I recently read Marc Bekoff’s The Emotional Lives of Animals. Partly, I read the book because it seemed interesting and l liked the picture on the cover; mostly, however, I read it because I was still dizzy after my nature walk with the immanent Rudy Mancke, former host of PBS’s NatureScene and current intellectual/career idol (for me at least).
Bekoff’s book takes a very simple idea and then carefully demonstrates its importance and potential impact. He argues that animals of all kinds-- all creatures that creep, fly, and teem—experience emotions whether we humans recognize these emotions or not. One of the many fine things about Bekoff’s book is its many and myriad stories and examples, and in fact, he further argues in a witty, charmingly direct style that human narratives are crucial in establishing his premise.
Now, this idea is not particularly groundbreaking in its ingenuity, something that Bekoff knows and underscores. Darwin established a principle of continuity, in which he argues “no fundamental difference exists between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties” (Descent of Man). There isn’t a degree of kind, only in intensity. So, dogs may experience something analogous to joy, only in a dog form (dog-joy?). The idea of continuity underpins Bekoff’s ideas and research.
One of his focused areas of research is on animal play, a behavior that animals engage in willingly, cooperatively, and at times, for no real utilitarian function, save for the pleasure they receive in having fun. Play asks animals to check their physical dominance and to comply with a code of fairness. Otherwise, play becomes too aggressive and then quickly escalates into something like a violent attack. If anyone has brother who wants to play that favorite childhood game “slaps,” one knows the kind of bargain you enter into when you agree to play. Therefore, play when performed fairly and correctly, argues, Bekoff, requires a kind of sympathetic identification among individuals, and that identification evidences emotion and emotional lives.
The idea of cooperation and empathy among animals, to a pretty drastic degree, rewrites Darwin. Darwin does present a kind of harmonious view of nature, where all species and individuals, even, are dependant upon each other and their environments. But, Darwin also classifies this ecology as “the war of nature” (Origin of the Species). So, Bekoff takes a big leap when he argues evolution’s success built on cooperation instead of competition, though he does look before he takes the plunge. In imitating Darwin’s style, Bekoff relies on many, many stories of inter-species friendships and affections, particularly between dogs and people.
On this point, it’s difficult to disagree with Bekoff, particularly when I think about some of the dogs in my life. There was Dusty, the infinitely patient golden retriever who tried to ride our Big Wheels and submitted daily to the whims of two precocious kids. My brother and I buried Dusty in the sandbox; tried to feed him “dog cigars”--these capsules of locus seeds and mud; and coaxed him into the bed of our dad’s pickup truck, though he was clearly terrified. Lucy, my mother’s miniature daschund, had a repertoire of tricks Mom taught her, including sticking out her tongue. Lucy would bring all sorts of animals to the front porch: chipmunks, birds, snakes, and once a baby rabbit. Most of them Lucy had expertly beheaded, but she would appear proud, tail wagging and almost smiling, waiting for my mother to congratulate her. She never ate any of these creatures. She seemed bent on performing more tricks for my mother.
And then there’s Edgar, the first dog who was mine completely. That silly dog has listened to me whine, complain, and cry through my divorce, my moving, my writing. He tilts his head, raises his eyebrows, pushes my hand with his wet nose. “How can he not know what I feel?” is what I think. He exhibits the pure joy only animals seem to possess too. When he feels it (which isn’t often, for Edgar is a lazy dog), he will run at full speed, his small hind legs a blur, his ears flapping back, his whole body in motion. I swear, Edgar is smiling when he does this.
Dogs, and my experience with cows, certainly lend credence to Bekoff’s arguments. Animals do feel things. People, after all, are animals too, and we aren’t that much different if we can experience joy, sorrow, embarrassment, right?
Not so fast. Bekoff makes it a point to announce his own feelings and prejudices for two reasons. He wants to be perfectly clear in furthering his point, and he also believes that the objectivity of science is really a myth. My training in literary studies has beat into me the self is constructed, that subjectivity depends upon the environment one inhabits. So, that’s not the bone I pick with him.
Before I go on, let me outline two things that inform my own point of view, my own subjectivity and prejudice. First, I grew up in a rural area where we raised our own beef, and later, eggs. My grandfather owned a dairy farm on which my dad and his brothers worked. Animals on farms, whether they were horses or mules, dogs or kittens, were there to help people. Sometimes they produced food (or were food themselves) or they were helpers and companions. They could be sentient, smart things, but they were not the same as people. They were functional and utilitarian, though, they were things to be respected and treated humanely.
Two, I am a Christian who simultaneously believes that evolution is a workable account for how the earth came to be and that people are created in God’s image. What that generally means is that I think we (meaning all life forms) are connected, but somehow, people are different. Bekoff thinks people are different too, that people occupy an alternate position in creation, though he attributes this difference to our “theory of mind.” People can think about thinking and other animals cannot. Our respective positions make big differences, for sure, but here I’d rather contend with Bekoff in regard to two broad evolutionary principles.
Bekoff asserts that even if we can’t perceive them, all animals have emotions and we should treat them as sentient animals. One technique Bekoff uses to support this view is his many examples of inter-species friendships. My favorite is the snake who befriends his prey, a big fluffy hamster. Instead of swallowing him whole, now the snake takes naps and curls up with the rodent. Bekoff’s research with play also demonstrates the ways animals alter their behavior to follow a code of fairness. Here it’s all about cooperation and harmony. We in turn should behave like these noble beasts: to treat other animals according to the principle to the Golden Rule (Bekoff actually does invoke Christ’s prescription for loving our neighbors).
However, Bekoff does not press upon the “war of nature” going on constantly in our world. Darwin himself closes the Origin with this admonition. There are “birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth” and they are “dependent on each other.” For food. They are going to each eat other, regardless of their respective emotional lives. Any kind of ecological balance, Darwin reminds us, occurs through the “war of nature, from famine and death.” Birds don’t care about the emotions of worms; they care about dinner. But, I suppose, humans should be better.
Bekoff and I do believe that people, despite the horrible things we do to our world and to each other, are different from other animals. And we both expect better behavior from our species. Bekoff offers ways in which we can be more kind: altering zoos to eventually get rid of them, halting scientific experiments on live animals, and becoming vegans/herbivores. Again, Bekoff has some good solutions, but I can’t get behind the last, from an evolutionary (and frankly culinary) point of view. If it is in our ancient past to evolve compassion, sympathy, and cooperation, it is also in our past and present to have the necessary equipment and digestive systems to consume meat. We are like many other omnivores. We evolved sharp, point teeth, suitable for the eating of sushi, beef Wellington, and corn dogs. This doesn’t mean we should go out and eat indiscriminately. Plenty of evidence and plenty of thoughtful writers demonstrate the contrary. We can be well-behaved and respectful eaters.
Bekoff’s book is smart and funny and instructive. He underscores some things I think I knew intuitively. Animals should be treated well and they do teach us things about our own emotions and—dare I say it?—spirituality. Edgar demonstrates a kind of love, trust, obedience, and wonder (He always reacts with an almost floor-peeing excitement when you return from the grocery store with lots of food or when you ask him if he wants to go for a ride) that I do wish I could mirror in my own spiritual life.
Bekoff, however, downplays linchpins of the same evolutionary principles he uses to advocate his conception of the world. It’s a kind of peaceable kingdom, where everyone cooperates and no one eats each other. Noble goal, that. But, it doesn’t follow the rules here, and it’s not attainable. Not in this life, anyway.
