Reconnecting with Animality

‘I fear that the animals consider man as a being like themselves that has lost in a most dangerous way its sound animal common sense; they consider him the insane animal, the laughing animal, the weeping animal, the miserable animal’ (Nietzsche, 2001, p.145).

Several philosophers talk about a need for human beings to reconnect in some way with their animality[1]. We humans once experienced the world with all our senses; we relied on these animal senses for our very survival. It appears now that Western civilisation’s attitude to animals has created a gap or disconnection from nature and animals. This has given rise to a number of problems in humanity.

For Vanessa Lemm (professor of philosophy, New School for Social Research, USA), the ‘future of humanity crucially depends on the human being’s ability to reconnect itself with the dream life of the animal, because only the latter can bring back to the human being the freedom and creativity of interpretation that it has lost in the process of its civilization and socialization’; ‘the animal is the creative genius whose freedom threatens civilization and thus appears as an “evil and demonic being”’  (Lemm, 2009, p.244). Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s conception of ‘animal forgetfulness’ strengthens the understanding of the bond between animal and creativity. For Lemm, it is through this ‘animal forgetfulness’ (Lemm, 2009, p.244) that these key qualities, which were once considered to belong to ‘a higher humanity’, have slipped away (Lemm, 2009, p.244). It is worth emphasising that we do not cease to be ‘animal’ because we oppose ourselves to animals – we are repressing our ‘animality’. It is oppositional hierarchy between rationality (considered to be human) and irrationality (animal) that has turned human life against itself.

In Nietzsche’s view, people’s animal nature has been constrained by civilisation. In his essay ‘Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense’ he takes human morality as a construct that has no relation to actual existence in the world. He places human morality in a position relative to a gnat: ‘If we could communicate with the gnat, we would learn that he likewise flies through the air with the same solemnity, that he feels the flying centre of the universe within himself’ (Nietzsche, 1990, p.1). It could be said that all creatures, regardless of species, are the centre of their own universe - a commonality across the board.  

A balance between animality and humanity would be ideal. Philosopher Jacques Derrida continually questions the logic and ethics of animals’ role in philosophy. He uses the essence of animals to understand what humans are lacking. This prompts a rethinking of what it is to be human. He talks about how the animal cannot be naked:

‘no animal has ever thought to dress itself… I often ask myself, who am I, when caught naked by the eyes of a cat, I have trouble overcoming my embarrassment… and find I am looking into myself’ (Derrida, 2002, p.380).

So is the rise of Nietzsche’s human as ‘lost, miserable, insane’ associated with our disconnection from animality? Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist, suggests it is. He argued that, paradoxically, civilisation, usually assumed to be the zenith of human society, is in fact destructive. The construction of ‘cramped and artificial lives’ (Guignon, 2004, p.96) ruins people, smothering their creativity.  He claims there is a need to cast-off these constrictions and expose the inner truth that lies within the unconscious.

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[1] Animal nature or characters. The animal side of humans, as opposed to the intellectual or spiritual.