The photo above was taken by anthropologist and psychologist Barbara Smuts during her time in Tanzania. These baboons (pictured are Pandora and Virgil) are the primary subject of her response to John Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, a book about a series of lectures from novelist Lauren Costello who advocates for animals and animal rights. Smuts' reflection focuses on Costello's decision to omit personal relationships that are formed with non-human animals. Smuts believes that discussing these types of relationships is necessary in "closing the gap" of Costello's beliefs.
Smuts begins by stating that there are two definitions to a person: a human or an individual (who is not necessarily human) that we can create deep and intimate relationships with. She states that the baboons recognized her as an individual, remembered her years later, and had personal interactions that she had with each of the 140 baboons in the troop.
"Since I was in their world, they determined the rules of the game . . . " Smuts writes. She describes that she eventually learned some rudimentary means of communication with the baboons, whether it was facing a charging male or just giving each animal his or her personal space. Interestingly, she describes that "through trial and embarrassing error" she learns these rules. Humans, normally would feel very little embarrassment in a situation with an animal because they assume that the animal has no sense of shame, and even more, the animal has no idea what the human is doing anyway. Here, however, Smuts acknowledges that the animals can judge her and her failures in trying to learn, not unlike situations where people try to teach monkeys and other animals in other experiments, an example of this being Kafka's A Report to the Academy.
Smuts also writes about her dog, Safi. She describes that their relationship is one of mutual respect and compromise. She believes that she and Safi are equals, in that she regards Safi as a "person," which returns us to her definition of what a person is. Smuts states that, ultimately, acknowledgement of these non-human animals as "social subjects . . .who's idiosyncratic, subjective experience of us plays the same role in their relations with us that our subjective experience of them plays in our relations with them."
Smuts' experience with Safi and the baboons are only one of many relationships that humans have with non-human animals. However, Smuts is also focusing on animals that people -- more specifically, humans -- have a deeper connection with. The amount of time that humans and dogs have been living cooperatively predates even the development of agriculture. Baboons are primates, and have held the fascination of humans because they share so many similar features. (I'd like to note that there is a common belief that they are more "primitive" than humans, but the reality is that baboons and many other primates have simply taken a different evolutionary route than humans have.) Smuts also worked with dolphins, widely considered the smartest animals next to humans. Her experiences are limited only to the kinds of animals that have long held human curiosity for various reasons, and she fails to speak about animals that people don't seem to think much about (does anyone have personal relationships with fish or snakes or lizards?). Of course, it is difficult to form a personal relationship with these animals that aren't dogs.
I found it interesting that Smuts assigned names to identify the baboons in the troop. Using numbers would have maintained the "objectivity" that is associated with science, and it also brings up a more moral question of the baboons only "being a number" rather an individual. However, these baboons are given human names. Dolphins are known to have their own unique whistles that are used to address an individual, and parrots also have "names" that they use to address one another. Could the same be said about baboons and other animals? Their means of communication is difficult for humans to register, whether it is too high pitched or due to the fact that we simply cannot hear or understand the nuances of the "animal's" own language.
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