Towards the end of last summer, we started watching the Netflix miniseries Our Planet. I have my reservations about it. I’m a bit wary of the narration, which from the very start introduces the theme of a “stable Eden” that “nurtured our civilization for generations”. In my view, more-than-human nature is not, has not been, and does not need to be ‘Eden’, nor is it obliged to ‘nurture’ our civilization. Moreover, the Judeo-Christian mythology that speaks of lost Edens belongs to the outlook that is co-responsible for the present ecological crisis. We, humans, are not the apple in the universe’s eye. It’s high time we grew up and came to terms with this uncomfortable truth.
The images Our Planet offers are breathtakingly beautiful – and yet for precisely this reason they are dangerously akin to the capitalist logic of the spectacle, based on the assumption that beautiful and spectacular things or beings are worth saving, and not necessarily those that we, humans, cannot see, understand or use. It is precisely the logic that underlies the commodification of non-human nature: the market treats it as a resource for material or aesthetic consumption (when capitalism dictates emotions, there is not much difference between the two). To sum up, Our Planet’s vision of ecology is not exactly mine, but I don’t mean to be fussy. I’m sure the display of threatened beauty can be moving for many viewers and, as we hear David Attenborough’s voice explain, “never has it been more important to understand how the natural world works and how to help it.” There is a lot of good science in the show, too.
It’s also one of the first nature documentaries showing, in such a non-euphemistic manner, the anthropogenic suffering of animals. This is what I would like to focus on, starting from one especially drastic scene that appears in Episode 2. We find ourselves somewhere along the northeastern shore of Russia, where over 100,000 walruses landed on a single beach. They did this in despair, because sea ice, their natural home, had retreated further north due to climate change. This beach is the only spot where these huge animals can rest. There isn’t enough room: walruses, somewhat clumsy on land, trample one another in the crowd. Just like it would be with humans – here and there panic explodes, mutual aggression appears, they become a threat to one another. It’s really hard to watch. A thought comes to my mind – ‘climate refugees’ – but then I chide myself for it. After all, that would be anthropomorphizing, and animals are not people; people are not animals.
Above the beach where the walruses are, there is a steep cliff. Some, tired of fighting for an inch of land, climb the cliff. It takes immense effort for their bodies, ill adapted to such exploits, to climb sharp rocks. It is exhausting; the stones wound their skin. Finally, the walruses find a spot to rest. But sooner or later hunger appears. Climbing the cliff was hard – but going down turns out to simply impossible. We see them, one by one, lose balance and fall. They hit the rocks – and die. The film shows it very directly, with a background of music that is perhaps intended to help us understand what we are feeling. But it is not easy to understand. We begin to cry – because watching these scenes is literally painful – but also because a doubt appears as to whether we should be watching this in the first place. The narration oscillates between anthropomorphism and its opposite – the denial of similarity with people. I am not sure which is right for such a brutal scene. I have been critical of anthropomorphism in nature documentaries before, but on the other hand, anthropodenial is also ethically ambivalent. As Frans de Waal, who coined the term, explains, anthropodenial serves to protect the demarcation line between humans and other animals where crossing it would mean breaking a taboo. It is especially strong among scientists who refuse to acknowledge strong similarities between some animal and human behaviours. So, for instance, what some primates do to greet each other is referred to as ‘lip contact’ rather than kissing, and when they laugh, it is described as ‘vocalized panting’.
Science has taught us that things are often not what they seem to be – what we see can sometimes be misleading. This scepticism is an indispensable tool for rational understanding (for example, micro-organisms exist, they can help us or kill us, even though we do not see them). But perhaps there are situations where rational scepticism stands in opposition to a different sort of knowledge – the one associated with deep, empathic wisdom. Sometimes, perhaps, what we see is simply what there is.
I will leave you, dear readers, with what we see in Episode 2 of Our Planet, wishing you at least a certain degree of discomfort. Because if we get used to such scenes, just as we got used to the news about refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, or those few endlessly recycled images from Auschwitz, or the never-ending simulation of violence in our scopocentric culture – then we’re done for as humans.
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