Today, there is perhaps no animal we are more unmoored from than ourselves. ‘The world is now dominated by an animal that doesn’t think it’s an animal,’ writes the natural philosopher Melanie Challenger in How to Be Animal (2021) . ‘ And the future is being imagined by an animal that doesn’t want to be an animal.’
Erica Berry • ‘Playing animal’ reflects back our yearnings and repulsions | Aeon Essays
“Isn't it strange, how everything we do in our capacity as humans only asserts us more as the animals we are... Were forever gazing at ourselves and trying to ascertain what makes us different.”
Humans are part of the animal kingdom, and we have also come to dominate that kingdom. Denying either reality will prevent us from ever taking full responsibility to care for it.