How do Animals make us Human?
So how do animals make us human? There is a question. Someone once asked me what my thinking was on there being empathy in the relationship between animals and humans.
Empathy is generally described as the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others. To understand their experience. "To feel with another" to paraphrase Brene Brown.
But we are not dogs, horses, cows etc. I hear you cry, and nor are they humans. So, what is this nonsense.
For me, it a question of boundaries. Not physical ones, but those ones that our minds impose upon us. Those boundaries create the binary states of ingroups and outgroups. Those that are like us and those that are different. Science has proved beyond question that just the suggestion of whether some other is in or out of our group, is enough to provoke empathetic responses, or not, in their brain. We can dehumanise other humans simply though our use of the right (or should I say "wrong") language.
It is about how we define those boundaries. Another example is monotheistic faith which shapes itself around a supreme being. Our engagement in context becomes a primary in-group. This is reflected in our lived (forced science of) cartesian dualisms, mind versus body, human versus non-human. In human history all manner of inhumanity has been facilitated by dehumanising "others" through choice language.
Increasingly writers are suggesting that perhaps Rene Descartes was not correct. With the growth of oriental practices around the occidental world, people are recognising practices with more animistic or polytheistic foundations. These shape very different world views. We are increasingly recognising sentience beyond ourselves. In this way the boundary of in-group extends.
So what if we extend how we define of our boundaries; e.g. we are foremost animals, we might engage with those that share our planet differently.
We look for what we have in common. That creates connection. And that connection through commonality exists in what I shall call the language of conscious feeling. The language of emotion and behaviour could be recognised as something in common.
A common tongue
Behaviour is communication, it is an expression of underlying emotion.
Jaak Panksepp in Affective Neuroscience identifies seven emotional systems that exist across mammals. And yes, that means us too.
Suddenly it feels a little less weird. Now there is something in common. If I can empathically recognise something of your feeling from your behaviour, might I recognise something similar in the animals before me. Do I just need to learn the lexicon of face and body shape, read the language of movement?
If I am hearing something of the unspoken feeling of the animals that I interact with, what is going on? Emotional understanding of another as we have said is stepping into their shoes. I do not seek to project arbitrarily the mind of a predator into that of prey, but want to reach out to what is common, I want to reach out to Panksepp’s common building blocks: Seeking, Rage, Fear, Panic, Lust, Play and Care. Whilst science preaches against anthropomorphising, an interesting reflection on this comes from the primate researcher at Yerkes Primate Center who set themselves the challenge of not engaging humanistic language in their work with chimpanzees.
The outcome was that their work was increasingly flat and denied the chimps agency in their behaviour. As naturalist and writer Carl Safina considers anthropomorphising "...is a great place to start."
Hearing what is not spoken
Back to the neuroscience – our brains at a binary base level work on a threat versus reward. Is this good for me – I approach it, want more of it – or is this a threat – I seek to move away from, or consider defending myself. Approach and retreat behaviours present themselves across the natural world, and in an often pronounced way when we insert humans into the animal space.
To say that an animal reacts to what the humans bring into their space is too simplistic – there are many variables to consider here. For example, the animal’s learned experience of human behaviour (be that good or bad), or the degree of compromise versus ideal that exists within its day to day circumstances. The five-domains (McGreevy et al 2020) model positions these animal-human interactions as an important component their subjective mental state and wellbeing.
But what we do see if we stop to look are behaviour changes in the animals in these encounters. These changes can form a simple scale of self-awareness once we consider that their behaviour might be feedback. In this context, how we then act is important. If we can hold a safe space for all parties, we need to do this for them as much as for ourselves. We can work on how the animal before us needs us to be? And then, how might we calibrate ourselves appropriately.
So the dance unfolds, we can reflect on our movement, and we read our own bodies in action through the feedback from a sentient "other". We might develop a scale of being. In this space a new question arises, when we observe an animal's behaviour we might ask ourselves “what did I do that created that?”. Or, “how should I be if I want to observe a change?”
The tables turn
And before we know it is not just about the animal.
It is about understanding ourselves. Recognising how we are. Acknowledging and owning the energy or emotion that we take into another’s space. Realising that we own that, and thereafter realising that we can change it.
We can choose to be different. In making that choice we change our world, and that of those that share our space.
And so, I assert this is how animals help us to shape our humanity. Not only do they show us what some might call our unseen self, but they invite us to shift or change. The foundations lie in the empathic power of social beings, I can understand you by understanding myself. I recognise a behaviour in you and become curious about my own.
Animals make us human because they shine a light into the foundation of our humanity. Our animal-ness, our empathic being. Then we have a simple choice, what action will we take when thus enlightened?
This is the challenge that I love within Animal (and Equine) Assisted Service, particularly the simple facilitation of ground-based interactions. It is a gentle and non-judgemental space where we can not just learn more about ourselves, but explore more effective or sensitive ways of being.
You can find out more about this work (particularly with horses) by contacting me directly, or by visiting the Athena® website.
