2.6.20

Cura

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.”  William Blake

1. William Turner
It was the time when the stormbird was arriving. Deep among the remnants of subtropical rainforests where dingoes howled even during the day time. In these dark woods it was also common to see these native canines hanging like strange fruit from large fig trees.

Most of the time the darkness of the heavens was only pierced by the flickering of stars in this area.

One night the star-strewn sky turned into an electrical storm. Bolts of lightning struck the mountain chains. Cura who lived in a tiny hut at the bottom of these mountains was aware that she lived in times of abrupt, persistent ecological regime shifts made by humankind. The time of the comfortable Holocene Epoch, the Age of Man was over. The cushy home of humans was irretrievably disappearing.

2. Lovis Corinth
Here be dragons
She knew that in ever shorter intervals firestorms fuelled by pollution came like a dragon out of the sky, transferring heat and energy and unloading it into human-made clouds that would spin above the fires and erase all life below it. Such a bush fire was in her view, just up the mountains where the ancient Gondwana rainforest remnants were melting into the soil, water, ocean and the stratosphere. No slayer of serpents or dragon slayer hero would come along to douse this mega combustion.

3. Arnold Böcklin
“Speak , So That I Can See You”
It was when a massive crack of thunder shook the ground, that a berserk dog-like-thing pounced against the insect screen door barking and howling so that even the sound of thunder disappeared under that noise. The creature had the fiery eyes of Blake’s Tyger and huge canine teeth. Its frantic movements were as if it desired to jump out of its skin. With each new thunderbolt it then appeared to metamorphose into a crouching and submissive animal on the human's doorstep seeking a safe harbor from the severe storm. At times it was showing the white in its eyes and they seemed to say 'Gimme shelter hooman!'
4. Francisco Goya, "Literary animal"
Cura was overcome by an uncanny feeling about this seemingly amorphous creature that came out of nowhere. Its presence and behaviour oscillated from pet dog to a stray, to hybrid or something unknown to her. The ambience and interaction had the certainty and ambiguity of a cloud. She decided on the spooky feeling of the 'wolves are at the door'. She was stunned.

The woman lived in a formless mass of green stuff called the 'bush' that was filled with creepy-crawlies. The small rivers in the area of Terra Incognita were called 'Never Never' or just 'Unnamed Creek'. No one had bothered putting names on things yet and no one noticed the disappearance of word-less things. Previous ancient stories of the landscape were made to fade out of the knowledge system.

5. Eugène Guérard
This little remnant ecotope was an island in a gigantic sea of mono-culture. The cultural landscape of a blank slate was manufactured with the aid of fossil fuels and a good dash of toxins where the extraction of resources was the raison d'être. The conversion and near erasure of local ecosystems and their guardians had led to a 'loss' of a life-sustaining diversity.  Settler culture brought their alien oversized baggage of weedy species, domesticated and invasive animals and set them loose against the survivors.

Ecocide was a way of being-in-the-world, a mind-set for the expanding masters of the universe that always planned to move on and grab some more. Starting life as kleptoparasites, the developing primates went forth and plundered till they reached the edge of their 'petri dish' today. Omnicide is an optional choice now.

Cura swam against the current, she took care of the self and had a devotion to and solicitude for all other holobionts.  She was in awe, sheer wonder, about ‘the physical basis of life’, the protoplasm, the building plan of the cosmic order and the web that connects all of life.  Her ethics of care extended especially to the endemic flora and fauna that had been so vandalised as mere stuff. The disproportionate growth of organisms alien to the ecosystem had to be rolled back. It simply meant arriving in country as a non-indigenous settler in the 21st century.

Cura's worried mind sprang back into action "OMG 'I am stuck with a dog , - a dependent pet'. Where is the owner, the ranger, the pound? But most of all her concern was for the next day when all the regular cohabitants would come into the day and this unpredictable canine would occupy the space and time. Maybe next morning she could contact far away neighbours and find out who let their dog loose.

She was aware that in the 'dog-eat-dog' world  the essence of 'humanness' was measured by how one stood towards dogs and sometimes children. The common parlance was: "Never trust a person who doesn't like dogs."or "If you want a friend (in Washington), get a dog."

Worrying
In her mind she visited the known pet enthusiasts in the area. In her doze she came face to face with a dragon that was the black dog of the system

6. Ferdinand Hodler
There was the one with four large pet dogs and a large menagerie of ungulates. The once cute fluffy puppies had outgrown the kids as toys. The teens transitioned to peers and the dog pack now roams the home of the koalas at night. The nightly noise trespassing from their barking exceeds their masters' borders, robbing humans of their sleep and nocturnal wildlife of a safe home.

The ruling Victorian elite sparked the fashion for lap dogs. Later pet ownership became a generalised feature of the bourgeois family model in the West. While two generations ago dogs were chained to a kennel or worked with livestock, the beasts had now snuggled up into the humans' beds and were kissed intimately. The culture industry cashed in on the needs of households with a list of films with canine stars, fuelling the desire for more pet ownership.

Extinction is a choice" Margaret Atwood
By now 62% of Australian households own a pet and spend A$12.2 billion on their furry companions. (source) The meat required is mostly repurposed Australian wild animals. Living in one of the most bio-diverse continents with a world record of species extinction, it is a choice to promote a monoculture of introduced species over Australian endemic species. Margaret Mead once told James Baldwin about the interspecies divide: "The Northern identity is dependent upon whom you can keep out". (source)

7. Paul Klee, featherless biped
And then there is the household with the two white fluffy dysgenic beings that can not breathe, but  yap - all day when they are left alone for the duration of a work day. Maybe they are lucky as many family companions are dumped in the holiday seasons as excess baggage. Or when the going gets tough the inconvenient load is donated to the bush.

The world is their latrine.
Many pet enthusiasts acquire special purpose-fitted combustion engines so that they can drive their dogs to scenic locations to deposit their excreta. Part of the quality time with their pets is for them to go free-range in the wild. A restrained frolicking in nature is unthinkable. The dogs are always off the leash encroaching on wild creatures' habitats or other people's places. On the many no-dogs-beaches one can count more off-leash dogs than shorebirds. Local wildlife and humans are repelled by the pathogenic faeces left in their paths. Even drink fountains in parks double up to wash the bottom of dogs.

If one sees a human being taken out on a leash by a dog it is usually for the concern of the well being of the pet and not other passing beings. Dog-free walking or cycling people are usually not granted the courtesy of personal space integrity. Dogs charge at people and jump at them. "They just want to play" it goes. For many this game of non reciprocity ends in a one sided mauling.

Mistaken as nature
In Western culture the dog stands for nature. The well meaning animal owner demonstrates their love for nature by pampering the dog, or better a pack of them, thereby showing their humanity. The natural order appears wild and apparently without rules. Complexity is simplified into a reliable and predictable relationship of master and dependent. An asymmetrical relationship where the other, unlike wildlife, is effortlessly available. The property owner is rewarded with a soothing unconditional love of someone who doesn't talk back.

8.  Lovis Corinth
The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the „moral schizophrenia“ of meat consumption. The daily industrial mass torture and extinguishing of non human animals. Invisible and untraceable supply chains deliver livestock or wildlife through the mincer. The well meaning consumer is afflicted by cognitive dissonance when cracking open another tinnie of roo or tuna for their best friend while fading out the exploitation of the vulnerable creatures. The ecological “pawprint” of domestic dogs places them with cats and rodents as the world's most damaging invasive mammalian predators. (source)

Soon after we left our primate niche we realised that we were a deficient being. (Arnold Gehlen) Megafauna, cave bears and wolves among others had superior weapons to us. It was not the wolfe's better fangs, but their cooperative pack hunting strategies. By domesticating the skills of the wild gray wolf (Canis lupus) the omnivore human in alliance with the carnivorous canine became the most powerful hunter. Neanderthals, Denisovans and megafauna disappeared and the surviving large predators were kept at bay till today.

In this constant cohabitation and co-evolution both species domesticated each other. The primates lived in a brutal hierarchical structure, while the rules of conduct were cooperatively agreed upon in the wolf pack. The leader of the group is not a despot but sets limits in their group. The domesticated wolves became wanderers between two worlds, shapeshifting from human society to a wolf-like being in cute Chihuahua clothing.

9. Paul Klee
A panacea
The wolves like other animals had to serve the 'pinnacle of creation' for many purposes. From hunting, herding livestock, protecting property, utilisation in lab experiments, shot into space, sniffing for explosives, illegal drugs, wildlife scat, currency, and blood. Hero dogs sell products and serve as therapeutic crutches for the fading human's mental resilience.

In 1542 the Spanish missionary Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote a A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies. (PDF) He reported how the indigenous peoples and black slaves of Latin America were chased and fed to the dogs by the colonisers, sometimes even for 'sport'.

In Decisive Moments in History, Escape to Immortality Stefan Zweig described how the Spanish conquistadors used dogs to tear the bodies of bound indigenous people apart.

The act of hunting with dogs entailed violence against other beings then and now. In the Europeanisation of the globe the dog served to keep wildlife out. 

'The Dogs that Made Australia' are deeply ingrained in the national psyche. British colonial settler cultures brought their baggage of dogs, horses and guns to the hunt. "Hunting dogs soon became incredibly valuable in the colonies, trained for the purpose of killing and sold at high prices. Hunting for recreation was a way of consolidating settler ownership of large pastoral properties; it was a triumphant announcement of the absolute dispossession of Aboriginal people and the end of the frontier...The kangaroo hunt (was) a formative experience for a young male settler, a colonial rite of passage." (source) "Europeans had almost wiped out emus within 25 years of arriving in Van Diemen's Land." (source)

The dog as a weapon was probably not just used to clear the land of Australian endemic fauna but most certainly played a role in the terror and genocide of Indigenous Australians.

Untill today dogs have continued to play a role in a post-colonial racial discourse. In southern Africa, the canines are divided into 'native dogs' and 'white settlers' 'pet' dogs. In Australia there are settlers' pets and working dogs and on the other hand there is the 'native dog', the dingo, which is treated as a pest. Pastoralists who made the thylacine extinct continue their eradication work on the native dingoes, known as 'wild dogs' today. Trapped dingoes are mauled by settler dogs, while their masters yell “Get it!”. (source) Hunting pig dogs, in packs of nine 'flush out' not just feral pigs but endemic wildlife. Even domesticated pigs on private properties are torn apart by hunting dogs. Pets on lifestyle blocks and suburbia do their bit to keep Australian animals at bay.

10. Adalbert Stifter
In Afro-Dog, Blackness and the Animal Question, Bénédicte Boisseron investigates why white America cares more about pets than about black people. Police dogs are used against protesters during the civil rights movements. Threats of “vicious dogs and ominous weapons” against (Afro American) protesters are omnipresent.

In today's asymmetrical war context in Afghanistan, an Australian dog handler lets a patrol's assault dog chew on a dead man's head and the animal's handler says "Let him have a taste." (source)

In Nazi concentration camps in the 20th century, crimes against humanity were also conducted by dogs handlers. Many people on death marches in history were rounded up by dogs and their handlers.

Reality has no chance under the doona
In Cura's sleepless night all these demons snuck from under her bed and fought off peace of mind. Cura ended her nocturnal reality attack with the fading of darkness. The 4 am Yellow Robins pinged in the daylight and ended her doze. She hesitated to approach the front door afraid to find the canine beast that triggered the torment still at her doorstep. Having to confront it again face to face, looking it in the eyes. But it was gone! With a sigh of relief, worry could end and a new day could start populated with all the regular cohabitants.
"...The most beautiful thing about my burrow is the stillness. Of course, that is deceptive. At any moment it may be shattered and then all will be over. For the time being, however, the silence is with me."  Franz Kafka, The Burrow
11.Hieronymus Bosch
Cura grabbed a book and pursued her regular birding from the window. The Eastern Whip Bird couples were performing duets by exchanging whip crack calls. The Green Catbird rarely seen in the camouflaged foliage emitted a loud cat meowing also reminiscent of a toddler crying.  The Satin Bowerbirds were aggregating. Male gangs of Bowerbirds gorged hot chillies and picked pretty flowers for their architectural designs to impress the females and competitors. The male Regent Bowerbird's plumage blended in with the citrus. Golden Whistlers patrolled their area with loud vocalisation. The Eastern Spinebills got a drink before the Lewin’s Honeyeaters intervened. Blue Wrens hopped in large groups through the ferns. Large groups of Firetails took collective baths. Out of the blue, flocks of hundreds of Scarlet Honeyeaters were grazing on the Syzygium paniculatum flowers. Amongst all that a mass of little brown birds. Small groups of Glossy Black-Cockatoos could be heard squeaking and cracking Allocasuarina fruit. Higher in the canopy, the Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove and the Wompoo Fruit-Dove could be heard but rarely seen. The Bar-shouldered Doves took off with the slightest sound. Waddling along was the Emerald Dove that likes a long foot bath with a view. Nervous plump Wonga Pigeon couples walked by and peeped into windows. The Brush-turkey was re-arranging the leaf litter. The female Paradise Riflebird rarely makde an appearance.

By the time the sun had warmed the tiles and it was time for her first cup, a cavalcade of Lace Monitors of all sizes were doing their crocodile walk across the front door. The larger lizards brought associations of the ancient seven-metre-long Goanna, Megalania that lived 40,000 years ago. The shy Land Mullet dashed noisily out of the sun with the slightest movement. Egernia Skinks scuffled along edges and Blue-tongue Lizards flattened under the Midgin bushes. The Eastern Water Dragon was snapping up the neighbour's livestock, the honeybees. Tree snakes rustled through the understorey when the pythons were absent. Pythons of all sizes met up and shed their skins on the verandah beams.

12. Hieronymus Bosch
Cura immersed herself in the daily sound ecology of birds and reptiles. She looked up from her book and really appreciated the ecological assemblage that was possible without introduced pets, livestock or neophytes. It is magic to see how the omission of introduced species allows endemic diversity to flourish as a system. 'Living with wildlife' brochures often sounds like, living with diabetes or TB. Narration of the rich biodiversity of Australia is often relegated to kids' fairyland or First Nation narratives. Occasionally Australian icons come in handy as fundraisers.

One species takes all
A pox called man (Nietzsche) is running amok in their one and only home. The new landlords' insatiable system is on the path to the annihilation of nature's Wunderkammer and their own species.  A web of perpetrators, victims, spectators and witnesses act as agents in this devastation. The radical and rapid planetary transformation known as the Anthropocene is calling into question the preconditions of existence for all the beings that have evolved on this planet for millions of years. The uncanny (un-heimliche) end game of homelessness (un-heimische) in a world of scaffoldings, rigs and prosthesis steers towards a novel ecosystem (technosphere).

"All Who Follow in Our Wake" will be deprived of the right to unfold their potentialities. Trauma is the generalised condition that is experienced by all living beings as they progress in a collapsing system. The state of living becomes a path between sheer survival or extinction, a journey between Scylla and Charybdis. The wise man's sleep of reason has produced many monsters in our lifeworld and in the global ecology (Greek: οἶκος, "house") in the last decades. Many are mourning the violent extermination. Adriana "Cavarero proposes the name "horrorism" for those forms of violence that are "crimes" which offend the human condition at its ontological level... Horrorism is, so to speak, a radical rejection of care". (source)

For our species it is time for (un-)learning and transforming our stewardship of our home and relationships to all other beings. The option is between care or violence.

Cura closed her book and went weeding.




Images:
1.) William Turner, Shade and Darkness - The Evening of the Deluge, 1843
2.) Lovis Corinth, Walchensee, 1925
5.) Eugène von Guérard, Australian Landscapes
6.) Ferdinand Hodler, Night, 1889–1890 (detail)
7.) Paul Klee, Phenix, 1905
8.) Lovis Corinth, Fridge in a Berlin restaurant, 1923
9. ) Paul Klee, Two Men Meet, Each Believing the Other to Be of Higher Rank, 1903
10.) Adalbert Stifter, Moonlight, 1850
13.) Sebastian Brand, The Ship of Fools, 1494 (Albrecht Dürer woodcuts)

13. Sebastian Brand (Albrecht Dürer woodcuts)
Inspirations:
Anderson,Virginia DeJohn , Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004

PB Banks, JV Bryant, Four-legged friend or foe? Dog walking displaces native birds from natural areas, Biology letters 3 (6), 611-613, 2007


Bellacasa, Puig de la , Maria (2017), Matters of care: speculative ethics in more than human worlds, Posthumanities, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press  


Richard Brons, Reframing Care – Reading María Puig de la Bellacasa ‘Matters of Care Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds’ in Ethics of Care, 2019

Cavarero, Adrianao, Horrorism. Naming Contemporary Violence, Columbia University Press, 2011

Christie, Peter , Unnatural Companions, Rethinking Our Love of Pets in an Age of Wildlife Extinction, 2020  (Review by John C. Cannon, Mongabay, 26 May 2020)
Daedalus, Harriet Ritvo , On the Animal Turn, PDF

Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, 1962,  PDF
Hyginus, Gaius Julius , Fabulæ, ccxx “Cura” (ca. 70 CE)(S.H. transl., following M. Heidegger, 1927) 

Schopenhauer, Arthur, On the Basis of Morality (German: Ueber die Grundlage der Moral, 1840) 


Lessenich, Stephan , Living Well at Others' Expense, The Hidden Costs of Western Prosperity, 2019


Margulis Lynn, René Fester (Ed.)  Symbiosis as a source of evolutionary innovation: Speciation and morphogenesis. MIT Press, Cambridge MA 1991

NSW Fire and the Environment 2019–20 Summary, Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, NSW gov., 2020 PDF


Weber, Andreas , Enlivenment: Towards a fundamental shift in the concepts of nature, culture and politics, 2013

Updates:
Beef, grazed on deforested and stolen land, feeds global demand. ‘They come with dogs and weapons’ Mongabay, 10.6.2020

No comments:

Post a Comment