Animals Are People

A chapter from Animals Are People by Peter Morville

Chapter 15

I fly down the hill like a bat out of hell. As the sun sets in my wake, evening air wicks away my uphill sweat. Rocks and ruts make it less like riding a bike than a bull. That I’m late for dinner hardly calls for such recklessness. So why risk road rash? After an hour in Gage’s pickup, I feel the need for speed. Backing a horse trailer is tougher than it looks. After three days of practice, I’m about as handy as hip pockets on a hog and madder than a wampus cat in a rainstorm. I’ve got to do better. To save those alpacas without getting caught, this operation must be perfect.

A flash of fur catches my eye as a red fox vanishes into roadside brush. Now that the season’s over, I suppose the 500 acre hunting preserve is a sanctuary, with the fox as hunter, not hunted. I’m not sure who’s worse, the old-fashioned fox murderers, or the modern-day fox-chasing torturers, who pride themselves on not killing their prey. To be chased by a mob of humans, horses, and hounds for hours must be absolutely terrifying. I hate fox hunters! I pull into our drive, ditch my bike, and I’m home.

They’re already at the table. “Jo, we just started, mac and cheese is in the oven,” says Mom. As I sit down, Ghost licks my bare calf — must be salty — which is how Mom sounds.

“So that’s why I’ve got no leads. ‘Move fast and break things’ is in, information architecture is out. Users are screwed. So am I.” Mom punctuates her tirade with a big gulp of red wine. I dig in. The mac and cheese is delish.

“Abi, that sucks. But hang in there! It’ll turn around.” Dad takes a pull of Bud Light, then turns to me. “Jo, I’m happy you’re here. I’ve got a true-false. Today a Scottsville woman was attacked by a bear, or a Black Hawk helicopter landed in our field, or I helped birth a calf.” Dad’s the goat of this game, no question. I take the helicopter. Mom takes the bear. “Jo’s right. No chopper. But that did happen to Bill a few years back, after a drug dealer ditched his Toyota Camry way deep in the corn field. The DEA agent told Bill that it was a pretty good haul. Over fifty pounds of meth!”

“So what about the bear attack?” asks Mom.

“She was walking her dog by the reservoir. Airlifted to hospital. She’s in stable condition. No idea why the bear attacked. It’s unusual. More likely to be killed by a bee. Today’s calving was unusual too. We had to use calf-pulling chains. Mama and baby are happy as clams now!”

Next morning, Inari starts class with a sigh. “Jo, before we begin, I have a medical update. My neurologist suspects myasthenia gravis. It’s a chronic autoimmune disease that weakens muscles, especially those of the eyes, mouth, throat, and limbs. The good news is it’s treatable. But it will take a few months for the medicine to take effect. Any questions?”

“You’ll be back to normal in a few months?”

“There’s no cure. But the medicine will ease my symptoms. Hopefully I won’t sound drunk. Now let’s talk about Tolstoy, Jo. What do you think of his essay, The First Step?”

“I’m grateful that it’s shorter than War and Peace. His graphic description of the slaughterhouse makes me sick. But perhaps it’s necessary. When Tolstoy calls eating meat ‘simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling — killing,’ he again appeals to emotion over reason. I do love that Tolstoy is fighting for vegetarianism, all the way back in 1891.”

“Me too, Jo. While Leo Tolstoy is known for literature, he was a great philosopher, an advocate of nonviolent resistance and animal welfare, and a Christian anarchist who denied the authority of Church and State. In his interpretation of the Bible, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and the Golden Rule apply to all living beings. Tolstoy inspired Gandhi. The two men exchanged letters for years.”

“Mahatma Gandhi is the real deal. I did not expect to enjoy his autobiography. But I did. I love when Gandhi says,”

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of a human body. I hold that the more helpless a creature the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.

“Do you agree, Jo? What about the sanctity of human life?”

“In spectralism, all life is sacred. Objectively, a child and a lamb have an equal right to life. Of course, even spectralists tend to favor humans, especially our friends and family. And that’s okay. It’s Care Ethics in action.”

“That’s a lovely answer, Jo.”

“Gandhi casts truth as the sovereign principle. Satyagraha, his policy of nonviolent resistance, means holding firm to the truth. He says, ‘There is no other God than Truth’ and ‘the only means for the realization of Truth is Ahimsa,’ and ‘He who seeks truth alone easily follows the Golden Rule.’ And my dude walked the talk. Gandhi was willing to suffer and die for his faith!”

“Yes, Jo. So it’s interesting to contrast Mahatma Gandhi with Nelson Mandela.”

“Mandela says, ‘Nonviolent passive resistance is effective as long as your opposition adheres to the same rules as you do. But if peaceful protest is met with violence, its efficacy is at an end.’”

“Nelson Mandela was a pragmatist. While initially inspired by Satyagraha, Mandela founded and led MK or ‘Spear of the Nation,’ the armed wing of the African National Congress. That got him 27 years in prison, after which he negotiated an end to apartheid and became President. Awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, President Mandela remained on U.S. terrorist watch lists until 2008.”

“I respect Gandhi’s purity, but I identify with Mandela.”

“I know you do, Jo. You’re less ‘turn the other cheek,’ more ‘eye for an eye.’ But when Gandhi affirms the same inviolable connection between means and end as between seed and tree, he’s right. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche says, ‘Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.’ What we do is who we become. So, Jo, please be mindful of hidden consequences!”

“No worries. I hear you.” Christ, it’s almost as if Inari knows about the alpacas.

“Jo, tell me about activist-philosopher, Lizzy Lind.”

“She’s a total badass like Anna Kingsford. Lizzy enrolled in the London School of Medicine to expose the horrors of vivisection. In 1903, the publication of her diary, specifically the entry about a terrier dissected without anesthesia for an audience of laughing medical students, triggered the Brown Dog affair with a trial and riots that divided the country. Lizzy started an anti-vivisection society and an animal sanctuary and spent her life speaking and writing on behalf of animals. And, of course, nobody’s heard of her. Lizzy’s too good to be in the canon.”

“In The Shambles of Science, Lizzy says, ‘To fight against vivisection is to fight against the principal fortress of the foe of idealism and spiritual evolution. Not until this fortress lies shattered and even its ruins are removed from the face of this earth can we justly claim to possess civilisation.’ Jo, such women are not to be canonized, as they imperil patriarchy. Speaking of, let’s take a break. Then I want to hear your second idea to save the world.”

Ghost and I wander down by the pond. Even on a cloudy day, it’s good to be outside. The spring peepers agree. What would Gandhi do? He wouldn’t steal the alpacas, that’s for damn sure. He’d talk to the owner, fight in court, sit in the driveway, and fast unto death. Gandhi is not wrong on the means and the end. But I am a seed who must act how I feel. If I end up as a crooked tree, so be it.

Back in class, Inari gives me the floor.

“I want a revolution. But, Inari, I don’t want to be burned at the stake. So I’ll use my religion to change the world.”

“Crucifixion is no picnic either, Jo, but do go on.”

“Seriously, Inari, I struggled with this plan. New governance is the end. But if massacres are the means, count me out. So I decided to weave principles of governance into spectralism. But that is tricky too. ‘Don’t Be Evil’ is too vague. And democracy is no magic bullet. Our sordid history of slavery, genocide, and sexism make that clear. So perhaps the problem is capitalism. And we must outlaw profit and property. Or the problem is human nature and greed. See what I mean?”

“Yes, Jo. You’re ensorcelled. If you’ll permit me a brief digression, let me tell you of ‘Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies!’ Most folks know the line, ‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,’ but few recall the second stanza of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl that asks, ‘What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?’ and answers ‘Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars!’ Allen Ginsberg invokes a malevolent biblical god to evoke the complex, adaptive world system of nations, laws, corporations, peoples, technologies, economics, externalities, and multipolar traps in which we are bound. Moloch is the evil stepchild of Leviathan, far nastier and more brutish than Thomas Hobbes’ nature. So it’s not the elites or masses or capitalism or democracy; it’s how it all intertwingles. Nobody wants the metacrisis. Yet nobody can stop it.”

“Wow! It’s a good thing spectralism is post-apocalyptic. So, Inari, after the collapse, how do we avoid recreating Moloch — a corrupt system with perverse incentives that elevates sociopaths? I struggle with the fuzzy boundaries between culture, government, law, and religion. What stops a person from kicking dogs, shooting coyotes, poisoning mice, or eating bacon? How do we avoid war and genocide? Inari, we humans can’t govern ourselves. Maybe we need aliens or artificial intelligence to align humans with compassionate values and sustainable goals.”

“So you want a benevolent dictator? Jo, are you ready to trust an alien or AI version of Plato’s philosopher king?”

“I don’t know. Absent a world government, I don’t see how we avoid multipolar traps. But the scope of that body must be limited. Mostly, we need small, local, self-governing communities, since morality doesn’t scale. But perhaps we’re united by a post-apocalyptic constitution that starts with ‘We, the people of earth, affirm that all beings are equal.’ Inari, I seriously believe that if we can agree animals are people and embrace the ideal of Ahimsa, we’ll be off to a good start. I might go so far as legal animism. If we see rivers and trees as persons, then we’re less likely to harm our own habitat. But, Inari, that’s all I’ve got. Governance is a wicked problem. Moloch wins. The end.”

“The Māori say, ‘I am the river, the river is me.’ Animism is a sustainable belief. Dominion is not. So you’re off to a good start, Jo. You’d be wise to study culture, which Edgar Schein defines as ‘a pattern of shared tacit assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.’ As the hip pace layer between nature and governance, culture runs as deep as language and religion. Anyway, that’s excellent work, Jo! But, for next time, how about working on a slightly less ambitious plan to change the world? You don’t need to outshine Gandhi and Mandela.”

I nod. Class ends. It’s go time! An hour later, I’m losing myself to Eminem in Gage’s red pickup — ‘the moment, you own it, you better never let it go. You only get one shot.’ As I pass the shack, I’m relieved her drive is empty, and there are no other cars on the road. I slow and pull into the dirt road. I can’t believe I planned to do this in reverse. All that practice for nothing. I stop at the gate and break the chain with Dad’s bolt cutters. Then I open the gate and pull into the pasture. The alpacas hightail it to the far end. I turn the pickup in a big circle and stop. Now the trailer blocks the exit. No need to reverse. I open the trailer and extend the ramp. It’s all good. This moment, I own it.

I walk to the far end. The alpacas look as bad as I recall. I slowly herd them towards the gate. We near the trailer. So far, so good. The tiny, black alpaca clatters up the ramp first. The herd starts to follow, when the gray one darts to my right, and they’re gone. Fuck! It won’t work. I need a second person or a herding dog. I can’t be here. If a cop pulls up the dirt road, it’s game over — there’s no escape.

I walk to the far end again, mixing lyrics in my head: ‘her palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, there’s vomit on her sweater already, mom’s spaghetti, I’ve got to formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot, success is my only motherfuckin’ option, failure’s not.’ As we near the trailer for a second time, I step to the right and hold out my arm. Once again, the black alpaca steps up first. I hold out both arms, step towards the herd, and into the trailer they go.I sprint up the ramp and close the doors. Thank God, it’s done! I raise the ramp, hop in the truck, and pull away. As we pick up speed, I crank it up to eleven, and lose myself in the music. I’m not Gandhi. But I am a total badass. Fuck the patriarchy. I can do anything I set my mind to, man!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

A chapter from Animals Are People by Peter Morville