We live in a world where everything is connected.As Capitalism evolved through the 18thC and 19thC and expanded in 20thC and 21stC in Europe and the US and elsewhere, the world of free moving and wild animals receded and their place was supplanted with armies of domestic pets. Zoos’ arose like animal museums as the autonomous animals retreated from urbane life (except those bred for slaughter, sport or pets). They also became more ambiguous to the human imagination. A vacuum existed in our minds and even from within our primordial unconscious, which the passive pet and zoo animals attempted to simulate and mimic. Wild animals were then depicted as curiously seen exotic objects. In circuses man played the master over the symbolic animal kingdom. In zoo’s the pathetic animals were incapable of seeing us, but were somehow related to us, in what became a forgotten presence that was increasingly enigmatic. They became distant as had peoples from third world countries (and just as exotic) and sometimes, these animals could be seen through xenophilic eyes as if they were somehow ‘born free,’ which was our romantic concept and not theirs. They remained a forgotten ‘other’.

As the process of industrial and commodity production has intensified through the 20thC so to did the speed in the decline in numbers recede. The question of man’s relation with animals (and vice versa) has become a metaphysical question that remains ‘on hold’ for capitalist and consumerist society and others.

When a lion tamer occasionally gets attacked by his lions, we do not react to a tragedy, our feelings are far more ambiguous. It’s because the question of humanity and empathy and our power over animals is left unresolved.

Zoos remain a bit like glasshouses as a place where we take children to see the originals of their phantasies. Gleaned from illustration, toys, photographs, video’s and cartoons. But the two realities rarely synchronise together because in children’s imaginations these animals are unique and ‘free’ Yet in zoo’s their animals are spiritless and lacking will because of their narrow incarceration and existing in a kind of psychic limbo that humans created for them.

In Zoo’s, animals even look smaller than they are because of their lack of voluntaristic presence.

One of my most precious memories is of hearing roosters crowing in the dawn in Beijing and other Chinese cities. A sound that has totally disappeared from other first world metropolitan cities of the world.

By half growing up in the country I became aware of the importance of the secret world of the animals in the wild.

Humanities dialogue with the animals helps people get out of themselves and puts their egocentric lifestyles in perspective. We share birth, life and death with the these warm blooded animals and this should make us a bit more humble and keep in check our inclination towards narcissism, solipsism and greed and the new culture of the appertitive.