Читать книгу When Animals Speak - Eva Meijer - Страница 18

Derrida’s cat sits in the bathroom and looks at him. “I must immediately make it clear,” he writes, “the cat I am talking about is a real cat, truly, believe me, a little cat. It isn’t the figure of a cat. It doesn’t silently enter the bedroom as an allegory for all the cats on the earth, the felines that traverse our myths and religions, literature and fables” (2008, 6). This real cat’s gaze makes him uncomfortable, which is the starting point for his reflections. The cat sits there while Derrida writes about human and non-human animals, about the human and the animal—he returns to her every now and then.

In response to Heidegger’s view that only human animals understand themselves as being, possess language, and have a world, Derrida argues that there are no such things as a “human” or an “animal,” and that we should problematize the kind of understanding that humans have of their own condition—as regards reason, language, death, and so on. There are different ways of understanding one’s surroundings, responding to them, and being in the world more generally. This appeal to “pluralizing and varying the ‘as such’” (2008, 160) is important, and we should indeed understand that humans do not have the powers they like to think they have—we are as vulnerable as other animals, and our knowledge is always limited by our sensory mechanisms, ways of being situated socially and politically, or more generally, by our specific ways of being. However, Derrida also argues that we should not simply give speech back to animals, an argument that, once we read it together with his interpretation of his cat companion’s behavior, seems itself to carry traces of the problem it tries to address. The idea that humans have the power to give speech back to animals implies a hierarchy—the human decides who gets what—and also implies that other animals do not currently speak.11 For Derrida, this power is never ultimate and can never not be deconstructed, but here he is still seeing language as exclusively human, something that is also evident in how he approaches interaction with other animals. There are three problems with this view.

First of all, it is important to recognize that there is a close relationship between language and intersubjectivity. Speech and language can and do create common, interspecies worlds, and are ways of expressing these. Non-human animals express themselves, and these expressions need to be taken into account if we want to adequately address how they have been silenced in the philosophical tradition, and more especially if we want to move beyond that. Derrida describes in detail how his cat companion looks at him while he is in the bathroom, naked. The gaze of the cat affects him; it makes him feel naked and ashamed. The cat looks at him but does not speak, he looks at the cat but does not speak to her, nor does he touch her or communicate with her in any other way (Haraway 2008; Warkentin 2010). Looking at someone, making eye contact or avoiding eye contact, is an act of communication. Derrida does not mention eye contact with the cat; the situation is fixed and silent like a film still. We see a scene with a naked man and a cat, told from the perspective of the man. We do not know whether the cat wants to leave the room, if she is hungry, upset, or if she wants to play. There is no interaction, and therefore no space for the cat to give meaning to the situation. The cat is merely an animal mirror in which Derrida sees himself reflected, naked. If the human is the only party to the interaction who thinks about their difference, the non-human animal individual remains dependent on the human to interpret and acknowledge her presence. In his discussion of Bentham, Derrida appreciates the change in question, the move to receiving, suffering, answering, and the power in these seemingly passive acts. His response to the gaze of the cat is an illustration of this; he cannot help becoming embarrassed and feeling ashamed. But although he describes many different—real and imaginary—animals in detail,12 he never mentions an actual non-human animal responding to him, and there is no mention of a dialogue between humans and other animals. This is unfortunate, because other animals do express themselves and can be consulted. In order to create a meaningful dialogue, we need to ask other animals questions and respond to them, not just look at them looking at us.

The second objection to Derrida’s remark is that there is political power in explicating animal speech and voice, and in addressing the epistemic dimensions of violence inherent in viewing non-human animals as silent (chapter 4). Who speaks, who is heard, and who determines this are important questions in political interspecies interactions. As we have already seen, there is a strong connection between anthropocentrism—seeing language as exclusively human—and the borders of the political community. Viewing other animals as silent and incapable of language and speech—which is often connected to other negative stereotypes, such as seeing them as unruly, unreasonable, or just plain stupid—reinforces their status as objects that we can treat in any way we wish. Furthermore, defining language as human language and excluding other animals from it by definition leads to a situation in which there is no common language with which they can address the harms done to them,13 even though they do communicate with us and try to make themselves known (Derrida 2008; Lyotard 1988; Meijer 2016). Investigating how other animals have been silenced as social groups14 can help to clarify power relations. Animal activists often point out similarities between human and non-human animals, and stress that other animals are subjects with their own views on life. Drawing attention to their languages and bringing to light what they say to us has great potential for improving their social and political status (chapter 7). Speaking for them and letting them speak for themselves are both important, and language is an essential tool in working towards change and developing new forms of political interaction.

The third objection arises as regards the meaning of “speech” in “giving speech back to animals.” What is meant by speech—who speaks and who has been allowed to speak—has changed over time, and differs between human and non-human, Western and non-Western cultures. It will change again, under the influence of social movements, cultural changes, and, in the case of non-human animals, empirical research. Exploring the history of existing concepts can function as a tool in envisioning change. In order to move away from anthropocentrism, however, we need to begin to reconsider the meaning of these concepts with other animals.