Ways of Being Alive

The ecological crisis is a very real crisis for the many species that face extinction but it is also a crisis of sensibility – that is, a crisis in our relationships with other living beings.  We’ve grown accustomed to treating other living beings as the material backdrop for the drama of human life: the animal world is regarded as part of ‘nature’, juxtaposed to the world of human beings who pursue their aims independently of other species.

Building on his highly original work on the tracking of animals in their natural habitat, Baptiste Morizot argues that the time has come for us to jettison this nature?human dualism and re-think our relationships with other living beings.  Animals are not part of another world of nature but are cohabitants of the Earth, with whom we share an ancestry, the enigma of being alive, and the responsibility of living decent lives together. The mystery of being a body that interprets and lives its life is shared by all living beings: it is the universal vital condition, and it is this which should summon up the most powerful sense of belonging. By accepting our identity as living beings and reconnecting with our own animal nature, we can begin to change our relationships with the other living beings with whom we share the planet, seeing them not as inferior life-forms but as living creatures who have different ways of being alive.

This powerful plea for a new understanding of our relationships with other animals and of ourselves will be of great interest to animal lovers and to anyone concerned about the ecological crisis and the future of species, including our own.