Bestiality

A translation of a unique zoopoetic text by this American phenomenologist. Lingis burrows into the innards of the symbiotic relations between many and varied kinds of animals in diverse environments and surveys the abundance of physical, behavioral, nutritional, and sexual contexts in which these relations are formed. His main aim in this is to expose the fundamental error underlying the existing anatomic and physiological view of the living body as a separate unit defined by means of a finite array of organs and biological functions. Lingis calls upon us to free ourselves from the short-sighted individuation approach, situated between the physical and conceptual boundaries of the body, and also from the view of the grammatical, legal, moral, and political approaches to the subject that derive from it. In their stead, he urges us to understand that because animals, including human ones, are not separate beings, but rather more like a coral reef swarming with bacteria, microorganisms, and single-cell organisms, there is no difference between being human and being animal. On the contrary, even the most exalted, refined, and complex human characteristics derive directly from animal behavior.