Contents
From them, from a scientific point of view, we do not differ in anything, except for our brain: it makes us unique beings. It is not easy to live with this dual nature – as well as to understand what, in fact, a person is.
“I feel like a downtrodden horse”, “my sister is a real clown”, “the neighbor has a donkey’s stubbornness”, and in general, as you know, “man is a wolf to man” … Figurative expressions comparing us with animals cannot be counted. Some of them mention bestial cruelty and bloodthirstiness. If we want to emphasize that man has forgotten all conscience in his thirst for power, then we compare him with some large predator. In other cases, the animal nature in us is associated with freedom, immediacy, purity. Comparing women to she-wolves, Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes urges them to return to their original wild beginnings, to restore the “habits of a natural, instinctive soul” *. On the same idealized approach, popular trainings of personal development in nature are built, during which participants “find” their talisman animal. Convinced materialists tend to laugh at this, but participating in such trainings does help someone gain access to new inner resources. For example, a fat man, who compared his clumsiness with that of a bear, enters the role of a bear, stands “on his hind legs”, lets out a growl and begins to feel the heavy power and natural grace of the owner of the forest come to life in his body. And the one suffering from his timidity “meets” with the hare in order to receive from him sensitivity, agility and sweet disposition as a gift.
Primitive beliefs, animism and totemism, saw in animals the ancestors or brothers of man. In many tribes of Central America, there is a belief that each of us has an animal double. When one is killed, the person dies. The Egyptians depicted their gods as creatures with a human body and the head of a bird or jackal, while the gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans did not hesitate to transform into animals. Only monotheism (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) symbolically separated us from animals, making us the masters of nature, to which all other creatures are subordinate.
Marina Butovskaya, anthropologist”Our strategies are very similar”
Psychologies : What do we have in common with the closest relatives in the animal kingdom – chimpanzees?
Marina Butovskaya Marina Butovskaya: First of all, the fact that they and we are social animals. The need for constant communication, kinship and friendship, cooperation is both with us and with them. Just like aggression and altruism. We generally behave altruistically and cooperatively towards members of our own group and wary (at least) towards outsiders. There is also an unconditional similarity of our basic emotions, which was noted by Darwin. Anger, fear, surprise, joy, sadness, disgust – they are experienced by all higher animals and, of course, great apes.
Can we go further and talk about our resemblance to animals in general?
M. B .: M. B .: I would only talk about similarities with higher mammals. They also have aggression, there is affection between parents and a child, and sometimes this connection lasts for life. They also cooperate with each other. We have similar strategies in choosing a sexual partner. A female can focus on a male with good genes that provide strong, strong offspring (but this will be his contribution and will be limited – all further care for the offspring will fall on her). Or for a permanent partner, whose offspring may not have enviable health, but this male will demonstrate the qualities of a caring father and thereby increase the survival rate of offspring. Similar alternative strategies are observed in both mammals and humans.
Read more:
- Pets: do we love them too much?
“I” against common sense
Aristotle defined man as a social animal endowed with reason**. We like the word “mind”. We agree to remain mammals, but exceptional mammals. It’s nice to think that we have thoughts and desires, unlike the feathered and horned ones, which are driven by instincts. However, the development of animals living side by side with us proves that they are also controlled by no means only by instincts. And our relationship with them is not an illusion at all. Some dogs have been known to attach much more to people than to other dogs. And primatologist Janis Carter noticed that her menstrual cycle was in sync with that of the female chimpanzees she wards.
“Higher animals have consciousness, albeit limited, and they remember their past,” says philosopher Élisabeth de Fontenay, who has devoted a long time to studying the connection between the animal and the human. “A stolen dog or a caged lion remembers its history and suffers.”*** Chimpanzees and gorillas are able to learn the language of the deaf and dumb (Amslen) and communicate in it with each other and with people. Gorilla Koko, with whom psychologist Francine Patterson worked, mastered 500 words and used about 1000 characters. The most striking thing is that she showed a sense of humor – it would seem, inherent only in people. For example, she could declare that she was a bird and could fly, and then admitted that she was fooling around ****.
And we, in turn, are not at all as rational as we would like. Not everything in us lends itself to education: even despite the modern development of psychology, some parts of our “I” oppose logic and common sense. Like any mammal, we mentally and physically need a safe territory, a protective cocoon, shelter from “predators” – strangers and enemies.
Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer compared mankind to a herd of porcupines, which on a cold day try to keep warm by huddling together, but, having pricked themselves on the needles of their neighbors, are forced to move away from each other. Then, having frozen, they gather again and disperse again. So are people: loneliness pushes us to each other – and character traits make us keep our distance *****.
From primate to human
Biologically, we belong to the order of primates (“the first”). We are part of the hominin family, which also includes common and pygmy chimpanzees (bonobos) and gorillas. Chimpanzees are our siblings, gorillas are cousins. However, contrary to popular belief, we do not descend from monkeys, but evolved in parallel with them. We had a common ancestor from which we split off in Africa about 7 million years ago.
Our precious mind is the achievement of culture and society. This is evidenced by the phenomenon of “Mowgli” – small children raised in the forest by animals without human intervention. They cannot be returned to human society. A person cannot become a person without communicating with a similar being capable of self-reflection. At the same time, paradoxically, it is the observation of animal cubs that gives us the most information about the relationship between mother and baby and about the very process of becoming a person. Both they and we need physical contact with the mother at this time.
“I remember one seven-year-old orphan who was very excitable and had self-destructive tendencies,” says hippotherapist Laurence Augais. – During one of the sessions, he pressed himself against the belly of his beloved pony, shouting “mom!”. Sometimes, in order to help the maturing human “I”, you need to start with contact with the animal in order to reconnect with the animal part of our being.
Brain like a reptile
First of all, we are not only thinking, but also simply living beings – the same as meerkats or donkeys. Our brains are largely the same. Especially the so-called reptilian brain, the primitive and most ancient zone responsible for our emotions, behavior associated with the survival instinct and the desire to procreate. When danger arises, it is this brain that commands: “defend or flee.” “Sigmund Freud believed that part of the structure of the human personality – “It”, the carrier of unconscious drives and the main source of impulses, we inherited from our animal past,” explains clinical psychologist Sandrine Willems (Sandrine Willems) in her essay “The Soul of the Animal” , perhaps, the best work devoted to the questions of mental connections between animals and people ******.
However, a person has the most complex brain, and only a person is able to dream, consciously change the world, think about good and evil, about the purpose of his life. Geneticist Richard Lewontin, in his famous book Human Individuality: Heredity and Environment (Progress, 1993), recalled that “it is people who write books about insect societies and teach chimpanzees how to press buttons – and it never happens otherwise. It is in contrast to other species that we become aware of the common features inherent in humanity. The ability to take responsibility for all living things, Elisabeth de Fontenay calls the most characteristic human trait. “Unlike other living beings, we no longer have to fight for survival,” she states. “This privilege imposes on us the obligation to protect the weaker, not only people, but also other living beings.” We have invented humanity, now it remains to become truly human, without neglecting our animal side. To look at the world with sympathy, fairly, generously – humanely.
About it
“Human Evolution” Alexander Markov
Biologist and evolutionist – about our place among other species, about the evolution of the psyche and the origin of the mind (Astrel, Corpus, 2011).
“Studies in the History of Behavior” Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria
Prominent scientists on psychological evolution from monkey to civilized man. The work is included in the golden fund of domestic psychology (Pedagogy-Press, 1993).
* K. Estes “Running with the Wolves” (Sofia, 2011). ** Aristotle “Rhetoric”, in the book “On the Soul” (World of Books, 2008).*** É. de Fontenay “Sans offenser le genre humain” (Albin Michel, 2008).**** M. Deryagina “Evolutionary Anthropology” (URAO, 1999). ***** A. Schopenhauer “Parerga and Paralipomena” in Sobr. op. in 6 volumes, vol. 4 (Terra – Book Club, Republic, 2001). ****** S. Willems “L’Animal à L’âme” (Seuil, 2011).