The presentation of the idea of “animality” as presented by Georges Bataille is profound. This idea that man existed, at first, in a state of consistent psychical continuity prior to the emergence of discontinuous utilitarian existence, is one that has been apparent in other works, such as, Immanuel Kant’s Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793) and Freud’s Ego and the Id (1923).
In his work Theory of Religion (1973), Bataille describes animality through the idea of continuity, which is a state in which the world presents itself as one continous stream. However, man has emerged from this animality and has gained a more utilitarian existence, in which the world no longer continues but rather discontinues. Within Theory of Religion, Bataille uses this idea to show how the idea of the sacred came to be through the unique utilitarian awareness of one’s uncertain future. However, this idea of animality can also be seen as a reduction of the Kantian skepticism concerning human nature, and the Freudian idea of the id.
In Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant describes his ideas concerning the state of the Christian church of his time. His goal in this piece is to show that Christianity’s search for morality has gone astray. Kant shows how religious practices and worship alone cannot lead to moral behavior. In fact, he proves that this type of behavior at times leads to immoral behavior. He suggests, instead, to think of a god as a perfect moral being. As a being who has free will and can choose to do evil, however, through the use of the moral law consistently rejects evil. Kant suggests that Jesus should be worshiped just in this way, not as the Son of God but rather as a person who exhibited perfect morality.
Kant’s thoughts on the issue of the Christian condition are valid. However, his work presents another profound idea which at times resembles the Freudian id, and Bataille’s animal, for one might easily make the connection that, the very portion of the human mind which requires maxims and the moral law to exhibit morality, namely, the desires mankind must at times overcome through rationality, is the remanince of Bataille’s animal. As described above, prior to the current utilitarian existence of man, that is prior to discontinuity, there was only animality, and these inclinations, which we must override through our maxims, are those of the very animal that Bataille has described.
This same idea can be found within Freudian psychology. Freud’s work divides the human psyche into three non-conscious portions. The first of which is the “id”. The id is the portion of the brain which contains our animal instincts. The instinct to eat when we are hungry, or the instinct to act sexually, are both functions of the Freudian id. The second portion of the human psyche, according to Freud, is the “super ego”. The super ego is the portion of the psyche which vetoes the socially inappropriate actions of id. The super ego is why we are able to refrain from inappropriate behaviors such as, acting sexually at inappropriate times and physically attacking those we may be harbor animosity towards. It is the interaction between the super ego and the id which gives rise to the “ego”. The ego then, is simply one’s personality. For example, a hungry child at the dinner table will want to eat during the saying of grace, that is her id will want satisfaction, however, the super ego will veto the action to grab for the food, and what will result is behavior, namely a fidgety child.
Upon analysis, it might become clear that, the idea of the id is the very thing which causes the “desires” Kant describes, which must then (hopefully) be overridden by our maxims. It might also be true, that the Bataille’s idea of animality is consistent with the idea of the id in Freudian thought. For the id, is again, simply the remanince of the animal from which, the now utilitarian man, emerged. It is Bataille’s animal state, which Freud refers to as the id and it is Bataille’s animal state, which is the basis for that which Kant calls human desires (which must then be overcome through the use of the moral law).
In further analysis, one might also detect similarities in Freudian theory, and Kantian thought. It should be clear, at this point, that Freud’s id and that which Kant refers to as the human desires are rather similar. However, one might also see a correlation between the mechanismic functions of Kant’s moral law and the Freudian super ego. This comparison is profound since it has been a reoccurring suggestion that the idea of the super ego could be nothing more then a social entity created by human society (which is essentially what the moral law is).
However, further reduction of the phenomena presents a new answer. For prior to social rules, and prior to maxims, there must first be an intelligence first to produce, and then carry out these rules. And therefore, with further reduction we find that it is intelligence that leads to the super ego, and it is intelligence that leads to the moral law, for without intelligence there would be nothing more then animality.
The common theme within the works of Freud and Kant, seems to be an internal struggle between the animal and the rational human. Biologically, the struggle is between the instincts, which evolved in the animal stage of human evolution (which I refer to as the “waken-state stage” since it is the stage in which the brain is only awake but blank), and intelligence.
Prior to the evolution of intelligence, man existed much like the other species within the animal kingdom. We existed in a state of animality as described by Bataille which required that certain instincts evolve to cause behavior, for without intelligence man lacked the reasoning ability to behave in harmony with the environment. For example, without intelligence one would not know to copulate to reproduce, and so our sexual desires evolve, within the limbic system, to cause non-conscious behavior. However, with higher cognitive ability man is now able to behave using reason. Instincts are no longer required in the same way as they were in human animality. And so within us we find that the rational human struggles with the animal. This is the basis for both Freudian psychology and Kantian philosophy. Biologically, it is the instincts which evolved during the waken-state stage of human evolution, and the intelligent rational human, which are conflicting. We can further clarify this, by described the evolutionary paths of the waken-state, which takes place in the reptilian brain as a function of the reticular activating system (RAS), and the evolution of intelligence, which takes place with in the cortex (Marieb, 1998).
Evolution of the Waken-state
From an evolutionary prospective, it is clear that the reticular formation (which is again, responsible for the wake-state) must have evolved prior to intelligence, due to its position within the reptilian brain. There are two possible ways in which this could have occurred. In the first model, the trait simply appears and proliferates due to its immense level of fitness. The advantage of this type of mental state would most likely have been the ability to react to the external environment in an entirely new way. An organism armed with a waken brain would no longer be at the mercy of the environment. Unlike bacterial, amoeboid and vegetative organism, the waken organism would be able to react to climatic conditions much faster, would be better fit to find food, and would be able to better circum navigate dangerous obstacles. The evolution of a waken brain would also have opened the floodgates for new sensory organs such as the eye, which would have caused further proliferation of both the primordial CNS and the wake-state.
In the Second
model, CNS proliferation is driven by the fitness of sensory organs. The gift
of sight for example is a great fitness, however, with
an underdeveloped CNS it would be of little use. In his book Climbing Mount
Improbable (1996); Richard Dawkins describes the evolution of the eye as
something of an inevitability. According to Dawkins,
all that is required for and organ such as the eye to develop and proliferate, is a small-pigmented area on the surface of any
given organism coupled with a crude way to detect the heat emitted from the
photons collected by the pigmented area. Even a simple mechanism such as this,
would increase the fitness of an organism to such an extent, that it would not
take long for the trait to proliferate and develop into an advanced and more
modern eye. However, since organs such as the eye, are only as good as the CNS
which detects them, it would be likely that the development of the CNS could
have been driven by the fitness of the early sensory organs and would have
eventually become “awake”.
Animality: the waken-state lacking
intelligence
Regardless of how the waken-state developed, after its appearance life on earth would have gone through profound changes. Though there would have been no true subjectivity as is observed in organisms with higher cognitive ability, there would have been much room for the development of fixed-action patterns, reflexes and instincts. This is the first stage of the development of the Freudian Id. At this stage, an organism would act purely by instinct guided by chemical reactions occurring within the body. In this state, an organism would exist as an automaton. When confronted by danger it would obey, as the preprogramming of evolution would demand, however, it would experience nothing.
At the second stage, to allow for more complex behaviors such as monogamy, the limbic system would evolve. At this stage, most of the physical requirements for emotion would exist, however, with a lack of intelligence, there would be no subjectivity and therefore no emotion. Studies show that electrical stimulation of the amygdala, a small oval shaped inclusion within the limbic system, at times, activated intense fear in house cats and other chordates (Sagan, 1977). However, subjects involved in this study only presented the behavioral symptoms of fear. This is not at all in accord with the subjective experience of fear as observed in humans, for the subjective experience of fear would first require the cognitive ability to understand the idea of “self”. Studies concerning visual self recognition show that the lower IQ of human infants renders them incapable of understand the idea of “self” (Bahrick, 1996). The same would hold true for lower animals. Without the understanding of the idea of “self”, there would be no room for the subjective experience of emotions, such as fear, in the sense of “I fear”, for example. In the case of lower animals, therefore, there would be no “emotion” but rather the mechanisms which cause the behavioral symptoms of emotion. Therefore, that which we call “emotion” in lower chordates or even higher chordates who simply lack all cognitive ability, can be reduced to a simple behaviorism in the tradition of Gilbert Ryle (1949).
The evolution of intelligence is a rather interesting story. Though intelligence is a rather fit trait to say the least, it would seem that without some other selection pressure driving it, it would not have developed to the extent it has in humans. Early hominids only required enough intelligence to make and use simple tools. However, in humans, intelligence has somehow developed to such an extent, that modern man can effectively describe various phenomenon extending from gravity to “being”. Why is it that evolution was able to over develop such an “expensive” portion if the body?
In his book The Evolution of consciousness (1991), Robert Ornstein describes the over evolution of intelligence in man. The model proposes that after the appearance of Homo erectus, the thermodynamics involved with the human body were not quite perfected. The new erect posture seemed to cause the overheating of the brain and led to large numbers of CNS neuronal death. The evolutionary response to this selection pressure was most likely the development of a larger CNS, which became a fit trait. As the overall size of the brain increased, the cortex would have grown proportionally and hence intelligence would have increased without ever being directly selected for. With the development of the cortex, and the excessive proliferation of intelligence in man, subjective consciousness was born. A new kind of organism armed not only with an awaken brain and intelligence but subjectivity.
Regardless
of how human intelligence evolved however, after its appearance the struggle
began. With intelligence man was then able to rationally decipher between moral
and immoral behavior, however, he (or she) was also driven by the instincts
which at one time where so important for survival. The primitive instinct to
forcefully take food from a smaller individual of the same species (behavior we
observe in primates) is now overridden by human rationality and the ability to
decipher right from wrong. This was the beginning of the moral law, it was the
emergence from animality, and it was the development of the super ego.
Bahrick, L.E.,
Moss, L, and Fadil, C. (1996). Development
of visual self-recognition in infancy. Ecological Psychology, 8
(3): 189-208.
Bataille, G. (1973). Theory of
Religion.
Dawkins, R. (1996). Climbing
Mount Improbable.
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the
Kant,
Marieb, E. (1998). Human Anatomy
& Physiology. Benjamin/Cummings Science
Publishing. pp
528-29.
Ornstein, R. (1991). The Evolution of
Consciousness.
Ryle, Gilbert. (1949). The Concept of Mind.
Sagan, C. (1977). The Dragons
of
Shakespear, W.
(1597). King Henry IV: Aylessbury: Hazell Watson
& Viney Ltd. pp 231.