Just why just-so stories
In this post, I will share:
an unexpected find: the idea of other animals as witnesses in judging humanity,
a few thoughts on why fables, fairytales and just-so stories might be an important antidote to polarisation and misinformation,
and a new ending to an old story.
Have a little look:
This is an old Romanian fable — it has been translated by the Bucharest born, later British scholar, Moses Gaster, as “The Judgment of the Soul of Man, Accused and Defended by Beasts and Birds”. I love it — precisely because it does not tell you how things really are and it doesn’t pretend to be doing so. To my mind, its form, the humour and conversational tone clearly signal to the reader, or, originally, more likely, listener: “This is not how it is, but: we are still dealing with an important topic here. Think about it.”
Human relations with other animals have posed problems for all feeling and thinking humans since time immemorial — moral concern for them is not a modern luxury, it comes naturally unless humans are being disabled in that regard. And while (some of) today’s cats and dogs are likely to pass a different judgment on “Man” than the ones in this fable, its core themes are still highly relevant: Should domestication bring advantages to the domesticated animals? What measures are humans allowed to take in cases of real conflict with wild living animals? And, above all, how does our treatment of other animals reflect on human character — at an individual and collective level?
I imagine that this fable was told in fairly intimate settings, intimate enough for the listener to pipe up and protest — to ask a question that might lead to a different topic, to offer an alternative account, or to start wondering what any of this should mean for practice. I imagine that each time this fable was told, people were comfortable enough with each other to make jokes, to tease, but also to hold each other’s more difficult emotions. I imagine its brevity helped to stay with the people — not so much as a moral lesson but as a puzzle: “I wonder why …” Many of the other fables in Gaster’s collection are responses to such puzzles. People seem to have wondered about the origin of the names of some species (e.g. the “bull-fly”), had questions about the colour of birds or the existence of seemingly “useless” animals, or about observations they could regularly make in their environment (crows having an argument with hawks, “cats and dogs” and so on). The answers they received can by no means have been taken as sacrosanct. Not only do fables of this kind undergo evolution — they are told and retold, modified and adapted. Also, the overtly humorous strategies employed over and over again are inherently anti-dogmatic. These stories are just too good — as stories — to be true.
These days, we deal with important puzzles very differently. Intimate conversations are so much rarer. Even with our young, the focus seems less on story-telling and story-challenging than in instructive readings or listening to people deemed capable of imparting valuable lessons. As adults, we don’t often tell each other stories, certainly not ones with a dash of poetry; instead, we listen to trusted writers and experts on shows and podcasts, read their books, and attend their talks given to large audiences. Most conversations about important topics come with a heavy emphasis on being right straightaway — with the surprising effect that, in our efforts to get things really very right, we end up creating a culture of rampant misinformation and gullibility. Naturally, in such a climate of tense factual and moral righteousness, humour is the last thing people have patience for. Everybody is scurrying to nail down how things really are. And because we cannot possibly have good truth-tracking mental habits in all domains, we turn to science — or what we take science to be.
Though perhaps a contradiction in terms, I am a fan of the sciences or of what I have understood of scientific methodology. And, for the longest period, if I have taken notice of fables or just-so stories at all, I was bewildered. I was wrong.
In fairness, I didn’t know very many of these stories, the ones I knew where mostly about humans after all, actual non-human animals were grossly misrepresented, and, sometimes, some pretty awful attitudes were reinforced (from racism and misogyny to human supremacy). Adequate representation of other animals is important and, as far as moral lessons are concerned, Aristotle might indeed be preferable over Aesop, Rousseau over “Little Red Riding Hood”. But a generalised enthusiasm for the sciences can lead to what some philosophers call scientism — essentially turning science into a source of belief, which is the opposite of what science is about.
Scientism can lead people to jump to conclusions not warranted by science. Peirce, famous for wanting to make philosophy more scientific, said that belief has no place in science. Even though science can tell us about how a virus works and make predictions, what we do about it is not warranted by science. We can (and should) let our views be in-formed by scientific evidence but it doesn’t do the job of making judgments for us. Relatedly, scientism can lead people to give science authority in matters where scientific method has no traction in the first place. Whether to despair or hope in light of human powers to change natural processes has no scientific answer. Midgley warned against science taking the place of religion on numerous occasions.
“Generalised enthusiasm” for the sciences ignores the sceptre of scientism. It takes the form of any sentence that starts with a triumphant “Studies have shown that …” kicking in the public sphere. Crucially, it leads to the flattening of curiosity and the growing inability to converse with others about important topics, to wonder communally how to piece things together in a complicated world, because, after all, science has just shown us that … We seem to forget that not all questions are amenable to be answered by studies, but also that not all “systematic” answers can count as evidence.
Things become extra-complicated when scientists dabble in story-telling — epistemic heterogeneity is real. As people who cannot possibly have good habits of forming beliefs across all domains, we have a right to know who is doing what when. Lest we truly believe stories of viruses acting as mythical punishment for human behaviour, or that all will be “well” for “life” in “the end” — just because they have been told by a scientist turned prophet.
To return to the proposition of the old Romanian fable: that other animals will be called to bear witness on the human soul — I couldn’t help but play with it.
“The Wild Eider Ducks came and had only good things to say about Man: ‘S/he built us nests and protected us from hardship and we could raise our young in the softest of soft conditions.’
Things were looking good for humanity!
Then the Chickens were summoned — and they complained: ‘They keep us in masses and filth, it pains us to live, we have no idea of the sun.’
‘How can this be?’ the divine judge asked, whose voice is not known to show any signs of emotion, ‘for you have been meant to enjoy life in the home with Man!’
Then a rooster raised his voice above all others: ‘I have been met with a most violent death, for Man, whom I trusted and followed around in the wild s/he now calls “home”, did not protect me when a raptor came, and just watched on while I was devoured.’
A chorus of young cockerels started to wail in support of the rooster’s complaint.
And Man called upon the Plants to come to his defence.
But the plants were not moved.
Man grew uneasy and called upon the Mountains to come to his defence.
But the mountains were not moved.
Man got anxious and started calling upon Gaia to come to his defence: ‘Gaia. Gaia! Gah-gah…!’
Nobody knew how to reach Gaia.
Eventually, the divine judge, who was actually God themselves, stepped outside, called Gaia.
And Gaia said: ‘Leave me alone, I am so done with humans. Just look how they are treating their own kind!’ Gaia’s eyes filled with tears of rage. ‘Look how they are treating Dog!” God looked confused and so the session was adjourned.
Man walked away and wept. It seemed the rest of nature of which he felt so clearly part didn’t want to help him!
He wept and wept until sea levels rose, so much so that the mountain turned into a small island. At last, Man stopped, looked around in the floods, and was speechless. And in his lonely silence, God had pity with Man.
Ah. Wait. That’s not how the story goes. It’s dog! Dog had pity with Man. As Man was sniffling snotty tears, speechless as he was, he saw: a dog, blinking softly.
And so we, finally, truly stopped weeping for ourselves. We apologised to Dog and vowed to live as animal among other animals — and this is just how dogs and humans were able to, once more, learn a common language, one that allowed us to live in greater harmony with each other and the rest of the world — until judgement day.”