What a great post. I wonder though why it is that although on the surface we humans are much more animal than machine, we nonetheless find it much easier to imagine "human-machine hybrids" than, say, "human-animal hybrids." I'm thinking back to the
Vampires discussion, for instance
Emily's hypothesis about what vampires are and Roy's remark that
"I think vampires are part of this feeling of fear of becoming inhuman in
this modern electronic world, as people above have suggested. Fear of
becoming a machine."
Going back to hybrids: in the context of that discussion, people brought up plenty of examples of cyborgs, hybrids, machines come to life, et cetera. At the same time, I feel like our cultural imagination of animal/human hybrids -- werewolves, are there other good examples? Centaurs? -- is really not so resonant these days.
To take this a little further, I wonder what people feel that the apes represent? Certainly in one sense, animals, as you suggest. But perhaps "a less evolved version of people" gets more to the heart of it. Maybe in the future this Darwinism people are so obsessed with will be seen to go backwards as well as forwards, not unlike how the onward-and-upward free market theories are now being called into question.
On a related note, I really think that the public's imagination of animals, especially animals in movies, is not too real after years of animations and animal characters which were essentially humans in different bodies. So when we think, collectively, about our own "animal nature," I wonder what it is we really have in mind.
I can’t help saying that if someone was scribbling a random scenario the concept of upward and onward as an orginizing paradigm would be immediately rejected. But now we have so much at stake that it is hard to see things as they are.
But more on topic, Solveig has a great point of departure wondering what we have in mind when we think about our animal natures. These metaphors do change, and this one seems to be under pressure.
Our relationships with animals in the wild has be literatureized. They no longer have much of an impact on our daily lives. We read about them with the cat on our lap. They no longer represent something different, but an aspect of ourselves as we refer to ouselves.
Wild animals are no more free than we are. We and wild animals alike are subject to the terms of our existances. I wonder if we posit the wild animal solely for contrast, and that it has become an empty category. One of those utopian positions that has only tonal value. If wildness becomes more bright, do we become darker?
Julie Sabatier tagged this post as Couldn't have said it better myself and Very enjoyable.
