Why is it humans feel the need to seperate themselves from the world of animals when we are animals ourselves?

In my new neck piece 'Feral' hair and resin thorns grow from bone and a spinal like tail runs down my back. As a human I feel my body is vulnerable and would prefer to have more bodily defences than I am born with.

How do you feel about your human body? Would you rather be built more like an animal?
Do you feel a tension between your animal and human side?
Why do you think people want to seperate themselves from animals?

Any thoughts are welcome about the subject or my work!

Thank you for your participation.

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Ooo, what lovely ideas you brought up. I do agree that we cry, but I would like to believe that animals laugh, though I will never know for sure. As for building you need to look at ants. Apparently there are some that build 'skyscraper' and even farm other animals like we do. They are also one of the oldest animals.

I do agree that we divid world far more than any other animal and seem to enjoy and revel in it.

Thank you so much for your comment. It is still sinking in. Very nice thoughts.

Rickson
Rickson-

You should check out the documentary "Why Dogs Smile & Chimpanzees Cry". Some interesting stuff about animals and emotions.

Personally I find little true difference between humans and animals, except for the bloated egos of the former.
Guess what Stevie. There is plenty of evidence to indicate that egos (bloated or otherwise) are not isolated to our species. On one paw we all freely admit we is animals, and then on the other paw we are determined to come up with reasons why we aint. Perhaps our uniqueness is that we are the only animals that like to pretend that they're not animals. Excuse me, I have to go mark my territory now.
My dog thinks he's human.

My cat knows she's God.
Hehe, a cat person! I conquer. :)
We think we are superior because we are supposed to have souls. I think animals also have souls! (especially elephants, a personal favorite). And to know we are animals, all we have to do is look at a line of monkey to ape to man skeletons and see how similar we are!
haha this is wonderful. I agree that we definetly like to think we are better/superior/different than other animals. Humans seem to love deviding things into categories. I always liked my own reaction to vegetarianism. I thought, if someone doesn't eat animals, why do they eat fruits and vegetables? I mean they are alive too. Sometimes I think I lack the ability to seperate things from each other at all. :)
In answer to that theory, there is a small and very thin group of Fruitarians who only eat things that have fallen off the tree or bush, who can't stand for murdered carrots or taters.
That group is reminiscent of the Jainist creed of "do no harm" where they will even cover their mouths at night to avoid eating bugs in their sleep.
More power to them but I think they should stick with "second harvest" and do us all a favor.
I haven't seen this yet, but I looked into it a little and it looks very interesting. My instincts tell me that all animals have emotion, but I find it interesting that we revere certain animals and demonize others. Disney is the worst for this.
The rise of biotech has further obliterated the fuzzy line between humans and the animal kingdom. Human cellular information gets injected into animal eggs, animals are "injected" with human genes to better study human disease, on and on.
The philosophical waters will be even murkier as we blindly blend the animal and human selves physically.
Oooo so interesting. I wasn't thinking of it on such a literal level, but it is very true. Those things bother me. I don't think we should be injecting human cells into animal eggs and visa versa. I think I am more interested in the fact that we are animals, but we create a large seperation between ourselves and all other animals.

I find it interesting you say 'blend the animal and human selves physically' because I see them as already blended. Mammals all have hearts, bones, skin etc. There are so many similarities between 'us' and 'them' it seems strange to even have an 'us' and 'them'. But of coures the 'blending' you are talking about is not through evolution or procreation, it's through human intervention. I dislike human's discregard for all being's rights aside from our own. (and often our own too).

I have heard of the 'Fruitarians'. Very nice thought. I figure all or nothing personally. But I have always said, if I can't kill and animal to eat it, I shouldn't eat it. (still haven't tested that theory though.:)
I took a look at your work and it is very intrigueing! I like the spine piece and also alot of the brightly colored ones, and that metal piece with the staircase in it. It reminds me a little of Escher with things morphing and shape-shifting in and out.

On the topic of humans and animals; I have always felt as if I am somewhere between human and dog ever since I was a young child. I feel that in many ways dogs actually have the advantage running on 4 legs instead of just two and that humans' relative un-hairyness leaves us especially vulnerable in ways that other animals are not.

Humans have socialized and untrained out of natural instincts to a large degree and I believe that that is something people now have to work on to get back. Awareness can often be a wonderful defense and humans in their tuning this out have given up something very key to survival.

I think alot of people spend their lives trying to deny that they are in fact an animal probably because society has kind of prejudiced the population against other animals as though they are somehow less or are savage.

Ironically it seems the more people deny it the more they confirm it. Issues such as territoriality persist even in modern culture and people seem to think if they call it something else that it doesn't exist.

About a year ago I got a dog from an animal shelter after looking carefully for just the right one for some time. I knew when I saw her that there was something very special about her. It's as if we are on the same wave-length more than most humans and dogs can meet in the middle. It's almost uncanny.

She had distemper because apparently she wasn't vaccinated before I got her and I searched for a treatment for her and finally found one. She was very ill and close to death and I had to go into debt to get her the treatment she needed to save her life. I'm still paying it off. Some would have put her to sleep, but I refused to go there. When I told her I would stick with her and see her through it she understood me on a deep level even if she did not know the words I was using. It has always been as though we communicated through subtle non-verbal means and possibly even psychically.

Carmella has a sense of humor as well as a poignance that I have never seen in a dog, and it is evident in her pictures. Check out my blog at http://artlifenewsblog.blogspot.com and go back to read from July of 2008 til present. It is an amazing story.

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