Jiabao Zheng, Derek

Professor Hosig

International Writing Workshop

9 Oct 2018

From the Marginalization of Animals to Our loss

Ever since we as children started to use our sense to learn about the world around us, we saw

figures that were not quite like our parents and friends. They were almost the same size as we used to

be, and we could even hear them ‘talk’, in a language that was beyond our comprehension: but that is

not an issue. They sometimes come with the friendly neighbors when they visit our house, other times

they stay in huge cages which the grown-up called ‘zoos’. We sometimes saw them in our favorite comic

books and TV shows. Later, we were told that they were called animals.

How did these living creatures enter a society full of human beings, if they ever did? It seems that

we hardly question where animals come from, and whether our relationship with animals has always

been like this. However, John Berger, in his essay ‘Why Look at Animals’, offers us a detailed

examination of this unconscious relationship, and it is one that is darker or more skeptical than what we

would imagine.

These living creatures were there the first moment when human became aware of their

existence, and ‘they were with man at the center of his world.’ (4) This is the first answer that

Berger gives. Tracking back to the ancient times, animals played an essential role as ‘messengers

and promises,’ (4) in man’s spiritual life. They were medium for man to communicate with his
gods and other superior existence that supported his inside world.

Such relationship seems different from it is today. In fact, this very relationship between man

and animals took various forms and experienced several changes until today. Apart from being

‘promises’, animals used to be lenses that helped man to see and understand his world. Today’s

children are having a privilege of using the same method (among many) to learn different human

qualities as ancient human did. When young children first start reading, in those books designed

for them, they may frequently see expressions like ‘as brave as a tiger’ and ‘as loyal as a dog.’ The

similarities between human and animals partly prompted man to lend animals’ names to human

qualities. What led to such phenomena could also be the once irreplaceable role of animals in man’s

productive life with the presence of guard dogs, hunting dogs, mice-killing cats and many others,

and the subsequent close partnership between man and animals. Moreover, the distinctness of

animals, as compared to man, offered man, the ‘lonely species’, (6) a unique companionship like

no other. They provided a completely different perspective for man to reflect himself. Later,

however, man started to distancing himself from animals, when the leading figures of the society

reached the conclusion that animals are ‘soulless’, and people started to use the word ‘animal’ to

criticize people’s poor behaviors, and when numerous zoos and museums were established with

animals captured and displayed for man’s enlightenment and entertainment. Berger summarizes

this series of changes as ‘the marginalization of animals.’

According to Berger’s emotional chronology of human-animal relationship, the causes of such

phenomena are complex. However, I believe rationality and utilitarianism are playing important

roles in it.
 Ever since the Enlightenment Movement when rationality was first introduced, it has been widely

promoted and even worshiped, though ironically, the Enlightenment Movement was an attempt to get

away from various forms of worship. The stunning progress in different areas of human society, be it

material living standard, education level or scientific development, may probably have given man an

illusional sense of supremacy that further enhanced people’s craze for pursuing rationality and human

potential, since they seem to be the driving forces of modern advancement. Therefore, we are witnessing

a trend where not only are people paying more attention to personal development, but more in a way

that mimic many of the superficial characteristics of rationality. In another word, people tend to only

care about numbers, figures, and everything that can be quantified, which is a truly poor imitation.

Rationality, the particular way of thinking that most of us are so proud of, is much more useful

when it comes to quantitative analysis. However, it can be easily understood that not everything can be

fairly quantified. When it comes to human qualities like creativity, abstract process like imagination, or

subjective perceptions and feelings, a rational mindset can easily become confused. In order to secure

its dominance, it would guide its believers to gradually rule out or marginalize such thing, and this

process, in my opinion, led to the marginalization of animals to a large extent. After all, while it is certain

that a machine that produce more grains than a cow, it is almost impossible to simply give a number to

the companionship between man and animals, not to mention the unique but also ‘excessively abstract’

perspective for man to understand himself provided by animals.

It reminds me of my personal experience as a music student. When I was a kid I always dreamed

about being a musician, for a simple reason that music makes people feel good. However, no matter

how my parents who were rather open-minded tried to protect me, the reality inevitably hit. Although I
did receive some admirations when people learned that I wanted to be a musician, no one else was

willing to pursue that “admiring” path. From my experience, the majority of people can only think of

the possibly little economic benefit for being a musician, and are unable to see the unmeasurable positive

feelings that one can obtain. After all, it is unmeasurable.

After I entered university, I have become more certain about the marginalization of music (as an

art instead of entertainment), along with other art-related disciplines. In many music departments across

America, a huge amount of effort is devoted to help music students to be hired, since the demand for

such talent is rather poor. Still, music and art are among the most difficult areas for graduates to find a

spot in the huge machine of the society. Unfortunately, these beautiful subjects simply do not align with

the popular themes of the society. Take out your newspapers, and you will know what they are. They

are the launching of newest technological products that claim to change the world again, economic

situation that affects people’s income, or any other things that are either related to figures or people’s

tangible benefits. Similar to how animals are gradually marginalized by man partly due to the rational

mindset, the value of music and other art-related disciplines is also undermined as people are negatively

influenced by this way of thinking.

Do what we think matter? While it seems that what we think can hardly incur any tangible changes,

Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, in her famous sharing at TED Talks, suggested otherwise. The

famous psychologist and author revealed a staggering study that among 30000 adults tracked for eight

years in the USA, experiencing a huge amount of stress would cause a 43% higher risk of dying——

which is only true for those who believed that stress is harmful for their health; those who don’t believe

so experienced the lowest risk of death. It is just one of the many examples that reveal the importance
of how we think.

In literature, human or their minds are described at times as isolated islands. Flouting on the endless

sea, we are not directly connected to the world and our surroundings. Imagine a young child

encountering a cat for the first time, he might firstly use his eyesight to see the little cat, and then use

his hands to touch the furry skin of the cat or use his hearing to listen to the gurgling sound from the

cat’s stomach. Human are blessed with many tools to connect themselves to the world and understand

it. Apart from five sense, particular mindsets, impressions and many others facilitate this holy process

of connection. Interestingly, animals were also once important medium for man to connect to the nature.

In her essay “And We Walk Through,” Christella Wong commented that language is a “door

between worlds”, serving as “both entrance and barrier.” (1) Similarly, I believe our “languages” to

understand the nature, such as mindsets, senses and others, facilitate and hinder our understanding

simultaneously. On the contrary, the very ideas of art that are oppressed in today’s society is more about

not defining things but allowing for the freedom of human minds and interpretations. I feel strongly

about this way of thinking when I studied the various interpretations of Damien Hirst’s sculpture of a

tiger shark suspended in a tank, titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone

Living. By giving only a title to the art work, Hirst allows people to interpret the piece freely based

on their understanding and experience. Whatever the interpretation, the audience are in a way

seeing themselves and their life through this art work, and this may be what makes it great.

For the poor children who just learned about animals, they have lost the unique perspective arising

from the parallel relationship between man and animals before they had a chance to experience what it

was. If human being keeps restricting himself to a particular way of thinking or understanding of the
world, I am afraid that we would lose so much of which we may not even be aware. After all, what

differentiate human mind and computers, in my opinion, are the vast possibilities and diversity of

human mind.

WORKS CITED

John.Berger. “Why Look At Animals”. Penguin, 2009

Wong.Christella. “And We Walk Through” in Pat C. Holly II. Expository Writing 16, Fall Term

1992-1993. Harvard University.1992.1.

 Berger 讲述了动物的边缘化-很大程度上由于启蒙运动后的理性思维（一种新的偏激）-实用

主义盛行-个人主义-人类至上

让我想到了 Arts 被边缘化的个人经历

艺术的价值也受到宗教思维的影响

Arts 被边缘化的原因：理性的思维无法理解艺术的价值 无法去衡量

（没前途的 composer）

我觉得这是 domination of rationalization 的结果

启蒙运动以后人们开始崇尚理性思维。理性思维的一些特性：123 理性思维不能 evaluate 很

多领域的价值，艺术是一个没有统一标准和价值的领域，作为一个结果这些领域就会被这个世

界 rule out. marginalize

升华：思维方式就像语言，帮助我们去理解我们的世界，或者说建造我们的世界。当我们

崇尚一种特点的思维方式时，我们认知中的世界也会受到这种思维方式的影响。例子：当人们

深深植入了压力影响健康

为什么要讨论思维方式？因为思维方式真实地影响着我们和周围事物的关系
 还有很多被边缘化的东西，那些 rationality 无法 evaluate 价值的东西都会被

我们会经历很多的 loss, some of which we are not even aware of

自身的 conflict: rational thinking vs. irrational thinking

rationality may not be a comprehensive way to understand the world. In fact, there may not be any

comprehensive path to the world.

cannot help but be absorbed in the conflicting human mindsets and notions behind the

seemingly conflicting relationship.

It reminds me of my obsessions in games when I was a kid. Being raised in a rather open-

minded Chinese family, I was lucky enough to be spared from many extra classes after school.

Games of various forms, therefore, became the center of my world, be it hide and seek, card games

(those with only pictures on them) or many others. While some of my friends went home at night

with math equations and English words, I often went home with dirt and sweat. I could spend the

entire afternoon playing a simple catching game. And I could enjoy it so much.
 However, as I grew up, the very influence from the environment and the society eventually

hunted me down. On one hand, I was given more social standards, expectations, responsibilities

that led to the rise of the ‘more important things’ than playing games. I was expected to spend more

time on schoolwork for a better academic performance; I was asked to behave like an ‘adult’ who

would have a clear goal for his career path and his life. On the other hand, the proliferation of

choices for entertainment rendered the traditional games much less attractive to me. For now, I have

hardly played any games which I used to for almost ten years. Clearly, the relationship between me

and games has changed tremendously.

It does prove its necessity when it proudly led to huge development in scientific research and

technology.

domination of rationality

I am not going to undermine the importance of a person involving in the society and

maintaining an active relation with it. However, I do want to propose reconsidering the significance

of many trivial and pointless things in life based on our rooted mindsets and perceptions.

Whether or not it is a good change, if we can reach a satisfying definition for ‘good’, is

something worth a discussion. Some people believe that losing interest in games signals the loss of

our innocence, and many other negative features associated with ageing, just as George Bernard

Shaw said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop playing.”

However, on the other hand, it is also unfair to claim that what we do now with the ‘more important
things’ are meaningless.

Human grows not only as individual entities, but also as a species. Looking at the history of

human development, the ways in which human interact with other things and objects have never

stopped changing; and we are proud of such changes most of the time, and call them progress. This

is true when we look at how we render the nature to improve the wellbeing of human, such as the

production of electricity through fossil fuels, wind and many other natural resources.