In what way are we as a species different from animals? It is given lip-service in our society that a human is just another form of animal, albeit a special one, but people do not really believe that. Some say that both evolutionary and religious theory accords us a special place. One way or another we are at the top of the tree psychologically speaking. Either we are God’s most special creation or we are the end result of blind processes that somehow triumphs in the human (despite the protestations against specialness of the Neo-Darwinists). Either way most people still believe that humans are somehow different from our animal brethren. Perhaps we are. But if that is indeed the case then what makes us uniquely different?
The main question I would also like to ask in this essay is:
Are we civilised or just domesticated?
I think this is an important question. One that Orwell perhaps hinted at.
Perhaps the book, ‘Animal Farm’ was more than just an allegory of how a socialist
society may go awry. Perhaps society actually is a farm. A humenero as someone
once put it.
Domesticated Humans
But before we can get to those questions let us first
examine if humans are different to animals, and if so, in what way.
Are Humans Different to Animals?
What makes us uniquely human? Not much it appears. Some within
certain religious groups might argue that humans have a soul whereas animals
might not. But what evidences the existence of a soul in a human? If it is our
emotions then that is not unique to humans. Animals display the full range of
emotions and tendencies as humans, from happiness to anger, jealousy to pride,
grief to love. Parrots get very emotionally attached and can die of heart-break
if their beloved human passes away first or emigrates without them, as has been
known from various cases (1). A paraquet is a small parrot-like bird and
one would not expect them to have an uncannily human-like range of emotions. I
inherited a paraquet and it has become quite attached to myself. It thinks it
is my partner and gets annoyed if someone pays me attention in front of it. It
enjoys snuggling into my chest whilst I watch a documentary or video. Talking
of which dogs and cats can enjoy watching videos but usually they don’t.
Humans and animals have similar recreational needs. Young
animals like to play like young humans. Most animals don’t like music with
repetitive beats however many dogs and cats will listen to quiet classical
music. There is an exception, again parrots which both enjoy music with a beat
and will dance to it too.
What about language, surely that makes us unique? Animals
have vocal and body languages but they can also use systems similar to our own
abstract systems, albeit to different extents. Are we the only one to use
abstract symbols? Apparently not. Dogs can recognise abstract symbols and use
dozens of words. It is said by animal psychics that animals communicate mostly
in pictures and telepathically (2). This form of communication has been
evidenced and seems surprisingly consistent. It does not mean that animals
cannot use symbols. It is seen that dogs and other animals can use human created
symbols and understand their meaning but animals also create their own. Weaver
birds, with tremendous effort create beautiful nests, the design of which
represents their skill and their ability in life. The mate chooses her partner
on the basis of the skill in presenting a unique nest (3). The puffer
fish creates abstract art, we could say that this done solely for attracting a
mate but how many human artists gain emotionally or socially from doing their
art in addition to any intrinsic enjoyment? Certainly the abstract forms themselves
are both symbolic and artistic (4) and the puffer fish may well enjoy
the process.
Puffer Fish - Symbolic,
Abstract Artists
Ants can farm/enslave aphids, some species of weaver birds
build apartment blocks of nests, bees live in hyper-social super structures,
lions live in feudalistic prides. Some animals have a degree of democracy,
certainly there is much politics in a group of monkeys. Other animals seem to
have achieved an almost ideal level of positive anarchy where everything
functions well but no one is in overall charge. This can be seen in a flock of
birds which swoops and turns in unison but with no conductor or the virtually telepathic,
decentralised anarcho-communism of bees and ants.
Democracy, even different forms of democracy like representative
can be noted (female lions approving the male leader in block ‘votes’) to direct
democracy (herd animals making decisions based on a level of consensus above a
certain percentage). Such democratic patterns are even seen in insects and less
social animals like pigeons (5). Like humans some animals prefer to be
on their own in the wilderness – the rugged individualist. Even capitalism and
private property exists in nature, animals are territorial, plants own their spaces,
social and material capital is accumulated, a hunting ground is a form of
capital.
We are finding that intelligence is much broader than we
ever imagined, everything from a slime-mould to fish have complex intelligent
behaviours. So it is not intelligence that makes us unique, our machines are
already more intelligent than we are in certain areas. Could it be our capacity
for good and evil? Again here it is a no too. Animals will sacrifice themselves
for their young, they will look after siblings of another species, they will go
without to feed their offspring. On the other side, lions will slowly eat an
elephant alive and killer whales will wear down their prey over days of
pursuit, yes they are driven by hunger but the process is still torturous to
the victim. Cats will purposefully maim. Most humans are driven to evil by
things seemingly beyond their control at the time too. Like animals we become
victims of our own drives and reactions. Dolphins, seals, lions and even ducks
can practise behaviour which most would class as evil, beyond what is needed
for survival and catching prey. Animal behaviour, in all our worst traits,
except perhaps large scale organised war are seen in the animal kingdom (6).
Good and Evil
in Ducks
Even our sexuality is in no way unique. Animals can enjoy
sex, they have strong sexual drives and a certain percentage are gay and
bisexual depending on the species. Different family forms are also practised by
various species particularly birds. The homosexual behaviour is not on the
whole just replacement behaviour as in certain bored captive animals, much of
it is genuinely gay and seen in the wild, some species even are preferentially gay
but not many (7).
Gay Animals, Diverse
Families
The author’s contention therefore is that humans are not in
any way unique, we are an exaggeration and a generalisation perhaps. But beyond
that not different in kind. We are a very strange animal though in some ways.
We sweat and are mostly naked like a sea mammal, so can run for very long
distances as we can keep cool. Very few other mammals sweat like we do. Other
creatures make tools but we have exaggerated this ability. We seem to have a digestive
system that is neither herbivore nor carnivore, having teeth that are mostly
herbivore but the oversized brain and small guts of a carnivore. We are closest
to a pig and a capuchin monkey in the dietary regard, not at all like most
primates. We seem to have averaged out the opposing ends of the dietary
spectrum just as we are a generalist in other ways. We are also strange in that
we appear not that well suited to our surroundings physically and need to use tools, cook and build complex
shelters just to survive in most habitats.
Discontent and its 'Civilisation'
By culture we tend to mean a society’s set of beliefs and
ways of living. It is often used in an interchangeable way with the word, ‘civilisation’.
Civilisation most basically defined is just living in a city type structure but
usually it is more broadly defined around a set of factors generally implying what
is considered a developed society: a political state, social classes, urbanisation,
work specialisation and writing being central characteristics. On the other
hand, a farm is defined as an area of land used to grow crops or raise livestock,
usually as a business.
We undoubtedly have many of the characteristics of so-called
civilisation but is all as it seems? We have
a political state but it is often not of our making. Most people do not live in
the kind of state they would choose. The people they do want as leaders get assassinated
and those they don’t want put in their place. We do not control the actions of
the states we live under. The state decides when to go to war not the people.
The state decides what economic system will be in use and who will benefit the
most from it, not so much the people. You vote for a conservative party with
traditional values and get globalism. Or you vote for a labour party for the
working class but get globalism too. Unless you live in China, where you might
be able to influence local politics but get a national technocracy. In Africa,
leaders who go against the wishes of globalism get their countries invaded or
their presidents assassinated. We are not in control. Certainly, through great resistance
and in parts of the world where we are fortunate enough not to be too amenable
to the imposition of empire, such as Europe, with its dividing seas and
mountains and local lords, people have been able to gain some level of freedom over
the centuries through protest, turmoil, civil war and civil disobedience but it
is constantly worn down and tampered with, reengineered until nothing of the original
impetus is left. If the British people were in control of their state, we would have a genuinely conservative government not the communist one we see, we'd have a young King and his mother would be the pre-eminent royal - Princess Diana who would be married to a Muslim with a mixed lineage of descendents. Instead we had a horrible sacrifice and a Royal family that most thinking British wouldn't give tuppence for, not that our opinion means anything.
There are certainly classes in existence so this might make
us a civilisation but who in our society wants such huge differences between
the elites and the rest of us? Who wants an underclass who can’t afford food? No
one does except the controllers. Hunger is not accidental, technology and the
means to provide for everyone is systematically destroyed. Even our most basic
technologies could provide for everyone, let alone the suppressed technologies.
All these things are not accidental, they are built into the system. Disturb
the balance of the system and it tries to destroy that trigger.
Urbanisation is a central part of civilisation and yes we
have that but who amongst us would choose to live in an atomised city, wouldn’t
we rather be living in small communities which join together into larger ones
forming a community of tribes in an area or a humanised city? Do we want to live
in soulless connurbations? We live like farm animals facing the
feeding/transport troughs rather than each other. We are a tribal, herd animal
so why are we forced to live such lonely, mass-produced lives? It is not of our
choosing. We have below an idyllic - supposedly, set of houses facing a river
in a northern country. The houses don’t face each other as in a small self-contained
community but look out onto the thoroughfare like in a farm.
Farm Housing
In a farm the power supplies are centralised. In our
so-called civilisation power supply is also centralised. We have had inventor
after inventor who provides ways for decentralised power production and
decentralised transport but each time they get killed or suppressed. Our
society is held back by hundreds of years by evil schemes. But why do the evil ones
always have the upper hand? It is almost as though there is a rule that humans
in ‘civilisation’ most not get beyond a certain point, the point where they
would cease to be intelligent farm animals. Technology is only allowed if it
centralises and creates power for the few and whoever sits behind them. Decentralising,
humanising, empowering, healthy technology is killed. Centralising, power
creating, dehumanising, rapacious technology is enshrined to be worshipped
whilst the susceptible are brainwashed into thinking it ‘green’ and somehow
good.
Farms are pan-opticons. The farmer wants to be able to view
all his livestock at once. Our societies are organised in the same way and are fast
becoming technocratic pan-opticons. Our schools and offices are the same.
Perhaps a high population was needed to enter through the
industrial revolution but now that has been achieved the high population is
surplus to requirements. We are without a shadow of a doubt being culled, right
now. I am writing this in the summer of 2022. Every week at least a thousand excess deaths are occuring in the UK according to official statistics. Young celebrities and athletes continue to get ill and die. But no one connects any of this with the dreaded 'V' word - verboten in the media-feed prepared for the docile farm animals. The 'health' war continues unabated whilst we wait for the next phase of the war on the population.
Closing the Karmic Loophole
Is there anyone to blame for the current situation? There
used to be a sense that although planet Earth appears to often feel like a
prison for some of us it can be argued karmically, that consciously or
unconsciously, we all agreed to be here through our actions. So, it is our
responsibility that we are here. This then justifies the traumas experienced in
this earthly realm and even may put a sense that outsiders need not interfere
too much - yes, it is bad, but the people agreed to it on some level.
But is this actually true? If we do not live in a
civilisation of our choosing but a human farm imposed upon us, then we can ask:
Are sheep responsible for their own slaughter?
Are cattle to blame for their own captivity?
On a farm it would seem to be the farmer who is responsible.
The farmer moulded those creatures so they could not think for themselves. Or
if they still had some freedom of mind, imprisoned their bodies. In reminds me
of the great film, ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ from 1951, Wilhelm Reich’s
favourite movie. In the film, Klaatu is mystified at why cows don’t leave their
fields, they are intelligent enough to make their way into the milking parlours
so why do they not just unlatch the field gates and leave? They are trained to
think the way the farmer wants them to think. They are not free in their minds.
Reich’s
Favourite Movie
In the same way humans have been moulded and altered, until
spiritually, they are no longer what they were before this process. Most humans
are not fully acting as humans anymore but as farmed creatures. Therefore, our controllers,
whoever they really are, could be argued to be karmically responsible for what has
befallen us and for what is now stopping some of us truly being human. A farmed
animal cannot be blamed for its living conditions, or its lack of free thought.
The cow has been manipulated to not be able to see the latch on the field gate,
it cannot think beyond the milking parlour or the cattle shed. Even if it can
vaguely see there is a better life than this it is too fearful or too
comfortably numb to take action. The runaway sheep tends to just get run over
or end up lost and hungry.
That part of humanity which is still fully human chooses not
to live as we do. That part which is no longer able to function is perhaps not as
responsible as we may think for the world as we see it now. The controllers made
that portion of humanity into cattle so perhaps they carry that karma. Any bad
karma of the inmates has already been repaid in the suffering of being a farmed
animal, it could be said.
So What To Do?
One thing we can do is try and minimise the suffering
created by other creatures within the multilevel farm we exist within – the ‘farmed
farmers farming the farmed’ is what we humans are currently. We can avoid
factory farmed meat whenever we can. If we do not want to be unhappy cattle we
should not impose it on other creatures. Most people want other animals to live
as good a life as we can make it, whether they eat meat or not. We can decentralise
and become responsible for ourselves in small little ways, like collecting
rainwater and purifying it or starting a vegetable patch, or even just growing
some cress on a windowsill. We can try and connect to people in our communities
and form work and housing cooperatives. We can start moving toward living in
tribes again. In the meantime we can join a local ‘tribe’ whether it is a
gardening club, a golfing club, a local football team or a farm direct scheme.
Any way we can move away from centralisation is required. We can set up our own
healthcare systems on a small scale and start to rethink how we live in
atomised separate houses. We can stop using the globalist system as much as we
can, using cash instead of cards, getting away from mobile technology overdependence.
We can find alternative commerce schemes and get creative again. We are going
to need as much community as possible to get through the collapse of the
centralised system that appears to be on the horizon.
The most important thing we can do though is spiritual, energetic. We can imagine the world we want to live in. We can start to feel its reality in our meditations. We can dream again. We can reawaken to our own innate power as the creators.
References
1 https://www.barkinganddagenhampost.co.uk/news/parrot-dies-of-broken-heart-7653550
2. Anna
Breytenbach, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQehXoCipts
3. https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/weaverbirds-nests
4. Yoji Ookata
https://twistedsifter.com/2012/09/fish-creates-beautiful-sand-art-to-attract-females/
5. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2012/mother-nature-network-11-04-2012.html
7. Bagamihl, B. (2000) Biological Exuberence, Homosexuality
and Diversity, Stonewall, UK.
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