Maybe animism/anthropomorphism on one end, and de-anthropomorphism on the other, could be thought of as two extremes of a pendulum shift?
Maybe being on either end of the extreme is a signal that you have been brainwashed by the surrounding/invading culture?
Maybe racism is a de-anthropomorphism, like electrons are compared to Leibniz’ monads? He should’ve called them trinads (triads?), but whatevs.
By denathropomorphism, do you mean attributing non-human traits to specific groups of humans in distinction from other groups.
I just mean failure to recognize personhood when it is being demonstrated.
OK, interesting, I like it being layed out like this.
I’d first want to say that the charge of anthropomorphism in science has been being radically humbled over the last 5 decades as we found that animals were in fact capable of many things that were thought to be exclusively human. Prior to that even considering animals conscious, intentional subjects was considered anthropomorphism and the default was to see them a la Descartes as sort of automatons. That fell apart in the 60s and 70s and not because someone solved the problem of other minds, but because the old assumptions just didn’t seem justified any more. Nowadays the edge is plants, and each year they are taken more seriously as potentially conscious and intelligent.
We are born quasi (if not more) animist. I guess I never grew up. More feral than brainwashed.
Another thought: is it like me is a core question coming from the other end of the spectrum. There has been a huge bias in some cultures to granting conscious to any creature/life form that seems different from the judging person/society.
Correction:
“Is it like me?” is a core question.
Please. Never do that to me again.
I’m not sure what I did to you. I’m just talking about how I think some cultures have viewed others. They express more emotions and have less judgments of sex, so they are animals. They are short and dark that’s not like me, so they are dumb perhaps not even sentient. This even holds between men and women. Once there is a looking from homo sapiens at other species, forgetaboutit. Animist cultures don’t see the differences they see the similarities and assume a more peer relationship, certainly with animals and often with plants and more. So, I am not sure what I did there, and I do hope I didn’t just do it again, but my writing looked pretty unclear to I tried to come at it a different way.
How you wrote it:
That is absolutely unparseable without mental gymnastics.
How I wrote it, post-gymnastics:
Don’t make me wonder if you even know how to communicate… de-anthropomorphizing yourself.