21st THESSALONIKI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL [1-10/3/2019]
Open discussion: “Why Look at Animals?”
How much and in what ways does man differ from animals? What are the moral boundaries in experimenting with animals? How fragile is our relationship with them? How does art and philosophy converse with the animals? What does our stance towards animal kingdom reveal for our species? These are some of the questions raised in the open discussion “Why Look at Animals?” held on Tuesday 5 March at Warehouse C, as part of the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
The discussion, moderated by Anna Lydaki, Professor at the Department of Sociology, Panteion University, took place on the occasion of this year’s tribute “Why Look at Animals?” The speakers were Stavros Karageorgakis PhD, University of Athens, author, researcher, Yorgos Skampardonis, author, and Louie Psihoyos, film director.
Welcoming the speakers and the audience, the Artistic Director of the Thessaloniki Film Festival Orestis Andreadakis pointed to the reason behind this year’s tribute. “30 years ago I read an amazing essay called “Why Look at Animals?”. It was written by British essayist and cultural thinker John Berger, and it changed my life. This essay kept on coming to my mind and the presence of a dog in my house for 14 years made me change the way I see the world. That was the occasion for this tribute, which is not just animal-centered, but purely political.”
Consequently, moderator Anna Lydaki reminded of German philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel’s quotation that separating man from other animals is the biggest atrocity in the history of civilization. “A part of the whole, man, was severed from the world, created an autonomous whole and demanded a right of its own. A right based on the concept of prioritization of species. However, animals are not inferior beings; they can feel, love, understand, judge, remember, they have a language, they communicate, mourn their dead, have skills which we don’t. They have rights”, Mrs Lydaki noted. She also made mention of the need for people to understand what science attests about species’ interdependence: “Since the 1980s, environmentalists, professors of philosophy and sociology in US universities are articulating a powerful speech on the rights and the protection of animals and nature. Social sciences, anthropocentric until recently, are today opening up to the non-human world, taking into account the relations between humans, animals, and nature”. Mrs Lydakis also stressed out that we need to “seek the lost unity with other living things, bedeviled as we are by our nostalgia for it. We have to look into the eyes of animals not to mirror ourselves, but to see their own reality, which is so similar and yet so different from our own. That’s where we’ll see the immense pain caused by humans as they’re trying to apply the law of the jungle, which we know is unfair”.
From his part, Stavros Karageorgakis made mention of laboratory animals, noting that man’s contact with animals is daily, and not only by way of the obvious association with domestic or stray animals, or even livestock; there are also the slaughtered animals which we eat, wear or use in various ways. “However, there is a field where animals are totally worthless; the experiments. There, even animal lovers lose interest”, he added. Mr Karageorgakis stressed out that experimenting with animals does not just form part of medical research, as many people probably think; animal testing is also used in many other areas, such as cosmetics and other consumer goods, as well as the war industry. “Based on calculations, around 115 million animals are being used worldwide for experimental purposes. Especially for Greece, in the period 2014-2015, data from the Ministry of Rural Development and Food show that about 42-47,000 animals, mainly rats, were used for testing”, he added.
In his part, the author Yorgos Skampardonis talked about the human-animal relationship in Greek history saying that “in antiquity, animals are inherent in all aspects of everyday life. Man’s relationship with them is organic, is a deeper, vital connection. He made special mention to animals’ presence in mythology and art. “There are countless animals in various myths. Starting from Aesop's’ anthropomorphic animals and Zeus’ transformations into animals each time he wanted to come closer to people, and up to Achilles’ celebrated horses in Iliad, or the oxen of the Sun in Odyssey. But there are countless references to animals in art in general. From Herman Melville’s literary whale to Bela Tarr’s cinematic Horse of Turin and Spielberg’s War Horse. Animals play a special role in advertisement as well, since an animal’s presence softens the viewers’ heart”. Why are animals so inherent in literature and art? Mr Skampardonis replied: “Because they are a symbol of the deeper condition in a people’s mentality. You will know if you observe the cats. Personally, when I observe my cats, their uniqueness, their understanding, their beauty, leave me speechless. This inconceivable trait, instinct, is something which escapes from our own human understanding. I observe their look, their attitude towards life, which has nothing to do with depression, only with optimism. This attitude is a life lesson for us. It is greatness. This is why artists are and always will be getting inspired by animals”.
In his part, the film director Louie Psihoyos talked about the use of animals in nutrition: “A long time ago I thought that to be strong I had to eat meat. In fact, there is an ad in the US which says that if you’re a man you have to eat a juicy steak. However, if you go to a slaughterhouse, you see animals being killed, skinned, and hanged. These hanged, killed animals are still looking at you. This is a scene I cannot forget, which made me decide to quit eating meat. However, even when I started eating fish to cover my needs in animal protein, I never stopped being impressed by man’s intervention to nature. I once decided to count the level of mercury in my system. It was impressive; it was eight times more than normal. This may cause serious neurological problems in our system”. Louie Psihoyos noted that vegan diet is much more beneficial for everyone. “Choosing to eat meat is a selfish move which we have rationalized. In reality, it is for our pleasure. But if we want to be selfish, we can also change some of our habits such as our diet, with multiple gains. There are athletes who train and take part in painful sports such as weightlifting or marathon racing, who do not lack valuable elements in their system even though they are vegan”.
The discussion also focused on everyday problems regarding animals, which are hard to solve. Mr Skampardonis referred to meat trade, which gives employment to many families. “These are complicate issues which cannot be solved just like that. There is a chain of professions which, either we like it or not, is making a living out of meat eating: from the sheepherder to the butcher in the corner. In order to halt meat eating, we should first provide these people with different jobs. Furthermore, many people have health issues which unfortunately cannot be solved with veganism. In other words, there are various practical issues that we have to deal with before making such decisions”. Mr Psihoyos contradicted saying that “If some alternatives are objectively better, we should choose them. Some people may suffer following a significant change such as the abstinence from meat eating, but it would be a win-win situation”.
Speaking of the differences between humans and animals, the speakers mentioned Logic. Mr Skambardonis said that Logic, in the sense of reason, is a fundamental difference. On their part, Mrs Lydaki and Mr Psihoyos noted that animals possess language skills. “There is social connection between animals” Mr Psihoyos said, adding that “we have recorded sounds of whales that communicate singing a special song. Let me say here that orca has a bigger and more sensitive brain than ours”. In his turn, Mr Karageorgakis noted that “logocentrism made us move away from animals and believe that the lack of human speech means lack of intelligence and reasoning. Animals communicate, and they do so in complicate ways. I think we have only started to understand animals”.
