For humans, the animal is not a simple creature. Like itself, it is not just a soulless body. Humans and animals do not have an immediate, direct connection to one another. Rather, this is essentially shaped by cultural factors: Physically and psychologically, the relationship between humans and animals is shaped according to certain rules by the human community, which assimilated the animal world in its own way long before the first individual experiences and contacts emerged. The general treatment of animals (hunting, training...) and the techniques of animal husbandry and animal breeding themselves depend not only on the respective characteristics of the selected animals, but also on how they are presented by the community that developed them become. The fact that the different cultures act as a filter of this relationship and also form the framework in which it arises and presents itself does not mean that the animal, which is definitely, symbolically speaking, "good for thinking" (according to the famous dictum of Claude Lévi-Strauss: 'Animals are good to think with'), in its essence a new creation of human imagination. However, if you look at the variety of symbolic properties and values of one or another animal in different cultures, even if these seem self-evident, such as the lamb, the eagle or the monkey, you become aware of the freedom in which humans have help of animals and around animals creates conceptual content and meanings. - [Author]

Language: German

978-3-905875-35-5