The Spiritual Life of Animals (in German) Peter Worreben Translation Forest Publishing House
Humanities Liu Han
The American realist writer Jack London once lamented in his work "The Call of the Wild": The higher the degree of civilization we are, the deeper our fear is, and we are worried that in the process of civilization, we have abandoned what belongs to beauty and the joy of life in the barbaric era. In particular, people who have lived in the city for a long time are surrounded by a lot of noise, and it is like a fantasy to return to basics.
They are entangled in all kinds of trivial matters, and in their spare time, they keep cats and dogs and pets for spiritual comfort, but they are completely unaware that animals have similar and even higher emotional demands like people. As Peter Worreben, author of The Spiritual Life of Animals, puts it: "I don't think that animals feel any differently than humans, and we should return to sound cognition and admit that animals do have all kinds of feelings and pleasures." ”
In "The Spiritual Life of Animals", Peter Wolleben approaches the wild animal population with a new perspective, as the guardian of natural resources, he records the unknown side of the animals, captures their emotional outpouring and various encounters: the mother squirrel is prepared to take care of the next generation with the ultimate maternal love, carrying the cubs through the grass against the scorching sun, the selfless altruism is deeply rooted in the genes; the raven is loyal to its partner, when the raven is shot, the other one with it no longer looks for a new mate, and ends up alone. Until death... Their emotional richness far exceeds what humans perceive them.
Peter Worleyburn's definition of the hierarchy of animal needs seems to go beyond the psychologist Maslow's. If physiological and safety needs are shared by humans and animals, then social and respectful needs, due to the long-standing distance between animals and humans, have become their little-known survival rules. According to Peter Wolleben, animals, like humans, have a well-structured social life and empathize with their companions, kobayashi feels empathy when they see their companions endure torture and destruction, and doees show sorrow when they face their dead counterparts.
Animals are no less sensitive than humans in their perception of the outside world, and not only that, they also play unexpected tricks. The bird made a small calculation in the face of the temptation of food, hiding the delicacy for emergency. Some animals have a first-class level of lying: geckos use the doppelganger method to confuse each other, foxes are skilled in pretending to die, octopuses are able to catch up with chameleons with their sudden color change skills, and the imitation skills of leaf seahorses, bamboo locusts, and dead leaf butterflies can be described as magical, and they are integrated with the surrounding plants, and it is difficult to distinguish between true and false. The fox's premeditated deception strategy is its exclusive hunting secret, they imitate dead bodies to confuse prey, and in order to be realistic, they also spit out their tongues and hang them around their mouths, which can be described as the "tricks" of the animal kingdom. At this time, when the bird comes to taste the fresh, it returns to its original shape, and it becomes its belly meal for convenience, and it is not for nothing.
Although animals have many similarities with humans, in fact, the relationship between humans and animals has never been equal, dressing cats and dogs, overfeeding, and so doting that they are tortured and even died. In the eyes of Peter Worleyben, those little squirrels, western roe deer and wild boars have souls, although humans do not understand the language of animals, but it does not affect communication and communication with them, they can read the concerned eyes of people, gentle touches, but also insight into resentment and hatred, they touch the primitive emotions of human beings with their innocent behavior. The animal's departure from the group means that it knows that its limit is coming, and it flees to the remote pasture to die peacefully, and when it witnesses all this, it bursts into tears. Humans also draw inspiration from animals, just as the Mexican writer Juan José Areola, in his work "Animal Collection", looks at human society with animals, just as when humans are ridiculous or surprised by the anthropomorphic behavior of animals, they do not think that in many cases animals have already taken the lead, and humans are the ones who follow the animals.