More Binaries and the Great Chain of Being

This post will be the last installment in the series on binary oppositions that basically began in the "Who is an animal?" post. If by now you're wondering how this has anything to do with animals (other than their symbolic uses by humans), I hope to clearly demonstrate by the end of this post how these dualisms intersect and structure an ideology of objectification and violence.

But first, let's dive into some more binaries!

Civilized:Primitive
The Civilized:Primitive binary is essentially the Culture:Nature division (discussed in the last post) applied to human social-political organization and interactions. Civilization connotes a human society in the most "advanced" stages of social, technological, moral, political and cultural development. Primitivity implies the regressed, stagnant state of the human in Nature, who subsists with crude tools and simple social organization.

The symbolism and logic of the human:animal binary informs the Civilized:Primitive divide. The human that is most Civilized is considered most human, most cultured and rational; the Primitive human is near-animal, in that she subsists through her Body's interaction with Nature. Civilized:Primitive relates to and relies on other binaries such as Developed:Developing, Modernity:Antiquity, Western:Nonwestern, Scientific:Superstitious, Progress:Stasis, Adult:Child.

WWII era propaganda poster. The Kultur of the German Brute is a Primitive
tool - heavy and blunt. His transgression of the civilized boundaries of
reason/sanity, violence, sexuality, and national sovereignty mean that
he is an animal. Accordingly, the US government endorses his destruction.

It's true that we frequently think of these terms, Primitive and Civilized, as endpoints on a spectrum or series of stages of societal development. However, in common language we rarely recognize the shades of gray - it is easier to label an area "first world" or "developing" than it is to precisely describe it's position on a continuum of progress. Even when sociologists do attempt to place different societies onto the imagined spectrum, they do so by categorizing individual traits of society within dualistic frameworks (i.e. "hunting-gathering is primitive"; "monumental architecture is civilized"; "more complexity means more civilization") and then synthesizing the whole and labeling it (much like the process I discuss in "A clarification of the human:animal binary").

The big problem here is that notions of progress and Civilization are entirely Eurocentric. The narrative of progress (the story of the evolution of man from animal Nature to the heights of Civilized Culture) was first told by those who saw themselves as at "the end of history": the enlightened European man. Thus, to be Civilized, to be modernized, meant to be Westernized, not only in technology and political organization, but in cultural values as well. The Europhilic ideal of Civilization has spread throughout the world by the violent networks of imperialism, and has been historically used to justify the systematic oppression and exploitation that supposedly Civilized nations brought to the Primitive.

I'm fascinated by how the history and ideology of imperialism resonates with human:animal ideology. Civilized nations saw themselves as inherently superior in intellect and ability to their Primitive counterparts, as humans frequently relate to other animals; in both cases, this supposition of superiority has been used as a justification for systematic violence and exploitation of technologically disadvantaged others. There is a massive contradiction here, when violence (which is typically considered a degraded, animal or Primitive activity) is perpetrated by the supposedly Civilized human.

Imperialist Discourses in Action: Notice the difference in representations of humans, animals, Nature, and Culture between the Google Image results for"travel Africa" and "travel Europe"What narratives do these images tell us about the types of civilization of each continent? Does these narratives accurately reflect or create difference?



Masculine:Feminine

This binary is probably pretty familiar to you. From Pearson's textbook on Sociology:

Feminine Traits	Masculine Traits
Submissive	Dominant
Dependent	Independent
Unintelligent/Incapable	Intelligent/Competent
Emotional	Rational
Receptive	Assertive
Intuitive	Analytical
Weak	Strong
Timid	Brave
Passive	Active
Sensitive	Insensitive
Sex Object	Sexually Aggressive

All of the binaries we have discussed pop up in this list. Men are more strongly associated with the Mind (intelligent, rational, analytical), and in their assertive, active, independent and dominant behavior, with Civilization and Culture which trump Primitivity and Nature. Meanwhile, women are distinguished by their Body (or rather, lack of Mind - unintelligent, emotional, sex object), and for their Primitive/Natural inclinations (passive, intuitive, submissive). I think it's important to point out how women's role as birth-givers and mothers reinforces the feminine association with Body and Nature.

As a result, women are considered more animal than men, who, as the traditionally dominant group, have carried out the noble tasks of humanity. The association of Masculinity with human and Culture is reinforced at the basic level of language - man is synonymous for human and history chronicles Civilization through time. The typical exclusive-privileged:inclusive-degraded structure of binaries can be seen in the words man:woman as well.

Overall, this binary has obviously created, perpetuated and justified the oppression of women throughout history. For more info, read some herstory. Also, don't forget that Masculine:Feminine condemns both men and women to perform socially constructed gender roles that may or may not fit an individual's will or personality.

I should point out that there is an interesting contradiction in the link between Masculinity and human. Sexual aggression and violence - animal characteristics -  are clearly considered Masculine traits. How can I reconcile this? Well, it's important to note that just because one pole of a binary is privileged does not mean that all of it's traits are always valued, or that the opposite pole is always degraded. Animals, Femininity, Primitivity, Nature and Bodies are frequently upheld as worthy ideals (though generally for their perceived simplicity, purity or superficial beauty), and invoked to justify violence. Still, comparatively, these ideals are considered lesser than their supposed opposites. I think the oppression and suffering that these binaries justify is caused as much by the privileging of one side as by the exclusionary, essentializing nature of categorizing an entity within a dualistic framework.

Listen to "The Zoo" by R. Kelly. Seriously, do it - it's catchy and hilarious. It's actually been stuck in my head all week... Pertinent questions: How does Kelly use animals', Bodies', and Nature's association with sex and Femininity? How does he perpetuate the idea of women as sex objects and men as sexual aggressors? Is there any potential for leveling binaries in this song?

Subject:Object

This last one is a bit more philosophical. It doesn't have quite as many direct manifestations in language as other binaries, but it crucially informs the human experience of relating to the world. The Subject:Object binary refers to how we divide the entities we see into Subjects who know and act, and Objects who can be known and be acted upon. It is closely related to Descartes' articulation of the Mind:Body dualism - "I think therefore I am" - a statement that implies that only the Subject really exists and should be valued, while Objects might not be real, and whatever action or knowledge is put upon them has little moral consequence. Different iterations of this binary include Self:Other, Observer:Observed, Active:Passive, Owner:Commodity, Individual:Reproducible, Master:Slave, and Ruler:Oppressed. As it relates to human:animal, only humans are regularly recognized as Subjects, whereas animal subjectivity is general ignored or denied.

The central problem with the Subject:Object relationship is that Subjects are always already Objects. We cannot determine if an Object is a Subject outside of the limits of our own subjectivity, which means it is generally easier to recognize subjectivity in Objects that are more similar to ourselves. For this reason, historically, powerful humans have objectified (devaluing or ignoring the subjectivity of an entity) other humans (women, ethnic or cultural others) based on superficially perceived differences in order to dominate and exploit them. The same goes for most human-animal relationships. The human sees himself as a Subject, and the animal as an Object which, due to lack of relatable subjectivity, can be used outside of moral limitations.

Experimental testing on nonhuman animals is justified by two primary rationales:
 1. Animals are Objects: because they are different, we can treat Others in ways we could not treat Subjects.
2. Animals are fundamentally similar to humans, so the results of testing on Objects are applicable to Subjects.
Does this logic make sense to you?

With scientific scrutiny and personal reflection, it becomes unreasonable to label all animals as Objects. Animals think, feel emotions, experience reality, and crucially,make choices. How can I know this? Mainly, because I am an animal, and I am a Subject. The evolutionary processes that have produced consciousness in the human species could not have taken place in the mere 6.5 million years since the human species diverged from chimpanzees. Large mammals in particular clearly display traits that suggest a subjective experience. However, I don't think it's justifiable to limit subjectivity to animals that we recognize human traits in, or to privilege brains as the sole producer of experience. These are arbitrary lines that can only exclude and allow unreflective violence.

Subjects or Object? Or both? Or neither?

To me, it seems unlikely that some certain combination of electrical impulses within a larger supportive system can create and explain the totality of my experience; neurobiology describes the how but not the why. I think it's more reasonable to see subjectivity as an emergent feature of life, and maybe even the universe. I'm not saying that plants think, but that they probably experience and do, and these processes constitute a subjectivity that on some distant level, is fundamentally analogous to that of a human, as all life emerges from the same interconnected processes (evolution, consumption, cycles). Think of it this way: if I (Subject) eat a plant (Object), and that plant's sugars fuel a neurological process that produces this thought or this sentence, did the Subject or the Object produce the thought? Does the potential for consciousness arise out of the particular configuration of the particles I eat, transform and create, or out of some basic property of the particles themselves?

Wow, that got pretty far out pretty quickly. Let's scale the discussion back to humans for now, and try to synthesize what I've laid out so far.

The Ideology of the Master Subject
Each binary I have discussed is ingrained into our semiotics (linguistic, visual and other symbolic representations of the world) to varying degrees - as such, they mediate how we interpret and interact with the different entities and incidences we encounter. I've briefly and bluntly categorized these dichotomies in order to demonstrate their shared symbolism and logic of exclusion. When we synthesize the whole, recognizing the reinforcing intersections between the binaries, we see that they support an ideology of the Master Subject.

The objectified Master Subject 

The Master Subject is the individual who created and disseminated all of the above binaries and, historically, has been most privileged by them: the affluent European male human. Through the binaries I've discussed and others, Western thought structured a hierarchy of relative worth, or a Great Chain of Being, with the ultimate ideal ideal Subject (God - anthropomorphized and Masculine; the creator/owner of Nature; Culture/Civilization are manifestations of His Spirit) at the top, and the most base, inorganic Objects in Nature (minerals) at the bottom. In between, life forms are relatively evaluated based on their dualistically categorized behavior and traits.

In its historical and present form, this hierarchy favors Europeans over racialized non-Europeans, men over women, rationality over emotion, power and wealth over poverty, humans over other animals, conformity over alternative lifestyles, ecological exploitation over environmentalism, and -  in general - stratification, exclusion, alienation, competition, control and hatred over equality, inclusion, communication, cooperation, freedom and love. The ideology of the Master Subject has naturalized brutal, exploitative relations and encouraged indifference to suffering - it is an inherently violent ideology.

So, what's my overall point? The ideology which justifies most current human-animal relations is the same that has justified and continues to justify systematic oppression, exploitation, hatred, fear, war, genocide, slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia, imperialism, classism, dehumanization, and, in general, most forms of structural violence. When we support systematic violence against nonhuman animals with our money and indifference, we perpetuate fundamentally violent forms of thought, action and social organization.

The binaries and hierarchies of the Master Subject ideology sometimes seem so deeply ingrained into our way of interacting with the world that they can seem impossible to escape; it can seem like things will never change. But if you look at the past 400 years, you'll find that revolutions in thought that directly challenged Master Subject ideology have radically altered the structure of societies throughout the world. Meaningful social change is happening, right now, while you read and consider my words. You can make it real, if only in your life, when you take personal responsibility for the impact your actions and ideas have on the world around you. Critically examine everything; research the materials and ideas that surround you; reject violence and exploitation; re-represent destructive ideals; recognize overlap and ambiguity; apply what you find to your conduct. These are never-ending processes, that I, personally, am only beginning to engage in.