 2017; Maiko 2019)

I think that in order to properly address questions of agency and non-humans’ personhood from a specific contextualised point of view, we first need to understand some of the technical-structural peculiarities of Sony’s robotic pets.

Sony started producing AIBOs, which stands for Artificial Intelligence Robots, in 1999 and discontinued them in 2006 due to financial problems. The robots are programmed with adaptive learning and growth capabilities, which means that they develop different “personalities” through interaction with humans. They are also programmed to display emotions and instinctual needs, thus offering a huge variety of interactive experiences. Every external stimulus will, in fact, provoke different response behaviours based on the AIBO’s individual personality. Despite it being a very fascinating piece of technology, due to its high price it became a niche product, and Sony only sold 150.000 copies in 7 years.  Nonetheless, in 2018 Sony produced a new model based on a completely different structure and with new functions, such as an Internet connection. This particular feature allows transferring the memory of the pet into a new body without requiring complicated repairs. The new model, however, is not compatible with the older ones (Maiko 2019, Kubo 2010:106).

From objects to companions

Journalists who covered the funerals focused on three main voices: the already mentioned Bungen Oi, Nobuyuki Norimatsu and some owners who could provide first-hand accounts of their relationships with AIBOs. The implicit questions that seem to emerge from many newspaper articles are: how can a robot be offered religious rituals? If they can receive a funeral does this mean they are alive? Does this not contrast with Buddhist ethics?

As the priest who officiates the ceremonies, Bungen Oi represents the religious point of view. He argues that all things have a bit of soul (Burch 2018) and that by performing the funerals he managed to gain a fuller understanding of the idea that all things—including inanimate objects—have the Buddha nature and can thus attain nirvana. He then goes on saying that even though AIBO is a machine and doesn’t have feelings, it acts as a mirror for human emotions and that living creatures and inanimate objects are all connected, and what links them together is human sensitivity. The affection owners feel for the AIBO robot is a reflection of that sensitivity (Narumi 2017).

Oi does not see any contrast between Buddhist doctrines and the inclusion of artificial things in funerary rites because the Buddha nature is present in everything. While this point may be somewhat self-explanatory, I think that the second part of his declarations deserves particular attention since it becomes particularly meaningful when put in relationship to Nobuyuki Norimatsu’s words.

Norimatsu answers interviews saying that every AIBO has a heart that grew through interactions with its owner, thus making funerals a way for their souls to be returned to their owners (Narumi 2017). Due to the nature of the interviews, such declarations are, unfortunately, short. However, I think they hint at something that is anthropologically relevant. Both Norimatsu and Oi seem to point at the relational nature of AIBOs’ souls. AIBOs are not said to have a soul in the sense of possessing inner dispositions such as self-awareness, volition or the ability to experience emotions; in fact, there is not reference to similar attributes in their words.  Instead, what Oi suggests is that by interacting with AIBOs humans are able to attach specific feelings to their companions that are then reflected back by the AIBO’s presence itself. In this regard, it is interesting to note that Norimatsu talks about the ceremonies as a way to “return the souls to the owner”. In this interpretation, the AIBO’s soul is intrinsically linked with his owner’s feelings. ‘Human sensitivity’, as Oi calls it, can connect humans with inanimate objects through active engagement. Such an engagement bestows on objects a soul, which reflects the feelings and attachments of humans. After the death of the robot, its soul can be brought back to its original source through the funerary ritual, liberating its body from the emotional attachment of his owner, and thus making its disassembly possible.  Hidenori Ukai, a priest and freelance journalist, comments on the website of the NHK that Japanese people have long believed that all things that relate to humans have souls (Maiko 2019).  In his declarations too only the objects who relate to humans are said to have a soul.

Various websites and newspapers covered also owners’ testimonies such as Yukoo Matsura’s, who bought her first AIBO around 15 years ago and now owns more than 10.  When she talks about her robotic dogs, she mentions how each one of them has a different personality and how the absence of any practical use makes them cute (Maiko 2019). This affirmation is echoed by Norimatsu when he refers to the fact that people get emotionally attached to AIBOs because they show autonomous personality and are not designed to behave passively as servants. In fact, notions of uselessness and autonomy were consciously and explicitly at the base of Sony’s project. Engineers were asked to produce something that did not have any use, yet could be engaging and attractive.

ACTOR-NETWORK-PRACTICE

Various scholars have tried to situate the mixtures of religious frameworks and contemporary technologies in ongoing anthropological debates. For instance, actor network theory and science and technology studies have been commonly referred to as two possible intellectual orientations to approach such realities. Actor network theory is a theoretical and methodological approach developed by Bruno Latour and other scholars originally involved with the study of scientific laboratories. The core assumption of ANT is that social contexts are networks composed of various entities that interact on the same level. In practice, rather than applying external social categories to target phenomena, the observer has to describe the various strands of agency that constitute a specific network. These include not only human actions or ideas but also objects, institutions, non-human beings and everything that is present in a particular context. In the case of AIBOs’ funerals, ATN would prompt us to focus our attention on how humans interact with machines, how machines answer back, what ideas were at the base of AIBO’s design, Buddhist scriptures, the actual shape and materials of the robot and so on. All these elements contribute to the creation of a network that maintains the existence of a specific social phenomenon (Candea 2018: 209). This approach can be particularly useful when dealing with non-human realities such as human-animal or human-object relations because it does not equate agency with intentionality, the kind of processes that a self-conscious mind could engage with, but allows for the description of various types of influences on the world (Candea 2018: p. 214).

Jensen and Block, in fact, refer to ANT to show how links between advanced technological development and non-modern frameworks such as Shinto religious practices and beliefs can be intermixed in contemporary contexts and challenge our common-sense conceptual divisions between science, religion, the secular, modernity and non-modernity (2013: 88). Kubo Akinori instead focuses his analysis on how owners of AIBOs create networks through physical and sensorial engagement with their pets. He argues that one should not search the key to understand ideas about AIBOs being alive in cultural backgrounds, enquiring in Shinto, Buddhist or “traditional” (whatever we wish to define as such) Japanese matters, but should rather approach them as emerging from practices of participation.  Thus, human-robot connections are not a matter of past beliefs or mental representations that are transposed to the present, but rather the results of sensorial and material engagement with non-human companions (Kubo 2010: 115).

I think that both Kubo and Jensen and Block have valid points. Paying attention to sensorial and affective qualities of robotic technologies while we engage with them, may reveal new aspects of “life” that evade previous categorisation and assumptions, but it is also important to understand how such new experiences are integrated or contrasted with pre-existent frameworks of practices and ideas such as, in this case, Buddhist funerals or Shinto cosmology, even when there is not an explicit mention of them. Oi explains that it is the idea of the interconnection of reality and the Buddha nature that makes it possible for him to celebrate the funerals, and at the same time it is by officiating the rites for the AIBOs that he gains a deeper understanding of such ideas. Relationships between practice and cultural frameworks are not uniliteral; one does not ‘cause’ the other to be effective, but they rather influence each other in a feedback loop.

Life in-between

However, I argue that the most striking aspect of human-robot relations is how they challenge assumptions about life itself. Kubo for instance refers to the ambiguity that many owners experience when interacting with their robotic companions. Indeed, one of the most common comments about AIBOs is that they do not feel like living entities but at the same time they do not feel “only” like machines (Kubo 2010: 94). Such impressions, together with Norimatsu and Oi’s declarations, show the liminality of artificial intelligence. The problem that emerges with artificial life is that neither the category of animate nor that of inanimate seems adequate enough to describe it. Robots, but also spirits and biological viruses, often present themselves with such ambiguity.

In the end, these ambiguities, of which ethnographies show us abundant examples, have been propelling the last years of anthropological theory into new directions. Paradigms such as ATN, Ingold’s ecology of culture, the revival of biosemiotics, relational epistemologies etc. have all emerged to provide new tools for approaching such phenomena. Anthropologists should not be tied to strict philosophical or scientific conceptions about what is alive and what is not, trying to dissolve ambiguity in one direction or the other. Instead, by following Willerslev (2018) they should be open to liminality as a transformative force, as a productive “messiness” that challenges the very boundaries we take for granted.

Imitated life

The question of what constitutes a living being is thus bound to re-emerge in contemporary public discourse. The way our lives have been disrupted on a global scale by the propagation of the COVID-19 virus and the development of increasingly complex artificial intelligences are some of the most recent phenomena that have pushed humanity to confront itself with this problem not only from a philosophical point of view but also from a more everyday, pragmatic and existential perspective. While biologists, immunologists and computer scientists may have all kind of different academic debates on the subject based on different ideas about what constitutes thought, intelligence or “being alive proper”, anthropologists and psychologists willing to explore the phenomenology of how perceptions and ideas of aliveness emerge in daily interactions with our surroundings have now a new array of enigmatic social situations to explore.

What should be kept in mind in this particular case concerning the AIBOs is that the robotic companions were based on already-existent living organisms, namely dogs, and were meant to imitate them in shape and behaviour. As we have seen, a crucial feature of this attempted imitation is their apparent unpredictability, which is what made it possible for many to see in them something that transcended their mere objectuality. The necessity of variable degrees of (partial) unpredictability in the simulation of a living system is something well known for instance to video game designers. It is one of the elements that makes a lot of virtual worlds so entertaining and fascinating. However, when it comes to real animals and other living beings, this feature – the unpredictability inherent in being alive – is so obvious that it is generally implicit. Instead, when we witness something that we know is not a living entity but that behaves as such in a sufficiently convincing manner, we are taken aback. The clash between our rational knowledge and our affective experience surprises us and brings to the foreground of our mind this perception of unpredictability in the same way optical illusions makes us conscious of the ways our visual perception works. I argue that the strangeness of the Turing-like experiences we can have with these robotic and virtual simulations of life lies here: rather than being something completely new and previously unseen, they bounce back at us and disclose some of the elements that already structure our “common” perception of life. Unpredictability is only one of these elements, and many others can emerge, from eerie sensorial impressions to complex emotional experiences.

As Norimatsu and Oi suggest, the experience of enigmatic mirroring may indeed help us explore the complexities/complex nuances of what we mean by saying that something is alive.

Bibliography

Maiko, E. (2019) A funeral for dead robot dogs. Available at:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/346/

Burch, J. (2018) Beloved robot dogs honored with funeral. Available at:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/asia/japan/in-japan–a-buddhist-funeral-service-for-robot-dogs/

Narumi, S. (2017) Remembering Aibo. Available at:

https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b00909/remembering-aibo.html

Candei, M. (2018) Schools and styles of anthropological theory. London: Routledge.

Jensen, C. B., & Blok, A. (2013). Techno-animism in Japan: Shinto Cosmograms, Actor-network Theory, and the Enabling Powers of Non-human Agencies. Theory, Culture & Society, 30(2), 84–115.

Kubo Akinori (2010). Technology as Mediation: On the Process of Engineering and Living with the “AIBO” Robot. In Japanese review of cultural anthropology

Willerslev, R., & Suhr, C. (2018). Is there a Place for Faith in Anthropology? Religion, Reason and the Ethnographer’s Divine Revelation. HAU, 8(1-2), 65-78.

I know that you know there are writings dedicated to the meaning of the word “animal” and its etymological kinship with the Latin word “anima” = “soul”. This is why you also know that “anima” originally meant “wind”, “air” or “breath”, and later acquired the generalized meaning of “vital principle” and “life”, finally becoming in Christianity the essence of life, namely the “soul”. We all zooanthropologically cheer when we recall that a strong linguistic bond connects us to animals. And we wonder why some of us continue to eat meat.

Since I am a native speaker of German, it’s not my task to reveal the connections between the Latin word “anima” and the old English “anda”, which nowadays translates as “anger”, “zeal” or “envy”. What I actually mean to draw attention to is the little word “deer”: I stumbled upon it for the first time many years ago with the movie “The Deer Hunter”. I have tried to forget it since, but in vain – too much cruelty for my then still juvenile soul. And too cruel and true it remains.

But back to etymology: “deer” seems to have, again, Indo-European or Indo-Germanic origins and to bear the meaning of “breathing creature”. On the other hand, the homophone “dear” has apparently old-German roots conveying the sense of “worthy, precious”. Unfortunately, more ancient meanings have been lost.

It would be cynical of me to refer to the platitude of meat being “dear” to humans because they like to eat it. Not the meat of saber-toothed tigers, nor of mammoths, or cats and dogs, but deer meat – because cows and pigs appeared on the human menu later.

As German belongs to the multitude of languages that are said to be bound to disappear form the planet in the forthcoming centuries, even regardless of the imminent ecological catastrophe, I wish the Anglo-Saxon world would remember one linguistic fact. The German for “animal”, “Tier”, sounds almost identical to “deer”, only that “t” is a voiceless plosive consonant whereas “d” is voiced. “Tier” seems to have the same origin as “deer”, meaning again “breathing creature”, with a first record of this sense dating back to the 8th century. Yet “Tier” in German cannot be applied to “humans”.

How comforting is it for zooanthropologists to know that zoology defines a “Tier” as a “living organism that does not obtain its energy through photosynthesis and requires oxygen for respiration, but that is not a fungus”? Like Tiers, we are not fungi. One more reason to hold them dear and shed tears of joy…

I was browsing the internet in search of a photo featuring both a bird and an airplane for a presentation on zooanthropology. I needed a captivating image to illustrate Roberto Marchesini’s foundational statement about anthropopoiesis: “It is by watching birds that we realized that it is possible to fly.”

That epiphanic moment, hidden in the depths of history, marked a pivotal point in human development—the realization that a different existential dimension is possible.

My Google search produced a list of real and fake photos, showcasing solitary birds or flocks, along with links to blogs and articles. One particular article caught my attention: “How dangerous are bird strikes to planes?” I paused, rereading the title. Something didn’t sound quite right. Shouldn’t it be: “How dangerous are planes to birds?” I wondered.

My mild gush of irritation intensified as I read on. Not only did the article suggest that birds might strike airplanes like bullets, rockets, or other weapons, but it also seemed to take for granted that the sky is a human space. Besides mentioning that “2,300 wildlife strikes were reported in 2023,” the author informed us that 97% of these cases involved birds, with a small minority including bats or other ground-dwelling creatures like deer, coyotes, turtles, or alligators. Shockingly, “more than 300 people were killed because of wildlife strikes, and nearly 300 planes were destroyed between 1988 and 2021.” Hassan Shahidi, President and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, concluded unequivocally: “Bird strikes are a hazard to aviation,” affecting all types of aircraft.

The article suggested that airports should manage habitats to reduce or eliminate trees and plants that shelter birds or address wetlands that attract them. There was no consideration for the essential role trees and plants play in mitigating climate change or the pollution caused by aircraft emitting 3.16 kg of CO2 per 1 kg of fuel consumed—a jet consumes 3,200 L of fuel per hour. Not to mention that birds, regardless of species, are individuals with lives that matter to them, independent of humans and their planes.

Mr. Shahidi proposed that airports should modify habitats to discourage birds, disregarding the environmental impact. Regular fliers might be alarmed to learn that “the cost of wildlife strikes to the aviation industry in the United States in 2021 was projected to be $328 million.” I was dismayed by the univocal and uncritical perspective of the article, highlighting the anthropocentric bias of one of the world’s most influential newspapers.

This raises crucial questions: What is the value of animals’ lives? How many animal lives is a human life worth? When will we realize that to the animal, other of whatever species, I am an ‘other’ too? Only then can we extend the awareness that a dignified life is not just a privilege of Homo sapiens but a right of all species. We need to rethink our living spaces on the ground and in the sky accordingly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2023/04/25/bird-strike-plane-american-airlines/

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