ワタスゲ2 の山 4 月 3 週
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○自由な題名
○優しさと厳しさ

○All human communities(感) 英文のみのページ(翻訳用)
All human communities have involved animals. Those present in them always include, for a start, some dogs, with which our association seems to be an incredibly ancient one: we have lived together and helped each other for a long time. But besides them an enormous variety of other creatures, ranging from reindeer to foxes and from elephants to shags, has for ages also been domesticated. Of course they were largely there for use -- for draught and riding, for meat, milk, wool and hides, for feathers and eggs, as catchers of small harmful animals or as aids to fishing and hunting. In principle, it might seem reasonable to expect that these forms of exploitation would have produced no personal or emotional involvement at all. From a position of ignorance, we might have expected that people would view their animals simply as machines. If we impose the sharp distinction made by some philosophers between persons and things, and insist that everything must be considered as simply one or the other, we might have expected that they would be viewed quite clearly as things. But in fact, if people had viewed them like this, the domestication could probably never have worked. The animals, with the best will in the world, could not have reacted like machines. They became tame or domesticated, not just through the fear of violence, but because they were able to form individual bonds with those who tamed them by coming to understand the social signals addressed to them. They learned to obey human beings personally. They were able to do this, not only because the people taming them were social beings, but because they themselves were so as well.
All creatures which have been successfully domesticated are ones which were originally social. They have transferred to human beings the trust and obedience which, in a wild state, they would have developed towards their parents, and in adult life towards the leaders of their pack or herd. There are other, and perhaps equally intelligent, creatures which it is quite impossible to tame, because they simply do not have the natural capacity to respond to social signals in their own species, and therefore cannot reach those which come from outside. The various kinds of wild cat are an impressive example. Even their youngest kittens are quite untamable. Egyptian cats, from which all our domestic ones are descended, are unique among the small-cat group in their friendliness both to humans and to other cats. It is interesting that they do not seem to have been domesticated in Egypt before about 1600 BC, and after that time they quickly became extremely popular. Unless they were only discovered then -- which would be odd -- it seems that there may have been an actual mutation at that point producing a more responsive character.
Cats, however, are notoriously still not friendly or obedient in quite the same way as dogs. Circus people do not usually waste their time trying to train cats. Similarly, there are important differences between the social natures, as well as physical appearances, of horses, donkeys, camels and the like. Both as species and as individuals, they react variously to training; they cannot be treated simply as physical machines. People who succeed well with them do not do so just by some abstract, magical human superiority, but by interacting socially with them -- by attending to them and coming to understand how various things appear from each animal's point of view. To ignore or disbelieve in the existence of that point of view would be fatal to the attempt. The traditional assumption behind the domestication of animals has been that there is something in being a bat, and similarly there is something in being a horse or a donkey, and in being this horse or this donkey. There is not, by contrast, any such experience as being a stone, or a car, or even an airplane. There is no being which could have that experience, and therefore we do not have to bother about this problem.
I am saying that this has been the traditional assumption. Some researchers in animal behaviour today think that it is a false one, and can of course argue against it. My present point is simply that their opinion is a recent and sophisticated one. It is not the view which has been taken for granted during the long centuries in which animals have been domesticated. If an Indian farmer were asked whether the ox being beaten could feel it, that farmer would probably reply, 'Certainly it can, otherwise why would I bother?' A skilled horseman needs to respond to his horse as an individual, to follow the workings of its feelings, to use his imagination in understanding how things are likely to affect it, what frightens it and what attracts it, as much as someone who wants to control human beings needs to do the same thing. Horses and dogs are addressed by name, and are expected to understand what is said to them. Nobody tries this with stones or hammers or airplanes. The treatment of domestic animals has never been impersonal. We can say that they are not 'persons', because that word does generally signify Homo sapiens. But they are certainly not viewed just as things. They are animals, a category which, as far as thinking goes, is closer to human beings than to things.
This point is important because it shows what may seem rather surprising -- a direct capacity in humans for attending to, and to some extent understanding, the moods and reactions of other species. No doubt this capacity is limited. People's harshness makes some of its limitations obvious. But then, similar harshness is also often found in our dealings with other human beings. The question what suffering is being caused is difficult to answer in either case. The indifferent person may not positively know, because there is no willingness to know. Looking at the evidence, however, would give the answer. This seems to be equally true in either case. The reason for overworking an ox or a horse is usually much the same as that for overworking a human slave -- not that one does not believe that they mind it, or supposes that they cannot even notice it, but that one is putting one's own interest first. The treatment of domestic animals resembles that of slaves in being extremely inconsistent and variable. There is not normally a steady, unvarying disregard, such as should follow if one genuinely supposed that the creature did not possess any of the five senses at all, or if one was quite unable to guess what its feeling might be. Disregard is varied by partial occasional kindness, and also by sudden cruelty. And cruelty is something which could have no point for a person who really did not believe the victim to have definite feelings. (There is very little comfort in showing one's anger at a cushion.) Family pigs are often treated with real pride and affection during their lives, they may even be genuinely mourned -- only this will not protect them from being eaten. Horses, Lapp reindeer, and the cattle of the Masai can similarly receive real regard, can be treated as dear companions and personally cherished, can form part of human households in a different way from any machine or material treasure -- only they will still on suitable occasions be killed or otherwise ill-treated if human purposes demand it. But we should notice too a similar unreasonable attitude often appearing in the treatment of human dependants, so that we can scarcely argue that there is no real capacity for sympathy towards the animals. In the treatment of other people, of course, one naturally changes one's mind without reason, and therefore one is constantly disciplined by morality. We know that we must not eat our grandmothers or our children merely because they annoy US. This rule applies less to animals; they have more freedom than people do in this respect. That does not mean that they are taken not to be conscious. Belief in the fact that they do have the five senses and some kind of feelings is essential even for exploiting them successfully.

hsags ウ(鵜)
mutation 突然変異
Lapp ラップ(スカンジナビア半島北部のトナカイ飼養民)の
the Masai マサイ(東アフリカの遊牧民)

★現代の「南」の人びとの(感)
 【1】現代の「南」の人びとの大部分が貧困であることは事実だ。けれどもそれは、GNPが低いから貧困であるのではない。GNPを必要とするシステムの内に投げ込まれてしまった上で、GNPが低いから貧困なのである。
 【2】自分たちの生きるために必要なものを自分たちの手で作るということを禁止されたあのドミニカの農民たちは、こういう「南」の人たちすべての「貧困」の構造の赤裸々に短縮された典型であるにすぎない。【3】「南の貧困」をめぐる思考は、この第一次の引き離し、GNPへの疎外、原的な剥奪をまず視界に照準しなければならない。
 一九八八年のアメリカには、約三一〇〇万人の人びとが貧困ライン以下の生活をしていたという。この「貧困ライン」とは、四人世帯で年収一万二〇〇〇ドル強にみたない生活であるという。【4】この線は、「南の貧困」を論じる時に世界銀行等が用いる、一人あたり年間三七〇ドルという線とは、ずいぶん開きがあるようにみえる。この「ダブル・スタンダード」は、「豊かな国」のぜいたくと偏見にみちた基準と考えることができるだろうか?
 【5】ある部分までは、そういう「ぜいたくと偏見」が存在すると考えていいかもしれない。けれどもたとえば、アメリカ国勢調査局の記述によると、一九七二年には「少なくとも一〇〇〇万から一二〇〇万のアメリカ国民が、あまりにもわずかしか食費にまわせないために、空腹に苦しんでいるか、あるいは病気にかかっている。」
 【6】これは収入の数字ではなく、実際に食物が手に入らないという数字である。巴馬瑶族(ばまやおぞく)の村人は四八〇〇円の年収で豊かに生きることができるが、ニューヨークや東京の住民はその一〇倍でも、ほとんど生きていくことができない。これは単なるぜいたくや偏見の問題ではない。
 【7】アジアやアフリカの多くの村々でテレビのないことは少しも貧困ではないが、東京やパリやニューヨークでテレビのないことは貧困である。ロスアンジェルスで自動車のないことは、「ノーマルな市民」としての生活がほとんど出来ないということである。
 【8】この新しい貧困の形を説明しようとする理論が一般に用いる用語法は、「絶対的貧困」と「相対的貧困」というコンセプトである。「南」の貧困は絶対的な貧困であるが、「豊かな社会」の内部にも相対的な貧困がある、というわけである。∵「相対的」という言い方は、「豊かな社会」の内部の貧困を的確に把握する仕方だろうか?
 【9】すでに見たように、東京やニューヨークでは、巴馬瑶族(ばまやおぞく)の一〇倍の所得があってもじっさいに「生きていけない」。これは隣人との比較や不平等一般の問題ではなく、絶対的な必要を充足することが出来ないということである。【0】
 電話がなくても人間は生きることができるが、一九九〇年代の東京で電話がないという家族は、義務教育の公立学校の「連絡網」からも脱落する(「特別な処置」ではじめて「救済」される)存在である。つまりその生きている社会の中で「ふつうに生きる」ことが出来ない。
 これらは「羨望」とか「顕示」といった心理的な問題ではなく、この社会のシステムによって強いられる客観性であり、構造の定義する「必要」の新しい地平の絶対性である。
 「貧困」のコンセプトは二重の剥奪であるということを、「南の貧困」に即して見てきた。貨幣からの疎外という目に見える規定の以前に、貨幣への疎外という目に見えない規定があると。このコンセプトは、形態をまったく異にするようにみえる「北の貧困」にもそのまま当てはまる。第一次的な剥奪の巨大であることに応じて、「必要」のラインを定義する貨幣の数量も巨大なものとなる。第一次的な剥奪の重層的であることに応じて、「必要」であることの根拠も重層的となっている。
 現代の情報消費社会のシステムは、ますます高度の商品化された物資とサービスに依存することを、この社会の「正常な」成員の条件として強いることをとおして、原的な必要の幾重にも間接化された充足の様式の上に、「必要」の常に新しく更新されてゆく水準を設定してしまう。新しいしかし同様に切実な貧困の形を生成する。

 (見田宗介(そうすけ)「現代社会の理論」による)