Children’s Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation

[Praise for the book]

‘Layla AbdelRahim demonstrates that children’s literature is a pivotal site where societies configure their relationship to the world’s anarchic, ever-diversifying web of life. Rigorously argued and beautifully written, her book is a call for renewal keyed to values such as mutual aid, freedom, love, and empathy for all living beings. If we are to halt our ecological slide into the abyss, we need to rethink what we teach our children: AbdelRahim points the way.’

—Allan Antliff, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Art History, University of Victoria, Canada and author of Anarchy and Art

‘It is hard to imagine a more thorough-going examination of the stories children are commonly introduced to. Ms. AbdelRahim has given us an exploration that is very multifaceted and truly eye-opening. A book to read and re-read!’

—John Zerzan, author of Elements of Refusal and Running on Emptiness

[Synopsis]

This study of children’s literature as knowledge, culture, and social foundation bridges the gap between science and literature and examines the interconnectedness of fiction and reality as a two-way road. The book investigates how the civilized narrative orders experience by means of segregation, domestication, breeding, and extermination, arguing instead that the stories and narratives of wilderness project chaos and infinite possibilities for experiencing the world through a diverse community of life. AbdelRahim engages these narratives in a dialogue with each other and traces their expression in the various disciplines and books written for both children and adults, analyzing the manifestation of fictional narratives in real life. This is both an inter- and multidisciplinary endeavour that is reflected in the combination of research methods drawn from anthropology and literary studies, as well as in the tracing of the narratives of order and chaos, or civilization and wilderness, in children’s literature and our world. Chapters compare and contrast fictional children’s books that offer different real-world socio-economic paradigms, namely, A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, which projects a civilized monarcho-capitalist world, Nikolai Nosov’s trilogy The Adventures of Dunno and Friends, which presents the challenges and feats of an anarcho-socialist society in evolution from primitivism towards technology, and Tove Jansson’s Moomin books, which depict chaos, anarchy, and wilderness. AbdelRahim examines the construction, transmission, and acquisition of knowledge in children’s literature by visiting the very nature of literature, culture, and language and the civilized structures that domesticate the world.

Layla AbdelRahim is an anthropologist, writer, researcher, and public speaker. She is the author of Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education (2013).

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31. Children’s Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation

Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness

Layla AbdelRahim

[Title Page]

Children’s Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation

Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness

Layla AbdelRahim

[Copyright]

First published 2015 by Routledge

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and by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

The right of Layla AbdelRahim to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

AbdelRahim, Layla, 1964-

Children’s literature, domestication, and social foundation : narratives of civilization and wilderness / Layla AbdelRahim. pages cm. — (Routledge interdisciplinary perspectives on literature) Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Children’s literature—History and criticism. I. Title.

PN1009.A1A25 2015 809’.89282—dc23 2014031588

ISBN: 978-0-415-66110-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-07364-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

[Dedication]

To Ljuba

I thank you, my angel, for everything you have taught me, for your gift of compassion, understanding, patience, and love. I have done everything in my power to live by what I firmly believe and I offer my argument for others to convince them to stop and question their knowledge and humanity. I dedicate this work to you, my child, and to the other children who will regain the wilderness lost.

Introduction: The Root of It All

Theory of Literature and Life

This book is about stories. We live with these stories. We tell them to our children and revisit them as we grow and accumulate experience, sometimes deriving new sense out of them. Our stories explain to us where we came from and nudge us towards a future they have imagined. They tell us about the world and inspire us to love it, but also to conquer it. They incite us to dream, encouraging us to make choices, and thus we live these stories. But throughout our lives, we continue to think of even the most fundamental stories of our culture that narrate our existence as simply tales, often forgetting that what we consider to be unquestionable truths in sacred texts or incontestable facts in science are part of a larger story that shares its epistemological foundation with fiction and legends and, concurrently, with science and civilization.[1] Conglomerations of these, sometimes contradictory, tales constitute our narrative.

To understand the postulates in the story of humanity and the world that we, often unconsciously, convey through both science and fiction, a story whose principles we have come to embody, we must venture beyond the analysis of words in written and oral texts or of images and representations in visual arts. Such analysis requires a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, this book incorporates a range of disciplines, among them ethology, philosophy, anarchist studies, and literary theory, and offers a comparative anthropological reading of the underlying premises that drive the material expression of the narratives of civilization and wilderness.

Our encounter with stories begins at birth. The French historian Philippe Ariès (1962) argued that before the 18^th century, particularly during the Middle Ages, there was no distinct children’s culture in Europe. According to him, the contemporary (European and Eurocentric) construct of childhood was conceived amongst the elite classes after the 15^th century and only in the 20^th has it become the norm among the upper and lower classes and exported globally. Prior to this development, says Ariès, children participated in adult culture and were exposed to complex representations of civilized reality and to philosophical, anthropological, and sociological musings. Of course, the underlying assumption leaves out non-European literature and dismisses the role of oral literature preceding the European Middle Ages. Critics of Ariès, however, point out that even if there were no distinctly recognizable children’s culture at the time, it does not mean that adults did not sing or tell stories and poems to their children in a form that was specifically adapted to their perceptions of children’s needs. Most important, as this book aims to demonstrate, the underlying premises of civilization imbue the general culture as well as children’s literature and, along with the socio-economic realities of the civilized paradigm, structure children’s experiences non-uniformly across the globe.

Archaeological evidence points to the fact that literacy, education, and a specialized children’s culture have always been characteristic features of civilized societies. I discuss these problems of civilization below. In the meantime, it is important to note that the earliest records of literacy come from Mesopotamia and are around 7,000 years old. According to Gillian Adams (1986), the earliest texts addressed specifically to children are Mesopotamian, written in the Sumer language and dating around 2,000 years. Another example of early extant stories that were expressly addressed to children were the Pañcatantra fables, written in Sanskrit and also dating at least 2,000 years.

But regardless of whether stories are tailored specifically to the perceived needs of the child, thereby fashioning those needs, or whether children are immersed in the general adult culture as soon as they are born, a culture in which children grow up is in fact (also) children’s culture. For it provides the epistemological foundation of the adult that the child becomes. At the same time, engaging with children in a playful, imaginative, and empathetic manner has the potential to allow the adults to reimagine a state prior to our domestication. From this perspective, because children’s literature appeals both to the “wild child inside” and to the “civilizing project” that domesticates the child into a future adult who will fill a niche in the hierarchy of “human resources”, it offers an interesting, if not complicated, case study and, in this book, plays the role of an anthropological informant in the field.

The aim of this book is not only to bridge disciplines but also to speak to audiences with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. It is, therefore, important to begin by defining some of the most critical and problematic terms at the root of my inquiry, namely “culture”, “wildness”, “wilderness”, “civilization”, and “colonization”. Since the semiotic aspect of the English word “term” entails both the time limitations and other pressures and conditions that apply to those who submit to language, Chapter One examines the problem of language in-depth. Therefore, before delving into the analysis of narratives and “informants”, this introduction lays down the problems posed by these terms and examines the way in which they inform the metanarrative that frames our imagination, understanding, and culture.

On Culture

“Culture” is the sum of practices, concepts, means of subsistence, and relationships to the environment.[2] All living beings devise cultural strategies for subsistence that impact their socio-environmental economies and relationships, thereby affecting the world. It is through this effect that cultures manifest themselves. Evidently, since we exist within the environment of our biosystems, our cultural strategies are necessarily symbiotic, with some groups choosing mutualistic relationships that benefit life, ultimately leading to diversity, while others adhere to commensalistic socio-environmental economies that benefit one party but leave the other unaffected. There are also amensalistic systems in which one party hurts others but remains unaffected by that relationship either way. Still, there are those who choose parasitic socio-environmental paradigms to benefit one group at the expense of others.[3]

Most cultures, including viruses and bacteria, are mutualistic because, if left unchecked and untreated, commensalitic and amensalistic economies, and particularly the parasitic ones, lead to the depletion of the host system and, such as in the case of cancer, to the demise of the parasitic organism itself, which tries to colonize new territories and dies when its environment collapses. As the next section discusses, the history of wilderness demonstrates that the prevalent symbiotic systems on earth have been mutualistic relationships, including human animal cultures. This changed drastically, however, after the advent of Agricultural Civilization.

Therefore, for the purposes of understanding what drives these cultural choices and their impact on our knowledge and environment, I propose to probe beyond the superficial differences between cultures (be they human or other animals’) and examine the principles on which they stand. Namely, this book explores the ontological premises of our story and the principles of life with the aim of examining how they inform our knowledge and the imaginary in children’s literature, thereby influencing our relationship to the world.

On Wildness

Throughout the book, the term “wildness” refers to the character of untamed beings whose purpose for existence is not defined by a utilitarian value, while “wilderness” denotes the spatial dimension of existence that includes living and non-living elements sharing that space and time without infringing upon each other’s purpose. Wilderness is, therefore, a cumulative topos of diversity, movement, and chaos, while wildness is a characteristic that refers to socio-environmental relationships.

The basic premise in the ontology of wildness translates into anarchy, where the raison d’être of everything and everyone – living or non-living, human or nonhuman, child or adult, male, female, intersexual, bisexual, or asexual, whatever the species, ethnicity, or race (all of which are important classifications for civilization only) – is simply to be and to enjoy being. In wilderness, the world exists for its own reasons, its space and time uncontrolled, solely its own, regardless of whether it was created by an external divine will or generated through its own exploded forces. Here every member of existence is an agent of her life, driven by desires that play into the cosmic harmony of plurality, not only within one’s group or species but in the larger community of life and nonlife.

Chaos is the principle that guides wild relationships. This is a complex and dynamic system that consists of a variety of particles in motion and their relationships with the movement of others. Hence, wilderness is a place of constant improvisation (Darwin called it evolution), where interests, conflicts, and spontaneity are resolved through an unpredictable, yet harmonious, cosmic dance, the outcome of which is life on earth. This system supports the proliferation of diversity within the whole range of symbiotic relationships, including sporadic outbursts of human and other animal civilization.

Narratives of wilderness reflect this chaos. Therefore, they have no singular format or predictable outcome. They do not have a plot that necessarily leads to some (anthropocentric) conclusion and hence can host a multiplicity of voices and perspectives. Regardless of whether they appear in scientific works, folklore, fiction, religious literature, or children’s books, narrative endeavours that question the civilized parameters capture deftly the complexity of the various cultural strategies. As indigenous lore shows, undomesticated knowledges portray the world, and everything in it, as existing for its own sake, not to be defined, confined, domesticated, known, and possessed. This fundamental premise of wildness knows the human animal as having been created or having evolved to be an insignificant speck yet, concomitantly, as vital a component of its biosystem as any other. Tove Jansson’s Moomin books provide an excellent illustration of how wild children’s stories can depict a world with the full spectrum of symbiotic relationships. There are also scientific texts that draw such connections.

For instance, in The Lives of a Cell, American biologist Lewis Thomas’s (1974) scientific observations intertwine poetically with the cosmic vision of an artist. The book invites the reader to consider the larger picture: if single cells form larger organisms, then larger organisms together could be the constituents of the fabric of an even larger cosmic entity, such as our earth. By extension, if minute mitochondria and organelles make up our bodies, then these larger bodies in turn would constitute the mitochondria of our world. This is more than a metaphor, since we are interconnected with other forms of life and nonlife in an organic, spiritual, and literary way.[4]

In the scope of the universe, life is indeed a complex phenomenon, constantly changing and moving through time, space, and possibly other dimensions. To have successfully lived and flourished in the diversity of wilderness, communities of life and nonlife have had to rely on the intelligence of their members to know how to be in the world, how to collaborate with other living and non-living beings, and help life be. In other words, the wild stance for life requires mutuality, which needs self-regulation, the ability for autonomous learning, reciprocity, and intelligent adaptability to chaos.

According to the Russian anarchist naturalist Peter Kropotkin (2006), mutual aid is the principle by which life safeguards its health and diversity. He observes that in wilderness, happiness and kindness are the prevalent state, while struggle and competition are the secondary, even minor, regulating mechanisms of the self-ordering anarchy. Herbivores and frugivores have historically outnumbered predators, says Kropotkin, and, therefore, most beings in the wild die of old age and natural causes. This makes scavenging, rather than predation, the predominant and most viable socio-environmental culture for carnivores,[5] while frugivore and herbivore gathering presents the most economically feasible culture of subsistence for the vast majority of species, including primates – the animal family to which the human animal belongs.

Life in wilderness demands multi-layered, complex intelligence that is rooted in empathy or the ability to understand what others experience. The wild have to know when to tune in and, therefore, must understand others – albeit different and existing for their own reasons – as connected to oneself. Intelligence acquired through presence and empathy allows the wild to develop both imagination (What is it like to be not me?) and knowledge rooted in the experience and reality of the world (What is life like for you, her, him, it, or them?). Such knowing occurs on many levels, including the physiological plane – the body hexis and DNA provide good examples of how our bodies store information.[6]

Thus, wildness yields a complex understanding of life as constantly changing, not to be captured or fixed by a static narrative, grammar, or formula. For, as the analysis of symbolic culture in Chapter One shows, reliance on generalizations in lieu of empathic presence erases the individual and the unique in our relationships and experience of the world. Symbols substitute the real, and formulae preclude the unexpected. But, instead of gaining control over the unknown, we become ignorant of the immediate, and this ignorance renders us vulnerable. The problems that symbols and formulae pose for understanding and relating to the world, however, do not make wildness antithetical to remembering and learning from the past. On the contrary, in order to thrive, wilderness needs memory as well as unmediated presence, in addition to movement (or nomadism) and adaptability to diversity and change. Chapter One discusses this confluence between civilization, literacy, and the loss of memory in-depth. In the meantime, in order to understand the implications of these connections for the civilized narrative, it is important to situate them in the context of the history of life.

Life has existed on earth for about four billion years with vertebrates inhabiting the planet for 535 million years and mammals appearing 230 million years ago (Lewin, 2005; Williams et al., 2010). Primates share about 30% of the timeline for the existence of mammals, that is, about 70 million years, with hominidae occupying 4.3% of primate history, namely, 10 million years. Even though anatomically modern humans have been making adaptive shifts and acquiring genetic mutations prior to their split from chimpanzees, the lineage homo made its appearance on the landscape of wilderness a mere two million years ago. And only then, more than a million and half years later, did archaic humans come to grace the world – about 300,000 or 400,000 BCE, while modern human animals or Homo sapiens, walk onto the landscape only 200,000 years ago.

In other words, human existence does not amount to even a fraction of a percent in the scope of the experience of life on earth,[7] and throughout the course of the history of life, our world was thriving in wildness and diversity. Finally, 10,000 years ago, human civilization arises in the Middle East, leading us directly into the era of an unprecedented scope of species loss and an abrupt desertification of oceans and land. This era is referred to as the Holocene Extinction, or the age of anthropogenic destruction of life on earth, during which, today, “on average, a distinct species of plant or animal becomes extinct every 20 minutes” (University of Texas report, 2002).

The above figures demonstrate that in contrast to the billions of years on the curriculum vitae of wilderness, civilization has existed for an insignificant fraction of the experience of life on earth and a mere half of a percent of the history of the homo lineage; 10,000 years of civilization constitute 0.5% of human experience. Therefore, regardless of whether we consider that life on earth was sparked by divine will or by a geological and meteorological accident, palaeontological evidence suggests that there must have been little of it at the beginning and that it must have flourished the most before the advent of the Anthropocene, or the Age of Humanity, that selfcongratulatory name the civilized human animals gave to the epoch that followed the highly destructive Agricultural Revolution.

Since humanity appears late on the scene, there was no (human) manager to interfere and oversee the proliferation and evolution of species for over 99.9% of the history of life on earth. This means that the various forms of life must have had the intelligence to tune into the chaos of cosmic conditions and to have understood how to thrive and render this planet viable. It is this flourishing that demonstrates the intelligence of beings; the older the species, the wiser it must be and the more co-operative with other forms of life and nonlife. Insects, bacteria, and grass, for instance, demonstrate this point aptly. Yet in spite of evidence to the contrary, the civilized narrative constructs wild life as dangerous and unviable while, the insignificant in the scope of the history of the world, civilized humanity as the epitome of life on earth. Most of our socio-economic and environmental problems today stem from these false assumptions about civilization and wilderness. And it is these assumptions that provide the underlying narrative in children’s books.

On Civilization

Throughout the book, the term “civilization” refers to the social and material cultures that issue from a specific socio-environmental system, which in human animals is legitimated by a perspective that sees the world as existing for a utilitarian purpose. In this view, all living and non-living beings are bound together in a predatory food chain, their reason for existence being to serve as a resource for someone else. This food chain is hierarchical rather than circular, with the human animal emerging as the top predator in this narrative.

The narrative of human predation is based on false analogy that amounts to wolves kill, bears fish, lions eat gazelles, and, therefore, humans can eat all and whomever they like. However, human primates are not lions, bears, or wolves; we are primates. Therefore, what lions, bears, wolves, or others might do has little, if anything, to do with human nature. We would be closer to truth by making the following comparisons: zebras eat grass; elephants get their proteins from plants; bonobos have the best lives and all they eat is fruit; the white-footed mouse loves flowers, berries, and seeds; hence, human animals have a sweet tooth and like to climb trees, since we are genetically closer to these nonhuman people than to carnivores.

The following figures challenge the narrative of the genetic nature of human predation. We share 99.4% of DNA identity at non-synonymous sites and 98.4% at synonymous sites with bonobos and chimps (Wildman et al., 2004). The variation among humans is ~ 99.5% of DNA. We also share 88% of identical gene pairs with mice, and 99% of the 30,000 genes in mice (which is an equivalent number of genes in human animals) have direct counterparts in humans (Gunter and Dhand, 2002). Only after pigs, cows, and other herbivores do we begin to approach a similarity to carnivores, namely, dogs at 84% of shared DNA.[8]

In spite of the evidence, however, the popular narrative highlights Palaeolithic hunting groups in an argument that carnivorism made us human and led Palaeolithic hunters to adopt Agricultural Civilization and sedentism as a more efficient socio-economic system. Thus, most of the blame or credit (depending on which way one looks at the end result) for the rise of civilization has been placed on the Neolithic or Agricultural Revolution, which began with the domestication of emmer wheat in the Middle East around 17,000 B.P., followed by the domestication of dogs in Southeast Asia around 12,000 B.P. and around 11,000 B.P. in North America (Ellen in Ingold, 1997). These events constitute a revolution because they changed drastically the social fabric and, most important, human strategies for subsistence with serious repercussions for several aspects of life’s experience on earth.

The first of these changes was a shift in human consciousness from a state of wildness – in which the human animal perceived its existence as one organism among a wide variety of others, whose purpose for existence was for their own sake and pleasure of being – to a civilized entity that is separate from other animals and rises above them, one that domesticates, owns, manages, consumes, and controls the lives and reproduction of resources: nonhuman people, crops, and later, through a division of labour, human animals as well. In other words, the shift in human consciousness was also a shift in human subsistence strategies, whereby some human animals reinvented their narrative to centre murder and predation and thereby institutionalize violence.

Evidently, the above is not intended to deny that animals kill in the wilderness. However, death in the wild is never a contained experience inscribed into a grammar of suffering or a system of murder. As mentioned in the section above, most herbivores die of old age and natural causes because predators are slower at reproduction, which explains why there have historically been fewer predators than prey. They sleep much longer hours than herbivores and frugivores (Capellini et al., 2008; Lesku et al., 2006; Berger and Phillips, 1988) and, therefore, hunt rarely, mostly catching the old or the sickly. Moreover, wild predators never focus solely on carnivorism. They also consume fruit and berries (Herrera, 1989; Hickey et al., 1999). Most important, when a bear eats a fish or a tiger captures an antelope, this act of killing does not stem from a socio-cultural grammar that defines all bears as owning the rights to fish’s reproductive system or as permanently controlling the lives and consuming the flesh of every single fish. Ontologically and epistemologically, wild predators do not define prey as a totality of the experience of whole groups at all time.

In contrast, when human domestication constructs epistemological categories of “cattle”, to take one example, such categorization reduces the experience of every single member of the “cattle” class to serving the human class as food for the duration of their entire lives, while those who are not useful to this system are exterminated. To maximize its resources, the human animal legitimates violence to force the reproduction of “cattle” women, robs them of their motherhood, and obliterates intimacy with members of their community. In wilderness, this community would include all the animal and plant species that are symbiotic members of the biosystem. Moreover, civilized epistemology imposes the category of prey on any future generations of cattle for the totality of the existence of the species on earth. This monocultural totalitarianism characterizes the agricultural practice and is critical to understanding the underlying premises and perspectives that inform the social and socio-environmental relationships in civilization.

In this respect, civilization is the sum of domesticated relationships with everything material and symbolic that issues from the labour and consumption of those categorized as resources and the (necessarily) unequal value for that labour, victimhood, and lives. Namely, the narrative values the needs of the owners and consumers while ignoring the suffering of the owned and consumed victims. The terms “civilization” and “domestication” are thus interrelated, with civilization being the contingent since it is the consequence of the ontology of domestication, which defines the raison d’être of creation in terms of predation. This ontology legitimates and naturalizes servitude, consumption, and murder. Having conceptualized itself[9] as the ultimate predator at the top of the food chain, for whose appetite the world exists, the human animal has become aware of itself as different from, even alien to, the world.

It is debatable whether this shift in self-conceptualization, or consciousness, was a concomitant of the Agricultural Revolution or whether it was alienation that made the revolution possible, perhaps even necessitated it. In my book Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education (2013), I examine the scientific evidence on primate diet and predatory practices, which indicates that the switch to carnivorism – and more precisely, to hunting, i.e. killing – might have been the requisite impetus for constructing a permanent structure of predation for human culture, subsequently developing a self-replicating system of domestication through narratives and education, whereas in this book I identify language as a tool of this alienation. The two aspects are not mutually exclusive. In any event, this awareness of difference and separatedness, coupled with a narrative that legitimates hierarchy, gave birth to humanism, which appears to have been the thrust needed to fuel the Agricultural Revolution.

This new socio-environmental culture required new narratives to articulate the humanist perspective. These narratives were built on civilized premises that defined the world in terms of resources, classifying living and non-living beings into categories. They thus embodied an epistemological system in which epistemological classes ultimately translated into socio-economic classes of those who owned, knew, and possessed agency and those who were owned, known, and exploited.

In our convoluted world, the extent of ownership and exploitation sometimes appears hazy, seemingly not committing to clear boundaries, with some members holding the status of prey while simultaneously participating in the predatory consumption of others. Specifically, human animals, who are being exploited as human resources or reproductive resources in a labour chain and who are isolated from the wealth they produce, often fail to see how their own status of prey is linked to the abuse of other classes of human and nonhuman prey to which they directly or indirectly contribute. This participation in humanism keeps most human and other animals exploited, consumed, and dispossessed. Inevitably then, humanistic paradigms struggle with several irresolvable problems. Since the institutions of civilization are rooted in speciesism, racism, sexism, and classism, then social injustice provides the foundation for the legislative bodies that regulate the (lack of) distribution of wealth and (lack of) access to knowledge and space, as well as the extent of personhood and agency permitted to its resources. This intersectionality works to solidify oppressive and discriminatory practices and the epistemological classification system on which this paradigm is built has serious material repercussions for whole classes of beings.

The most blatant manifestation of human alienation through identity and classification is the discipline of anthropology itself. Anthropology is the social understanding, as well as a social construct, of what is a human. Some of its questions examine how different human societies understand their origins, or what is the meaning of existence to us, or what are the repercussions of our self-knowledge on the world – all of which amounts to the question of what is human culture.

As the name already suggests, anthropology is the study of only one species: the human primate. This singularity sets us apart as a particular group that is distinct from all the other animals who are lumped together in the disciplines of zoology and ethology. Even though the human animal is a primate, anthropology excludes all the other primates and simians. Yet civilized epistemology provides no equivalent category for them. Hence, there is no such discipline as “chimpanzology” or “orangutology”, for instance, dedicated to other members of our evolutionary family. The body of knowledge about other apes groups them all into the discipline of primatology, while the so-called “wise wise man” or the Homo sapiens sapiens, is accorded a separate category all for itself. In the same vein, palaeontology is the study of all animal remains, while palaeoanthropology is reserved for the human animal alone.

Constructing an epistemology of the world as divided into these separate and unequal disciplines thus sets humans apart from and above the rest of the world. Rooted in separation, this epistemology influences our dispositions and institutionalizes a specific (namely, anthropocentric) framework for our gaze. It allows us to see ourselves as the sole gazer upon the world and to view “nature” as something out there, different from us and hostile. From this perspective, wilderness exists to be tamed into a docile and pleasant (for us) landscape, and we go through life certain that nonlife is there to be exploited and the lives of others either disregarded or consumed. In this book, the term “nature” refers to the character of relations and dispositions, not to be confused with the common usage that stands for (domesticated) landscape.

This knowledge has further ramifications for the world, as epistemological classes in civilization translate into socio-economic classes that impose limitations on who is allowed access to space and sources of subsistence and to what extent. Differentiation is, therefore, not neutral but intended to legitimate a system of unequal power relations in which humanity constitutes a class of the ultimate and rightful – even legitimate – predators, whose superiority stems from possessing agency and power over resources. The rest of the dehumanized animals are then defined in terms of their utility for the human class of animals, with some characterized as beasts of burden, some constructed as food, and others defined as competition. Constructing whole classes of victims as “naturally” inferior to their oppressors legitimates the despite in which the oppressors hold those whom they dispossess of personhood and agency. Finally, the vicious circle closes as dispossession itself further legitimizes exploitation of the victims of oppression.

Ultimately, civilized classification sentences its resources to either life in civilization or death. This was the epistemological foundation that rationalized the enslavement of “human resources”. Specifically, Europeans referred to and depicted African people as “beasts” both in science and religion.[10] For this humiliation and logic to be effective, the narrative had to first depersonify nonhuman animals and classify them as nonhuman or “beastly” and different from “humans”.[11] Second, it had to appeal to the “knowledge” that anything that is not human exists for human purpose. This classification not only imposed a life sentence of slavery on the victims but extended to the future generations of that “class”, as they became forced to reproduce more of themselves for the purpose of free labour for “humans”.

Other categories, like “vermin”, “pest”, and “weed”, carry with them a death sentence for those human and other animals, as well as plants, who are perceived as competition. Thus, farmers and agricultural institutions, such as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), purposefully poison millions of animals and birds that are categorized as competition to agricultural produce (Wisniewski, 20 January 2011). For instance, “more than 4 million animals shot, poisoned, snared or trapped by the Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services in fiscal year 2013 included 75,326 coyotes, 866 bobcats, 528 river otters, 3,700 foxes, 12,186 prairie dogs, 973 red-tailed hawks, 419 black bears and at least three eagles, golden and bald”.[12]

This report, however, is limited to the murders of animal people that took place only in one fiscal year in the U.S. alone. It does not include the statistics from the rest of the civilized world or the Holocene Extinction. It also excludes wars between human animals, pollution, tolls of past and present slavery, or other perils of civilization, all of which were made possible by the basic premise in civilization that defines the world’s raison d’être in terms of value for civilized human animals.

The categories of pest and vermin apply to human resources and human competition with the same implications. For instance, Ukrainian nationalists refer to Ukrainian Russian speakers as pests, specifically as “Colorado Potato Beetles”, thereby bestowing upon themselves the moral right to exterminate, sometimes locking their opponents/compatriots in buildings and burning them alive.[13] Similarly, in the early 1990s the Rwandan media referred to the Tutsi people as cockroaches, thereby instigating the Hutu to kill close to one million Tutsi (70% of the Tutsi population in Rwanda at the time) within a period of three months.[14] This epistemological system provides an effective schema that can be applied to any relations in civilization, be the class marked by gender, species, religion, nationality, race, or ethnicity. Hence, terms such as “slut”, “swine”, “bitch”, “cattle”, inter alia, are used to reinforce the labour category to which an individual has been assigned and to legitimate the continued oppression of the classes. For instance, the word “slut” signals a class of pleasure resources and is used as a mechanism of control of women as a reproductive class.

In this respect, understanding civilization, domestication, and culture through an analysis of their underlying premises leads to existential and religious questions that incorporate not only ontological perspectives on relationships, society, and space but also a Marxist dimension. For, ultimately, any exploration of human narratives hearkens back to the question of life: What is life, how do we live it, and how should we live it ethically, materially, and existentially? In this sense, this book is also about civilization and wilderness as ontological conceptions of being that inform our experience, understanding, desires, and imagination and that influence the material world.

Besides the shift in human consciousness, several other important changes occurred during the Agricultural Revolution. On the physiological plane, compared to archaic Homo sapiens, anatomically modern humans have significantly lost their physical and cranial robusticity (Lewin, 2005). This occurred gradually at first and then dramatically after the Agricultural Revolution, between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago. It is noteworthy that this loss did not take place in all human populations. For instance, according to Lewin (ibid), Australian Aborigines, Patagonians, and Fuegans retained some robusticity in their skull and skeletal anatomy.

This decline in the physique of modern humans was accompanied by a significant reduction in brain size, where the human animal brain shrank from 1,740 cm³ to 1,300 cm³ (ibid), and deterioration in health, particularly of women, children, and older adults (Armelagos et al. [1991]; Fábrega [1997]). However, the civilized narrative about humanity and civilization ignores this information and suggests an implicit association of growth with success. By selecting favourable comparisons while neglecting those that challenge human superiority, it portrays humanity as a story of improvement.

For instance, a common graph depicts this improvement by comparing the average size of the human brain to smaller hominidae such as Ramapithecus punjabicus, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus habilis, and Homo erectus.[15] These comparisons frequently omit the much larger brains of the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals and when they do mention them, they rarely describe humans as inferior to other human and nonhuman groups, instead making the Homo sapiens sapiens appear superior to other human and nonhuman people. Thus, dolphins “may be” “almost” as smart as humans; the large brains of Neanderthals come with an encephalization quotient that tries to diminish their intelligence; and so forth. Here is an illustration of how this narrative skips such information and highlights the underlying premise of improved humans even when palaeoanthropologists found evidence that “the largest cranial capacity of any known hominin”, H. neanderthalensis skeleton found in Amud (present day Israel), had a cranial capacity of 1,740 cm³, that is to say, about 400 cm³ larger than modern humans (ShahackGross et al., 2008; p. 25) and that these people exhibited sensitivity, artistic expression, care for the wounded and the elderly, inter alia:

“Extant anthropoids exhibit an upward ‘grade shift’ in relative brain size compared to tarsiers and living strepsirrhines (104). A number of adaptive explanations have been proposed for this shift, including enhanced environmental mapping, dietary shifts, changes in the visual system, changes in social structure, and enhanced domain – general cognition. Most of these proposals are bolstered by correlative distributions of brain size versus behavioural traits in living species. The emergence of a more detailed fossil record is beginning to serve as an important test of these hypotheses. For example, we now know that relative increases in brain size occurred independently in catarrhines and platyrrhines (8, 105, 106) and that stem anthropoids (e.g., Simonsius) and even stem catarrhines (Aegyptopithecus) and stem platyrrhines (Chilecebus and Homunculus) had brains broadly comparable in size to living strepsirrhines (105, 107, 108). Thus, the larger brains of living anthropoids evolved gradually and potentially could have been influenced by different selective factors in platyrrhines and catarrhines” (Williams et al., 2010).

I chose not to shorten the above paragraph by deleting the “unnecessary” phrases intentionally to avoid trimming – the very exercise I am critiquing here. The paragraph is, therefore, complete and speaks for itself. Here, phrases like “an upward ‘grade shift’” or “enhanced domain – general cognition” prompt us towards the “therefore” conclusion: “Thus, the larger brains of living anthropoids evolved gradually and potentially could have been influenced by different selective factors in platyrrhines and catarrhines”. These are all positive terms that suggest improvement. Attributing brain growth to enhancement due to “selective factors” creates the appearance that these are favourable characteristics for evolution towards “humanity” as an enhanced species.

The premise that humanity, particularly civilized humanity, is a vital, almost ineluctable, achievement in the course of development of life on earth dominates popular thinking and civilized instinctive knowledge. This assumption informs our creative and scientific narratives as well as our cultural imaginary, socio-environmental strategies, and decisions. Most important, it introduces a bias that helps authors, as in the example above, to neglect facts and obscure the truth about wilderness and nonhuman intelligence.

These omissions raise several difficult questions. For instance, what would the conclusion of the above narrative have been had it included Roger Lewin’s (2005) information that the human brain has in fact shrunk through time, particularly after the Agricultural Revolution? Or what would comparison to other forms of life reveal about human intelligence if we acknowledge how much longer the other forms of life have existed and if we consider the positive effect of their cultural strategies on their own health as well as on the health of their biosystems? Or what would such comparison reveal had the narrative focused on the deterioration of diversity and health due to civilized human activity discussed by Armelagos et al. (1991) or Fábrega (1997)?

To answer these questions, we must acknowledge the principles of wildness, which challenge the civilized story. Therefore, we have to revisit the underlying premises in our formative narratives so as to understand what made life thrive in wilderness and shrink under human civilization. Most important, for the purposes of this book, we need to examine the role that narratives play in colonizing our imagination and the implications of the stories of civilization and wilderness for life on earth.

On Colonization

So how do stories colonize our imagination and what are the implications? Colonialism is the material manifestation of a socio-economic and socioenvironmental system that is founded on civilized epistemology. As discussed earlier, civilized cultures of subsistence are modeled on predation. Energy – from food, labour, and outside sources used in production – plays a critical role in this socio-economic paradigm, where the goal is to maximize yield and profit for the predator at minimum possible cost, namely at the expense of the resources themselves. Since the resources are forced to exert and produce more than they receive back, they labour on deficit.[16] This principle of surplus productivity and the resulting deficit of energy characterize civilized economies. Again, unlike other animal predators who contribute to a balance in the symbiotic communities of which they are an integral part, human predation is rooted in alienation from difference, and by extension in estrangement from diversity. A paradigm based on exploitation on deficit levels of energy necessarily leads to expansionism.

A classification system in which epistemological classes translate into socio-economic classes yields a culture fixated on conceptual boundaries and concurrently on the delineation of material borders. This is another instance where the imaginary materializes in the physical as epistemological and material borders impose real limitations on knowledge, movement, desires, and experience. Borders prohibit free access to space and necessities of life and play a critical role in controlling the existence of plant, human, and other animal resources, their reproduction, as well as time and space.

This purpose to control the sources of energy has led to the creation of the institution of private property, which structured unequal relations of power and unequal rights to agency and self-determination in the very fabric of civilized societies.[17] In other words, borders have enforced ownership and dispossession; they have locked living beings in claustrophobic cells of dependence defined and constrained by such categories as owners and resources. Hence, when humans chose domestication as their source of livelihood, they forfeited movement – nomadism and pastoralism – and thus stopped relying on change and diversity, opting for sedentary settlement instead. Because this sedentary economic system runs on deficit, it constantly consumes more than it gives back. Consequently, nomadic, or roaming and gathering cultures, contribute to balance and diversity while civilization depletes the environment and concomitantly generates a need for constant growth in the reproduction of human and other animal resources, inevitably leading to domesticated population explosion.[18]

It is well known that the Agricultural Revolution was marked by a sudden growth of human cities. As will be discussed in Chapter Two, cities are monocultural spaces. They are designated for one perspective and one species only, from which all “alien” needs and forms of life have been removed. City spaces are sanitized from wildness and, therefore, by nature of their high (and growing) density, cannot be self-sufficient. Here, competition is exterminated, while “useful” animal people are forcefully concentrated on farms outside the urban spaces, thereby submitting the “countryside” to serving the needs and agency of its conqueror, the city.

This creates a paradoxical situation in which civilized societies depend simultaneously on sedentary confinement, expansionism, and absence. This is a system of colonization, in which the predator resides in one place but controls and consumes a distant land base. Colonization thus manifests itself in the parasitic socio-economic paradigm in which the predator succeeds in shutting off the mechanisms that regulate its consumption and growth, ultimately leading to the depletion of the environment and, therefore, to a constant need for new territories to colonize.

In other words, the process of colonization begins with the ontological conception of ownership of land and resources, which leads to a sedentary system of extraction of labour, flesh, and essence from an environment that does not constitute one’s community or land base. In this symbiotic system, the parasite constructs the world as alien and devises effective systems of exploitation, ownership, and control that allow the parasite in absentia to consume energy in a one-way flow. To succeed in this project, civilization developed technologies to facilitate exploitation by proxy of places and entities whom the breeder, owner, and exploiter may not necessarily see, know,[19] touch, or hold.

The first of these technologies is hence the technology of absence. In contrast to wilderness, where presence and empathy are critical for vitality, civilization functions on alienation and absence. This entails physical and emotional absence, but also includes a metaphysical dimension, since technological development is literally linked to death. Namely, the rise of hunting, i.e. killing of others for food, during the Upper Palaeolithic period in the Middle East led some human groups to develop hunting technologies. Palaeoanthropologist Clive Gamble (in Ingold, 1997; p. 94) connects this development in hunting technologies to colonization, while anthropologist Richard Lee (1988) links the appearance of human language to the rise in hunting activities. Hunting thus led to domestication, and both of these cultures of subsistence kill intentionally and on a systematic basis.

The creation of distance between the one who inflicts pain and the victim makes it possible for frugivores to switch to serial killing on a regular basis. In this respect, language provides the grammar for ritualized murder. The purpose of language is to generate regularity by inculcating preconceived notions and formulae for their application. In this sense, language differs from communication – which is the foundation of life – in the same way that technology differs from tools. Tools and communication are irregular and respond to the needs of the moment. They do not require a system to ensure standardization and both have an important place in wilderness. Language and technologies, in contrast, are systems that allow a ritualistic behaviour regardless, or even in spite of, need. John Zerzan (2002; 2008) explains that the invention of language and the growing human reliance on symbolic thought are at the root of civilized violence, for abstract representation provided a vehicle for human alienation from the real world, culminating in contemporary culture’s pathological dependence on technology, virtual reality, and representation. Symbolic thought and systems of representation through language and art (but also through politics) are capable of subverting meaning and substituting fact with fiction. They can convince us that illness, suffering, or mass murder (war), for instance, are forces of life, or that the Third World poor are poor because this is what they want from life and are, therefore, content. In other words, symbolic culture and abstraction are vital elements of language, because they set the rules, or the grammar, for structuring, molding, and controlling our (mis)understanding and (mis)communication. This grammar is the technology that institutionalizes suffering and ritual killing by facilitating emotional bonding to – and allowing the creation of identity based on – the absent and the imaginary.

In the wild, empathy is the regulatory mechanism that depends on presence and understanding. Its function is to minimize killing and pain, and thus it renders perpetual killing difficult for a species whose place in the community of life historically has been among the pacifists. Conversely, language and symbolic culture create the necessary distance. Hence, civilized human carnivores may weep as they relate to the dying teenagers in the fictional The Fault in Our Stars, for instance. Readers, including those bombed or colonized by the wealthy White North, feel the pain of the fictional(ized) White, North American humans as they get devoured by a competing system of colonization known as cancer. At the same time, these technologies of absence allow the civilized to remain blind and deaf to the cries of the mothers losing their children in the slaughterhouse and to the terrible suffering these children experience as they are killed when yearning to live. The civilized carnivores remain unmoved as they dig into the fried flesh of the lamb with their fork and chew on the dead. In the emptiness of the world we have ravaged, we do not weep for the living for we have created a cult of absence and death.

This point of convergence of language, hunting technologies, and symbolic thought is the genesis of humanity. The civilized narrative correlates contemporary human identity with writing, literature, and theorizing. Once again, this narrative constructs these abilities as inherently and exclusively human (e.g. Chomsky, 1957 and 1972). It also portrays these qualities as giving human animals advantages that render their reproductive and survival strategies superior. Hence, humans are distinguished and separated from other animals not only epistemologically, as discussed in the earlier section on civilization, but also ontologically.

Thus, ever since the birth of language, the war on wilderness has become a one-way path towards alienation, civilization, and ultimately literature. More than a metaphor then, literature constitutes the very core of civilized life. I would contend that civilized life itself is literature, since language and literacy have also provided the means to encode a self-legitimating and selfreplicating civilized epistemology. The first chapter of this book examines in-depth these mechanisms, particularly French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard’s (1984) concept of “grand narratives of legitimation” by means of which non-truth or fiction can be reaffirmed over reality. In the meantime, this brings us to the second technology, namely one that encodes and ensures the narrative’s propagation.

Recent research into texts and narratives has produced some fascinating insights into the mechanisms of cultural reproduction. Jack Zipes (2009) argues that stories work as memes. Namely, they fill us with informational units that play the role of cultural genes. Zipes’ conclusion is based on his study of the history of European folktales, the evolution of human cognition, as well as on his research into (written) children’s literature. This intersection of oral information, the literary, and the biological provides a nexus for the successful proliferation of civilized principles, where writing technologies play a critical role in the colonization of human minds and desires by civilized memes. But again, these technologies are rooted in the Agricultural Revolution. In fact, according to Walter Ong (1982, 1986) and Jack Goody (1968, 1977, 1987), the need for writing arose in agricultural, stratified societies where debt was recorded to bind the debtor to relationships of unequal ownership and exploitation. Language and symbolic culture provide the grammar to structure the exchange rate for symbolic capital. In this respect, grammar comprises a system of rules that standardize the uniform application of previously derived formulae, thus ensuring the outcome of social interactions within a class and between classes remains stable and controlled. This system provides the codes for the unequal exchange in the economy of individual effort and social economy.

Language is thus intimately implicated in the culture of subsistence and socio-environmental paradigm as its concepts and grammar infiltrate our brains, thereby changing them at an early age (Chomsky, 1957, 1972; Goody, 1968; Ong, 1982, 1986), while literacy ensures that the narrative that structures our socio-environmental economy remains fixed. In this sense, people constitute the repositories for the narrative that colonizes them. By reproducing themselves and educating their children through language and civilized stories, they ensure the self-propagation of domestication and humanism.

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1990) explains the mechanisms involved in this process of colonization or incorporation of culture and ideology. According to him, experiences and information are encoded in the flesh and influence people’s durable dispositions, informing their choices and behaviour and usually prompting them to act in accord with the social norms of the group to which they belong. As each person literally incorporates previous – her own and her ancestral – experiences, she becomes aligned with the cultural heritage and, through these dispositions, beliefs, feelings, body, and mind, becomes part of the economy of effort, the effort that would have been needed in wilderness to (re)invent new solutions on new occasions. Bourdieu calls this flux of history and anthropology habitus. What renders this process of colonization efficient is the doxa, because it constitues the knowledge and beliefs the knower does not need to actively know that she knows or holds and that, therefore, remain in the realm of the self-evident and unspoken (Bourdieu, 1979, 1990).

The economy of effort is the mechanism by which civilization reproduces its cultural and social institutions. Instead of making new decisions based on presence and a wholesome understanding of reality, the person economizes effort and, through habitus and doxa, re-enacts the already established cultural and social patterns of behaviour by applying the previously deduced conclusions and derived formulae from events that one may have not lived but that have nonetheless been inscribed into our body hexis – or, the way the body carries itself, moves, and interacts with one’s space. Precisely because the doxa remains unknown to the knower, the whole mechanism of enculturation secures the permanence of the past even when challenged by individual desires and praxis, which nonetheless leave room for surprise.

As discussed earlier, the civilized narrative is built on classification. Therefore, the body, or corpus, incorporates social and symbolic capital along with the epistemology, the doxa, the habitus, and the limitations to movement and access to sources of subsistence. This embodiment of civilization by human animals explains the narrative’s tenacity. We thus become a vector of the dialectical forces of revolution and concomitantly of conservatism, and where we yearn for wildness and change, we re-enact permanence. In this process of the narrative’s propagation, our bodies and esprits[20] provide the slate upon which civilization inscribes its text.

To successfully colonize its human resources, civilization needs to modify their inner landscape so they would willingly serve the needs of the colonizer at a high cost for themselves[21] both in terms of energy and in terms of loss of empathy, understanding, and quality of experience. As discussed earlier, resources are forced to generate surplus value of products or flesh for their owners/consumers at minimum cost. This system of modification of wild behaviour and a systematic imposition of civilized information and schemata for (im)moral behaviour and various ethical stances rooted in alienation and apathy are one of the most prominent features of civilization and are critical for its proliferation.

My book, Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams (2013), explores in depth how the institution of domestication, known as education, engineers the predatory body hexis, habitus, dreams, minds, and praxis according to a uniform standard. There is no room for this analysis here; however, it is important to note that literature plays a critical role in this project of inculcation of civilized formulae, which is the topic of the present book. My analysis of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are in Chapter One exposes this connection between education, domestication, violence, and colonization. Here, what is presented as an empowering and liberating story in reality reproduces the narrative of domestication. It conveys the message that a wild child gets punished by getting denied food and love, but when he kills the wild beasts in his imagination and thus eradicates the wildness in himself, he gets rewarded by being allowed back into the now sanitized home.

The story depicts as normal – even loving – family relationships that punish, exclude, and domesticate. Furthermore, the logic on which the story is built is that of con/sequences – a term that conveys both the concept of sequence (continuity) and punishment. Civilized premises thus render knowledge chrono/logical, which adds another dimension to the system of control of time and space, namely a dimension of violence. The story is thus built on the logic of violence. The narrative takes the reader step by step through the sequence of events, which begin with the boy’s wildness. The wild boy then proceeds through a stage where his parents intentionally inflict pain to teach him a lesson. He then kills the wild beings and finally is reintegrated in the now clean, domesticated space and given food. By identifying with the protagonist, the audience empathizes with the violent child, who kills the wild beasts, as well as with the structural violence of his home. This empathic connection renders the reader receptive to the colonizing potential of a fictional story about the colonization of a little boy, which is also about the colonization of his environment and thus of ours too. The story infects and conquers the wildness inside as well as the wilderness outside. Like other narratives of empowerment, it empowers one at the expense of others but, in the end, colonizes us all.

This nexus of domestication, colonization, and literature is also evident in other children’s books. For instance, in Anne of Greene Gables, discussed in Chapter Three, Anne, an initially disempowered orphan in Nova Scotia, is empowered by agreeing to participate in the colonization of land. The narrative omits the information that the land had been stolen from indigenous human and nonhuman populations for agrarian purposes to serve white settlers and thus presents colonialism from the perspective of the colonizer; it depicts it as good and as something to strive for. Anne further empowers herself by adhering to the gendered expectations of her female class and chooses to remain with the elderly adoptive family and a male friend instead of pursuing her own dreams and fulfilling her own purpose. She is thus colonized as a female resource for the purpose of reproduction and provision of care.

Another good illustration of this narrative is The Secret Garden. Here, a young white male of the dominant class is healed and empowered by the sacrifices that the female peasants and female orphans make on his behalf. He heals by consuming them. Yet another children’s book, The Wind in the Willows, portrays positively the wealthy male Toad who can use and abuse the female working class in order to enjoy freedom while others work and remain in their place, the status quo.

There are many examples of how humanist narratives selectively construct humanity and empower the human at the expense of the nonhuman, or how feminist narratives of empowerment conceal the fact that their interests are vested in the segregation and oppression of others and, by implication, of themselves. It is this chain of abuse, based on race, gender, sexual orientation, marital (patriarchal) status, species, ethnicity, class, ad infinitum, that ensures the perpetual consumption and colonization of lives and wilderness. Examining these stories of “liberation” from the perspective of wildness reveals how firmly most of them are rooted in separation and shows how deeply humanist epistemology weaves violence into the very framework, not only for knowing the world but also for relating to it and imagining it.

On Literature

The stories we hear and tell and the larger narratives in which they are inscribed thus transcend us. On the level of the mundane, they formulate our conception of humanity and the world, prescribe our diet, tell us what is illness and health, instruct us on whom to worship and whom to obey, what to know, how to move, sleep, and live. Whether articulating our imaginary or real experiences, they underlie cultures and motivations; they inform our decisions and direct our actions with dire repercussions for the world we inhabit.

Recently, there has been a surge in narrative studies from a range of disciplines such as medical anthropology, sociolinguistics, law, even biology, among others. However, there has not yet been a truly multi-disciplinary approach, particularly one that includes anarchist perspectives that would examine the underlying premises of knowledge and its colonization of human and other resources. The aim of this book is to fill this gap by taking narrative analysis deeper in the context of critique of civilization and to analyse how the underlying premises inform literature in order to understand how fiction shapes knowledge and, through our dispositions, body hexis, habitus, doxa, and praxis, affects reality. Namely, this study of children’s literature as knowledge, culture, and social foundation aims to bridge the gap between science, economics, and literature by exploring the interconnectedness of fiction and reality as a two-way road.

As discussed in the sub-sections above, literature constitutes an integral part of the technology of domestication and, therefore, has continued to propagate domesticated logic and mythology for thousands of years. The Indian collection of moralistic fables from the oral tradition, known as the Pañcatantra, also mentioned above, illustrates this purpose of fiction, having constituted a bible of instruction for the child-prince, the future ruler over living and non-living resources. Aesop, Krylov, de la Fontaine, and Afanasiev carried on the fable tradition, depicting anthropomorphic animals in stories that, unlike wild stories, guided the audience towards moral conclusions. The magical tales of the Arabian Nights, The Canterbury Tales, and the ancient Chinese and Japanese works of morals and ethics provide other examples of civilized narratives.

The purpose of civilized texts has remained the same for the most part – that is, to seal relationships of debt and socio-economic inequality. This purpose continues to drive most civilized narratives, sometimes in surprising ways. For instance, a fictional children’s book like A.A. Milne’s Winniethe-Pooh may appear to be a simple, innocent, and comical story at first glance. Or Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, to take another example, may seem to be mocking the civilized social norms and exposing the absurdity of language and civilized conventions. In reality, both works reconfirm the very culture the books ridicule. In Alice, this is expressed at the end, in the moment when Alice wakes up back in her world and exhales a sigh that amounts to:

“O’ thank goodness, I’m home, back to that habitus of oppressive, yet familiar and therefore dear order; for that dream was madness and chaos while home, no matter how ridiculous, nonsensical, even abusive, is always best”.

Thus, even through a narrative that promises to venture beyond the civilized frontiers into a new and untamed territory, where meaning is discarded and paradigms are shattered these stories often remain the vehicle for the larger narrative that reconfirms the institution of civilization, its language, mythology, and predatory violence.

This violence can be traced throughout the history of the written word. Most stories rationalize murder by weaving ontological reasons for killing into their stories of origins that explain the raison d’être of beings. The slaying of disobedient deities, of human animals, and nonhuman people, or of trees in these stories rationalize the necessity of these acts of violence and destruction. For instance, one of the earliest written texts is “The Stories of Heaven and Hell” from ancient Mesopotamia, dating more than 2,000 years B.C.E. The most well-known of them, The Epic of Gilgamesh, recounts the murder of the guardian of the forest, which is followed by the felling of the cedar trees and then by the murder of animals. This great act of violence moved mountains and hills and changed the world.

“At the third blow Humbaba fell. Then there followed confusion for this was the guardian of the forest whom they had felled to the ground. For as far as two leagues the cedars shivered when Enkidu felled the watcher of the forest, he at whose voice Hermon and Lebanon used to tremble. Now the mountains were moved and all the hills, for the guardian of the forest was Killed” (Sandars, 1972: 83).

Sacred Hindu texts, too, speak of the violence of domestication and the destruction of chaos: “The Devī Durgā has eight arms and in her many hands she holds the weapons and emblems of all the gods, who turned their weapons over to her to kill the demon of chaos” (Eck, 1985; p. 28). Classical Arabic poetry, as well, sang praises not only to domesticated love but also to war. One of its most influential poets, Tumāḍir bint ‘Amr ibn al-Ḥarth known as Al-Khansa, lived in the 7^th century A.D. She fought in wars, lost her brothers and sons to war, and wrote poetry about war.

Less overtly than in the above examples, the following texts articulate the tensions inherent in civilization and some try to imagine different worlds. For instance, living in the 14^th and 15^th centuries Europe, one of the earliest feminists, Christine de Pizan, speaks of oppression and imagines a feminist utopia, La Cité des Dames, establishing a potent prototype. Nikolai Nosov’s feminist Greenville Town in The Adventures of Dunno and Friends is a response to this utopic vision, which this book analyses in depth.

The intersection of class, labour, and inheritance with the domestication of sexuality and the colonization of women as a reproductive class is evident in other works of literature as well. For example, Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron from 14^th-century Italy probed questions of sexuality, normalcy, deviance, social relations, and community in a most creative manner. This intersection is even more apparent in civilized romantic tragedies for throughout the centuries, writers explored the theme of love across social classes from different cultural norms.

For instance, during the Umayyad Caliphate in the 7^th century, an Arabic story, known as Qays wa Layla, depicts a passionate love between a young man by the name of Qays and a young woman by the name of Layla. Her father refuses their union and forces her to marry another man. The worst tragedy that can befall a person in that culture is to lose civilized reason and language – that mark of human exclusivity and the tool of domestication. This loss was Qays’ punishment for illicit love; he goes insane and is banished to the desert to live in silence. He could no longer write poetry as he is forced to step outside the boundaries of civilized society. However, the narrative omits the truth about the community of life in the desert, and we are left to believe that this was the end for him.

The 16^th-century English rendering of the same tragedy in the context of European culture presents a logical ending that is deemed most terrible by the standards of European society for desiring a union that would lead families to share their wealth with competing clans. Hence, the lovers in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet must die. This variation between capital punishment or loss of either reason or language has been used throughout the history of literature to either make the point of domestication or challenge it.

Ophelia drowns in the face of her lover’s obsessions. Madame Bovary’s misplaced love for things and indulgence in the abusive and manipulated desires for high-class living spell her death. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina throws herself under the train, thereby exposing the lethal aspect of technology, when alienation from nature and immersion in bourgeois values become unbearable.

Nikolai Karamzin’s Poor Liza (1792) aptly demonstrates how this intersection of domestication, violence, death, insanity, class, and gender play out in illicit love. Poor Liza is a precursor of Adolphe Adams’ ballet Giselle, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and the motif of control of dreams and desires of the reproductive and productive classes can be traced in all of these works. Liza, the protagonist, was born into a wealthy peasant family, the author tells us, because her father worked hard. This connection between work and reward is one of the fundamental myths of civilization. The story opens with the contextualization of Liza within the exploitative relationship between the city of Moscow and the countryside. Her lover, Erast, chooses to go to war, gambles away his wealth, abuses her trust, and weds another. His choices are made out of fear and thus it is Erast’s personal weakness in the face of social violence that leads to the tragic end. As he killed others during the war, Liza kills herself. Like Ophelia, she drowns in the river, while Erast goes on to live with his weakness and choice. His punishment is a sorry life; hers is death. In most of these stories, women receive the death penalty for transgressing the borders of their reproductive and socio-economic classes.

In the logic of domestication, crossing forbidden borders warrants capital punishment. For the classical Arabic narrative, this penalty was madness and banishment to the wilderness; for the English it was death; and for the Russian culture it is bad conscience and solitude. As seen above, this is also the logic of the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. The boy is denied food and banished from the civilized space. The implied threat is either you die or kill the wildness, the beast.

The fact that the topoi for legalized violence – such as war or the death penalty – or for racism, sexism, speciesism, stratification, poverty, inter alia, still persist, both in civilized society and in the fictional narratives we dream, points to that intrinsically and qualitatively things have not changed over the course of civilized human history. If anything, they have exacerbated both in reality and in representational culture. The images broadcast today make Goya’s depictions of war appear to be from the realm of tales, an Alice in Wonderland adventure, a nightmare we think we can blink off upon awakening but in reality only step into an even more terrifying world of horror. The issue is not simply that The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters, engendering a desolate space where children’s literature constitutes the lullabies that lull our humanness to sleep. As this book will try to demonstrate, it is rather that civilized reason begets monsters, for through stories that try to explain our raison d’être, it weaves a narrative of captivity, servitude, and death.

On the Structure of the Book

Since I am conducting this inquiry as a long-term resident of civilization and using its tools, such as language and literacy, the questions and the format of the book are structured by my journey. Namely, the book intends to examine the epistemological, ontological, and anthropological foundation of narratives and the ways in which they inform children’s literature. Therefore, the book consists of three chapters with each of the chapters dedicated to questions of epistemology, ontology, and anthropology respectively. The chapters consist of subchapters and sections whose lengths and numbers do not follow a symmetrical order as my priority was to respond to the needs of each question rather than to form.

The general introduction, entitled “The Root of It All: Theory of Literature and Life”, is dedicated to the discussion of the terminology that informs my inquiry. It is critical for understanding the rest of the book as it lays down the theoretical perspectives from which I approach my analysis.

Chapter One, entitled “Epistemologies of Chaos and the Orderly Unknowledge of Literacy”, proceeds with the examination of the first technology of domestication: language and its effect on knowledge. Because most scholars’ interests are vested in humanism, sociolinguistic studies generally focus on the positive aspects of language. This chapter invites the reader to explore the darker side of language and the role of narratives in framing our conceptions of legitimacy, justice, economic inequality, illness, and health.

The chapter consists of ten subchapters, and the first subchapter contains six sections dedicated to the role of biography in science and literature as well as to the introduction of the three children’s books I chose to illustrate the underlying premises of wildness and domestication. Even though I examine a wide range of fictional and scientific narratives, I focus on these books to illustrate three socio-environmental and socio-economic paradigms that stem from the ontological positions of civilization and wildness. These are the capitalist, socialist, and anarchist paradigms; and the three books are:

1. A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, which depicts the civilized or the agricultural-capitalist world (monarchist, feudal, totalitarian, democratic systems, etc., are built on the premises of this model);

2. Tove Jansson’s Moomin books because they capture a range of wild relationships across species and systems (various indigenous and anarcho-primitivist cultures fall into this spectrum);

3. Nikolai Nosov’s anarcho-socialist world of Dunno’s Adventures because it portrays an attempt at a compromise position between the wild and the civilized. The compromise spectrum ranges from the anarcho-socialist to Communist systems. However, as my analysis of Dunno illustrates, even though this socio-economic culture allots space for both humans and wilderness, it nonetheless remains rooted in the epistemology of separation as well as in the ontology of civilization since it constructs humans as either “naturally” civilized or ineluctably on their way to civilization. It also accepts the food chain hierarchy, consumes domesticated (namely, colonized) nonhuman animals, and defines the purpose for the existence of human resources in terms of work for the “higher” humanist good.

The rest of the subchapters examine how the underlying premises inform our conceptions of justice, education, illness and health, private property, and nationalism both in fiction and life. That is why the central subchapter, which is six, links the real with the fictional by examining the implications when social workers and medical practitioners apply these notions in order to control and integrate young human resources. I illustrate this point with my anthropological research conducted on the medical sector in Sweden.

Chapter Two examines ontological problems regarding wild and civilized cosmogonies and the genesis of life. It is entitled “Genealogical Narratives of Wilderness and Domestication: Identifying the Ontologies of Genesis and Genetics in Children’s Literature” and consists of eleven subchapters that explore narratives of identity, both as belonging to a group and as separated from other beings. The question of origins is of particular significance here, opening up a number of venues for exploration. For instance, wild and civilized notions of origins lead people to different kinship models, which in turn have implications for whether they allow others to share space, wealth, and the world. Specifically, the civilized dependence on technologies exposes our alienation from the world and our inability to adapt our physiology to ecological pressures, including the anthropogenic environmental changes. In her praise of the cyborg, Donna Haraway illustrates the whole point of civilization when she says that it is imperative to forget our past, our earth, in order to distance ourselves from our siblings in mud. The problems of presence and memory that this position raises are the subject of the last subchapter in this part of the book.

Finally, the third chapter, entitled “In the End: Anthropological Narratives in Fiction and Life”, examines how our anthropological narratives inform fiction and how, in turn, fiction informs our science and our world. It consists of an introduction, three subchapters, and a conclusion. The subchapters discuss palaeontological and other historical and anthropological research that disproves civilized mythology.

1. Epistemologies of Chaos and the Orderly Unknowledge of Literacy

Questions of Biography, Epistemology and Methodology

I Read, Therefore I Am: A Biographical Perspective

Stockholm, autumn 1997. Anthropologist Don Kulick ends presenting his research on trans-gender prostitutes in Brazil. The presentation was interesting and raised many challenging issues. “Any questions?” asks Don. The first question, accompanied by omnipresent even if quiet giggling: “Was your research based on participant observation?”.

(AbdelRahim, 1998)

“Participant observation” – what is it? It implies there exists a method of “non-participant observation” or perhaps “participant non-observation”, which some scientists, for instance in abstract mathematics, hold to be superior. However, Emily Martin (1987), George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (2003), and R.A. Lewin (1982) make a strong case for the insidious effect of language on our observations and scientific conclusions. Apart from the initial reasons that drive us to participate and observe, there is also the question of how we participate and observe or how we can avoid participation or observation. Is one method more accurate or scientific?

Because social sciences have traditionally carried the onus of legitimating their scientificity and identity in relationship to the exact sciences, methodology has occupied a central place in the social-scientific narrative: How do we know society? Can we know society as we can know the world? Are there observable facts? Constants? Can control and experimentation lead us to truth? Do prejudices and, therefore, biography help us to understand our observations or are they more likely to obscure our understanding? Since we embody narratives and live through them, questions of critical methodology are as central to literary analysis as they are to the natural and social sciences. To fully comprehend a text, the researcher must venture beyond observation of extensive bibliographic records of those who have made it in print capitalism. She must examine the self and understand the Other(s) – including other animals.

Bourdieu’s theory of praxis offers a useful methodology for examining the inter-connectedness of personal and social factors in forging symbolic, scientific, artistic, literary, and economic cultures. In The Logic of Practice (1990), Bourdieu explains there are several levels of knowledge guiding individual decisions and actions that ultimately comply with, what I identify as, the domesticator’s agenda. First, there is the ideology or the “official party line”, which is how individuals and groups perceive themselves consciously even if they do not necessarily adhere to that perception in actions. Then there is doxa, which is the immediate knowledge a person has but is not aware of having:

… doxa “goes without saying because it comes without saying” ( Boudieu, 1992: 167). Moreover, these unrecognized or doxic beliefs are shared to as “an unquestioned and unified cultural ‘tradition’” (Bourdieu and Wacquant: 248 n. 45; and see Bourdieu, 1998: 67, 1982: 156, 1997: 22, 123). Beate Krais notes: “Every mode of domination, even if it uses physical violence, presupposes a doxic order shared by the dominated and the dominants” (169). The question one might legitimately ask is: where does doxa come from? Bourdieu addresses this query with some clarity in Practical Reason: “Doxa is a particular point of view, the point of view of the dominant, which presents and imposes itself as a universal point of view – the point of view of those who dominate by dominating the state and who have constituted their point of view as universal by constituting the state” (1998: 57). This elliptical remark would seem to indicate that doxic beliefs, although shared by all, are themselves produced and reproduced by the dominant class. What is odd, however, is that this group never deliberately planted them in a given field’s epistemological soil. Doxic assumptions, then, are a sort of unseen and unintended support for the rule of the dominant. …

(Berlinerblau, 1999).

As discussed in the Introduction, the basis of class and an epistemology built on the demarcation of class borders that the paragraph on Bourdieu discusses above is the foundation of civilized values, norms, and objectives as defined by human people who are “agents” of their lives and who control resources. The reality, norms, and goals of those who constitute the resources, in contrast, are limited in scope and controlled as long as they fulfill their domesticated roles. The doxa imposes the perspective of the civilized, namely the dominant, ubiquitously. The mechanism of production of the details that constitute civilized knowledge along with ideology, doxa, body hexis, and habitus ensures the domesticated resources surrender their agency and believe in the normalcy and legality of their lack of access to the process of decision making regarding the production of symbolic and material capital they generate as well as regarding the human resources they produce and accept their separation from the products of that system of production and reproduction. The symbolic value of this alienation and dispossession becomes an integral part of the economic system that is regulated by the constant inflation of symbolic value attached to manners, cultural references, symbolic representation, language, and meaning, among other elements of social wealth. In Distinction (1979), Bourdieu argues this process explains the persistence of the pyramidal hierarchy of socio-economic relations. The doxa imposed by this hierarchical structure induces the majority of the dispossessed classes or groups to admire, trust, and dream of aligning their worth with (upper) middle-class values, thereupon ensuring their participation in this system of resources and abuse – a process that explains the durability of civilized dispositions and institutions.

Bourdieu’s theory of practice can help us understand the underlying knowledge in children’s literature since it acknowledges both the voluntaristic and deterministic factors of the encounter between the past and the present and between the personal and the social in which the past meets the future, or in which the individual faces history and culture concurrently through the conscious, unconscious, personal, and social constructs of knowledge. This theory explains the mechanism by which any creative, theoretical, applied, or manual work becomes the result of both individual agency and the ends of civilization.

In this light, to look today inside the me-at-the-time is an important exercise in an attempt to uncover my own epistemology as well as my initial need to conduct this research. Since understanding the world requires introspection, before anything else any research project has great personal significance. It acquires larger implications when the personal sphere, comprising individual knowledge and drives, intersects with the personal sphere of other persons. The common space between these persons becomes public. It is through this common/private space that the analysis of the children’s books that had a lasting impact on me becomes a study of the importance of these books on children and people in general. Here, being a “native” in the field – my native children’s literature with which I grew up – can act both as an aide and as a hindrance to dissecting the narratives that colonize us. In this way, this book is also a study of the self.

My own biography illustrates clearly this intersection of colonialism and language. Since birth, my meandering fate has taken me through a wild range of geographic, occupational, political, and social contexts in which questions of language and literacy followed me persistently, even if I were not always aware of them. I began to speak late, which made my mother anxious because she always mentioned that, unlike her other children, I uttered my first word at the age of three-and-a-half years.

I was born in Moscow to inter-continental, inter-racial, and multi-lingual students and so chunks of my early childhood alternated between passionate university student life, solitude in a dorm room, and chunks spent in a five-days-per-week boarding daycare. My father came to Russia from Sudan, which was newly liberated from British colonialism and even though Russian was my native tongue, I picked up English, Arabic, and some Italian in Sudan where I grew up and where people fought wars over language, resources, and ethnic, cultural, and national identities. Therefore, issues of colonialism have always been present in my own immersion in language(s) and family discussions with friends.

However, my most memorable and intense experiences were with my grandparents in a tiny Russian village surrounded by forests, rivers, and fields. My brightest, happiest memories come from that silence, that era, that pre-lingual universe and its forest. Another sojourn in the wilderness that marked me was a half a year spent with my parents living in a tent in a geological camp in Darfur. Apart from my favourite passtime of being in the wilderness and in the company of animals, I enjoyed painting, observing, listening, reading, and writing, which opened doors into the “hard” and other sciences, humanities, and the arts and mapped a special place in my heart for ethology.

The kindness of animals and the wilderness I have known stood in stark contrast to the violence I have experienced and witnessed at the hands of civilized people. I have worked in refugee camps where death was more real than life, and have come face to face with perverts and serial killers (both the legal-military types and the illegal-warped ones). I have seen anthropogenic deforestation crawl up in front of my eyes in Africa and in Europe and have understood what it is like to suffocate from agrarian chemicals and poisons in the overpopulated countryside of Asian lands. And throughout my life, ever since I understood at the age of four that meat was stolen flesh from killed animals, my concern was to learn how to live right in this world, which meant how to take care of it and be happy with it, not cause it pain.

In all of my undertakings, I sought this synchrony with the wilderness I have known, which motivated me to stop pursuing engineering after three years of study, after which I went into fine arts and then worked with refugee relief and in war journalism. Not receiving answers to what makes people act so brutally with each other and the world, I proceeded to conduct anthropological research in Europe. This search for understanding civilization and wilderness guided me through my explorations of North and Central America, Eastern and Western Europe, Australia, and Asia. The various pieces I collected from these multi-dimensional voyages fell into place when my daughter came into my life and set me off on my most important quest of finding out what I really have to offer the generations to come. Epistemology, ontology, and anthropology should have taught me how to live in this world filled with human hatred, discrimination, deforestation, pollution, and war. But the only direction they pointed to me was back to wilderness.

I therefore, acknowledge this book is not disinterested. I believe no work of science or art is without an agenda, usually formulated as intent, research questions, and methodologies. This book on children’s literature and the knowledge on which it is based is no exception.

The question of whether pure objectivity is possible and the extent to which personal bias and circumstances aid or hinder in the revelation of truth has occupied a central place in scientific explorations. “Hard” scientists are slow to acknowledge the role of the person and the social context in the production of hard scientific knowledge. The social scientists, in contrast, particularly in anthropology, have paid attention to both the advantages and the pitfalls of participant knowledge (Bernard, 1995; Wolcott, 1995; Grahame, 1998; Steinmetz, 2005; Creswell, 2009, inter alios). Having banned the emotional sphere from civilized knowing, the Cartesian scientist objects to self-study or doing field work at home mainly on the grounds that nativity involves emotions that, together with the doxa and the ideology, may veil other possibilities for interpretation. By the same token, however, native values can interfere with understanding regardless of whether one chooses to study new and foreign territory or the old and familiar. The advantages of doing field work at home is that, if undertaken honestly, it brings forth the urgency to face and question the self as much as to understand the “other”, regardless of whether this other is a stranger, a fellow being, a text, or the unknown and mysterious alcoves of the self. For it can be said that the doxa is a stranger inside the self.

Children’s culture presents a particularly potent nexus of narratives since children are born wild and it takes years to domesticate them through narratives and pedagogies. Moreover, we have all been natives of childhood at one time, and in spite of the thousands of years of domestication, human and nonhuman children cling to their wildness and, given the chance, easily turn feral. Actually, it takes much less time and effort for a being to turn feral than to become civilized. Having not yet fully appropriated the grammar of civilization, children ipso facto read differently from domesticated adults, for they are either guided by curiosity – that innate desire to know – or by nagging adults obsessing about literacy and their children’s success. For adults, in addition to satisfying curiosity and providing entertainment, reading constitutes symbolic and social capital and the different incentives ultimately define the reader’s relationship with the text and its meaning. This, however, does not mean “the author is dead” as Barthes’ Death of the Author (1977) postulates. Rather it supports my proposition that civilized intelligence is based on ignorance of the interlocutor’s meaning, of the other’s meaning. For the primary concern in civilized interactions is not dialogue or an exchange of knowledge and experience but the appropriation of the other’s meaning as resource and symbolic and material capital. It is in this sense that, by stating the reader appropriates the texts, the reader-response theory alludes to the essence of this civilized relationship: the death of the speaker.

Balzac’s Sarrasine (1830) exemplifies the civilized concern with borders, gender, and class. Barthes uses this text to illustrate the futility of even trying to identify whose voice depicts the castrate’s femininity and who pronounces the knowledge of what a “real” woman is. He asks: Was it the author’s voice? The narrator’s? Has the author spoken on behalf of the reader? Is this a voice of a character? Is this the voice of universal wisdom? His response is that it is impossible to know and that, therefore, the author is dead and writing becomes the “neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing” (Barthes, 1977).

Writing, however, is never a neutral or oblique space; nor is reading a neutral activity. By choosing to read one book and not another – for instance, Sarrasine and not The Wedding of Zein (1969) – the reader chooses the world and concerns of Balzac over those of Tayeb Salih. The author’s background constitutes aspects of symbolic capital and the manner in which the author and text are presented (i.e. advertised) plays an important part in the reader’s decision to invest time, effort, and money in the choice of reading. Furthermore, the doxa will guide even the Sudanese readers to favour (the white European) Balzac over (the black African) Tayeb Salih. In this respect, both authorship and the act of reading acquire a symbolic, economic, and political character, once again converging the personal and the public spaces.

This relationship between reading, writing, knowing, and living is structured by its larger narrative. In civilized spaces, authority legitimates discourse and controls the conversation. Since writing is about immortalizing language and civilized thought, its very nature is to displace the subject of experience, domesticate her, and overwrite her intentions and meaning. It is in this respect that the author is dead. For just as the subject or the speaker began to die with the invention of language, the author died with the invention of writing. And so does the text cease to exist as it gets trapped in the domesticated reality tunnel.

Timothy Leary used the reality-tunnel image to explain, in socio-psychological terms, why people involved in a discussion often remain deaf to their interlocutors. He posited that most people’s understanding of the world and of others is limited by the tunnel of concepts, experiences, and understanding of reality acquired through life, mainly through language but also by means of other indoctrinating structures such as education, family, socioeconomic reality, etc., which create a barrier of belief systems that curb both understanding and imagination. Namely, “imprinting of models accidentally present in the environment at critical periods determines the tunnel realities in which humans live” (Leary, 1987). Rather than relying on presence and empathy to understand the other, the civilized use models or schemata to represent experience. Education proves to be the most effective engineer of the reality tunnel, particularly by relying on written texts and technology to represent and substitute real experience, thereby structuring apathy as the basis for knowledge into children’s habitus, body hexis, and praxis.

Drawing on Peter Kropotkin’s anarchist theory on evolution and physiology, Alexei Ukhtomsky (in Nikitina, 1998) attributes this syndrome of civilized un-understanding to the “problem of the double”. Instead of listening to the other, says Ukhtomsky, an interlocutor replaces the speaker with the image of herself and understands only what she wants to hear, ignoring and dismissing everything else. The Soviet physiologist Arshavsky (ibid) draws on this work and attributes the rise in crime, cruelty, alienation, suffering, and war to the civilized human animals’ loss of the ability to hear and empathize and sees the civilized as inherently immoral because they refuse to understand the mechanisms of life or wild morality.

These problems with civilized comprehension and convoluted justifications for structured immorality (other animal breeding, farming, human animal breeding, war, etc.) explain the lack of reading skills in spite of universal, obligatory schooling. Literacy is understood as the ability to understand what a person, text, or narrative intends to convey. When a reader approaches the text with the intention to hear the other, to expand the realm of her own experience and knowledge, she has to suspend judgements and allow the other’s meaning into the dialogue. As in any communication between interlocutors, it is this acceptance to enter into a relationship with the author that reveals the numerous levels inherent in social interaction. In the words of Snufkin, the eternal wanderer of Moominvalley, the crux of the matter is “how to find that tune”, solely defined by its own purpose and varying according to who chants it. Here, I am striving to capture the “tune” that inspires children’s literature, writing, reading, and knowing.

Children’s literature is rooted in the epistemological and socio-economic frameworks discussed earlier. Therefore, writing and reading them is a journey through the systems we choose to live by. To conduct my comparative analysis of children’s books, I decided to focus on three authors from Europe who had a great impact on children’s literature around the world and whose works convey dexterously the three socio-political paradigms and socio-economic contexts from which they come. A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh was written at the height of the British Empire and hence projects a civilized monarcho-capitalist world. Nikolai Nosov wrote his trilogy The Adventures of Dunno and Friends during the Soviet era. The debates between the various strands of anarchists, socialists, and communists were important during the revolution and thus this text presents the whole range of socio-economic systems: anarcho-primitivist, feminist, socialist, communist, and capitalist. Specifically, it describes the challenges and feats of an anarcho-socialist society in evolution from primitivism towards technology. Finally, Tove Jansson began to write her series of Moomin books in Finland during World War II. In the first book, she imagined what it would mean to escape war and instead choose to live in chaos, anarchy, and wildness, where wilderness contains everything, including encounters with civilization, but most of all an infinite love for the world.

I have known these books since early childhood. Hence, one can say that I have native fluency in them and, in this sense, this work is also anthropology at home. Yet there is the distance of my travel through time, wilderness, science, theory, civilization, and war. Therefore, this is also an ethnographic study of the unfolding narratives of wilderness and civilization in real life that relies on comparative methodology across texts, genres, and dialogues with the past.

Meeting Dunno and Friends

Nikolai Nosov was the first author to have inspired me to connect the Russian letters, mystical to me at the time, as I was sitting under the three palm trees trifurcating from a corner in our garden on the bank of the Blue Nile. I was five years old and it happened at one particular moment, when suddenly everything fell into place and made sense. I had not even noticed that the desert moon had replaced the merciless sun and was only roused by the worried voice of my mother calling me in for supper. That day opened to me the world of reading and marked my Russification beyond repair.

We had just moved to Khartoum from Moscow and my mother was concerned with my language skills and hence believed I should first learn to read and write Arabic and English, before my native Russian, so as to succeed in school. Ironically, my mother is a Russian philologist who dedicated her life to teaching others Russian. My father, however, who was Sudanese, had always preferred to speak Russian to his children, even to those who were later born in Sudan. This helped me pursue my passion for Russian literature and thought, particularly since, before leaving Russia, I had vowed to keep in touch with my grandparents, cousins, and friends.

Hence, Nosov’s presence in my life is connected to motivations, passions, and desires that reach beyond literacy concerns or the sphere of entertainment by children’s stories. His stories were my bridge to a world that I felt was snatched away from me without my consent, and this loss made the cultural and political warfare between ideologies an integral part of my experience growing up. His books proved to be a cornerstone not only in my virtual connection to that world, secluded behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, but also to a whole generation of people exposed to the work of this passionate author written with a great sense of humour and love for justice.

I have revisited Nosov throughout my life. Upon my return to Russia in May 1998 after years of wandering around the globe (at the time, planning on my return to be permanent), I reread the third part of the trilogy, Dunno on the Moon, and laughed and wept even more at the recognition of the Moonly world around me.

Into the Moominvalley

Tove Jansson has marked another critical stage in my becoming. I discovered her at the age of seven through Finnish picture books while visiting Finno-Sudanese family friends. At the time, we lived on the Blue Nile in an English colonial house with high ceilings built of stone and surrounded by large trees. The house was hidden between the Italian Catholic convent and St. Matthew’s cathedral where I played with monkeys, swung on lianas, and listened to the Sunday night chorus. My parents’ friends, Mari and Hassan, explained to my parents that they wanted their children to grow up in a rural setting, among the working class, in a cob house of local architecture. Visits to their house were a feast to me as my friends, Sami and Ali, took me around their world of farmlands, a local market, a neighbourhood that at the time was cut off from ours by a strip of the desert. In their neighbourhood, it was the melancholy song from the minaret that captured my imagination. Having been born in atheist Russia, I had no idea that these were the voices of religion. Their world appeared to me to be lying on the other side of the universe, differing drastically from anything I had known: my grandparents’ village in Russia, Moscow, or my experience of the wild and animist Western Savannah and (post)colonial Khartoum. As we played and climbed the fruit trees in their garden, I could see Mari going about her chores, always ready to respond when we needed her. Mari’s image was thus imprinted in my memory as a picture of Moominmamma’s eternal serenity and unconditional love. I later rediscovered the Moomins in Sweden where we sojourned for a year and then, as an adult, I read them in Russian with my daughter, whose comments and reactions brought back my own feelings and thoughts of long ago.

During my childhood, these books stirred in me the deep longing for the undefined cosmic harmony I had felt in my pre-language years. They reinforced my wildness and opened a window to the landscape of solitude and liberation from closed systems, a freedom I grew to love. Of course, at the time I did not conceptualize my emotions in these terms and probably my language now sheds its own nuances on the original picture. Yet the feeling and the realization or visualization of what it means to be out there was as clear then as it is now. It could be these concepts were palpable due to my childhood experience of having lived with my grandparents in that tiny Russian village, surrounded by forest and rivers, where winter months hid the houses under a thick blanket of snow, cutting us off from the rest of the world just as Moominvalley hid in Moominland Midwinter (1957). Later, at the age of five and half, this knowledge was reinforced by a six-month sojourn in a geological camp with my parents in the savannah of the Darfur region, living in tents under the abysmal African sky, where stars, humans, and beasts comprised one song, one melody containing in it everything: fear, grief, mystery, harmony, peace, knowledge, and the unknowable. My meaning of freedom was defined then and there.

However, I believe the Moomins are capable of opening this window of possibility to any child or adult, even to those who were not exposed to such experiences as mine, because the atmosphere of tranquil beatitude in these books is enough to make this other way of living not only possible but real and tangible. If all else fails, at least they are capable of offering a dream, and where there is a dream, there might be a will to live it. Two Soviet filmmakers, Altaev and Zjablikova, deftly captured this atmosphere in a 1978 puppet animation film based on Comet in Moominland, portraying this dream of the possibility of diving fearlessly into the mystery of chaos.

This mystery is the place of freedom where each of us searches in solitude, a fact accepted by the Moominparents when their child undertakes a dangerous journey to the observatory on a high mountain at a time when the world is threatened by a cosmic invader – a comet. In Jansson’s words: “Every children’s book should have a path in it where the writer stops and the child goes on. A threat or a delight that can never be explained. A face never completely revealed” (in Kivi, 1998). Jansson thus expresses the necessity of mutual respect between parents and children and between readers and authors for both what we believe we know and for the unknown, for community and for the need of solitude in one’s journey through life. Having understood the author, the reader accepts this invitation to enter into an epistemological dialogue, filling in the gaps with one’s own knowledge of the world, a knowledge that comes from personal introspection as well as from daring to move beyond the social barricades of order and out into the wilderness of chaos.

Winnie-ther-Pooh as Other

Having grown up between at least five worlds (the Soviet, the Swedish, the Northern Sudanese, the Western Sudanese, and the colonial British curriculum school run by Vatican clergy), a third element was needed for contrast and, for the purpose of methodological balance, it too had to be something with which I had been familiar as a child and which could present a real alternative to the ontologies in Jansson’s and Nosov’s books. When I was growing up, I often mistook foreign authors, such as Alexandre Dumas, Frank Baum, or Albert Camus, for Russian, but I never thought A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh was Russian. Instead, as a child, I thought he was German. In the communal Russian memory, Germany was still the enemy at the time, even though the war supposedly had ended. As I was going through what foreign book to pick, my advisor said, “Why not Winnie?”, which made perfect sense.

Rereading the original (it has been a while since I discovered it was English) surprised me, because I found the book different from how I remembered it; the definitions that guided me then gave me a different meaning of what Winnie meant to me now in my North American context. This could be due to the fact that the three – now classic – Soviet animation films (1969, 1971, and 1972), although close to the original text, make a small but significant change. They omit Christopher Robin altogether, thereby erasing the hierarchical element of the original book. This more egalitarian version of the Hundred-Acre Wood had thus overwritten the two existing Russian translations of Winnie-the-Pooh into Russian and revealed to me the complex sociological problems in the underlying premises of the text.

About Jansson, Nosov, and Milne

Tove Jansson

Tove Jansson (1914–2001) was born in Helsinki to Swedish-minority artists. At the time, Finland was part of Russia and, throughout the civilized period of European history, it remained in the midst of Swedish and Russian imperial strife. Her childhood alternated between an old sculptor’s studio with a wood stove and a summer house on a solitary island in the Finnish archipelago. European biographers, for instance W. Glyn Jones (1984), place her in a middle-class, bohemian milieu while American biographers highlight the financial poverty of her artistic parents and the lack of space, thereby revealing the values of culture and of symbolic capital on the two continents.

Jansson wrote the first Moomin book, The Little Trolls and the Great Flood, during the war in 1945 but dates the first drawing of a Moomin to her childhood:

In our house hidden away in the Finnish archipelago we used to write things upon the walls. One summer a lengthy discussion developed along the walls. It all started when my brother, Per Olov, jotted down a quasi-philosophical statement and I tried to refute it, and our dispute continued daily. Finally, Per Olov quoted Kant, and the controversy came to an immediate end as this was irrefutable. In annoyance, I drew something that was intended to be extremely ugly, something that resembled a Moomin. So, in a way, Immanuel Kant inspired the first Moomin …

(Fliescher in Jones, 1984: 10).

Although Jansson denied philosophical content in the Moomin books, nonetheless it is relevant that the Moomin character was born in a philosophical debate and, in any event, denial of philosophy in itself constitutes philosophy, even if only to provide comical elements such as found in the nihilist philosopher Muskrat of Moominvalley. The books were published between 1945 and 1970, after which she wrote explicitly for adults. However, Jansson has always defied the borders between intended audiences, since in her children’s books she often explores adult topics such as madness and death, and her adult books often depict children as main characters. Jansson has written nine Moomin novels, a series of picture books, and comics on which she collaborated with her brother, Lars Jansson, leaving the comics to him after 1974.

The first book provides the genesis of Moominvalley. The fluffy Moomins used to dwell behind old stoves and under wooden floors amidst humans but then humans switched to electric stoves, forcing the small Moomintrolls to migrate. The reader is invited into a world governed by mutualistic relationships between species and forms of life and nonlife. We also get a glimpse of commensalistic relationships when Moominpappa takes off with the silent mass-wanderers, the Hattifatteners. The ride was important for Moominpappa but left the Hattifatteners unaffected. Sometime later, Moominmamma ventures on a long journey to find him and also hitches a ride with these mysterious, primordial, silent creatures, born of an electric current and recharged by the storm.

However, this relationship between the Moomin family and the Hattifattners is not the same as what Moominmamma and the kids share with the Marabou bird. For this relationship is marked by an exchange of favours that positively affects both parties, since after the Moomins find the Marabou bird’s glasses, the bird carries them to Moominpappa. The family reunites after surviving such adventures as being chased by a Serpent who dropped into the mud of the marshes after staring at a glowing flower-girl, or getting lost in a strange underworld made of sweets and artificial lighting. This sugary cave is a predecessor of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1968), although, unlike in Dahl’s empire built on colonialism and slavery, where the accumulation of wealth is the desired end, the Moomins renounce the artificial sugary bliss. Moominmamma explains to the Old Gentleman who dwells in that world that this food gives children the stomach runs and the lack of real sun and sky makes them depressed. Hence, they find their way out, and after living through dangerous adventures in the tumultuous sea, a terrifying trip with the Hattifattners (again on commensalistic terms), surviving an encounter with a ferocious ant-lion, a great flood, and finally, crossing different geophysical settings, the Marabou bird carries them away from an African landscape and lands them atop an enormous tree where they find Moominpappa, who had already built their home in the shape of an old wood stove. This house becomes the home of many creatures, for whoever wishes to join the family is welcome.

The remaining books recount various moments in the lives of Moominvalley dwellers. They have no particular plot and explore in surprising ways questions of power and justice, madness and normalcy, presence and absence. As “the series progresses, philosophical and psychological questions ... become increasingly important until, in Moominpappa at Sea and Moominvalley in November, they form the very essence of the work” (Jones, 1984: 4). Jansson’s childhood experiences facing storms in the open sea, living in an old sculptor’s studio with a wood stove, or exploring deserted islands left their mark on the books. In effect, the Moomin house resembles an old wood stove. The Moomintrolls settle down in that home yet continue to travel; they experience togetherness but also solitude and longing; and all of these elements are not only compatible but constitute the essential components of a thriving universe engendering life.

The last two books are particularly interesting. Moominvalley in November (1971) takes up where Moominpappa at Sea (1966) leaves off, namely, the family sails into the open sea and settles on a solitary island. However, even in their absence, their house in Moominvalley remains alive. Creatures move in. They have fears, hopes, relationships. They long for reunion, they think about the family and thus the Moomin family’s absence itself becomes a protagonist. At the end, without notice or technologically facilitated communication, everyone knows when the family decides to return and, without speaking or language, they know what to do.

Toft wasn’t surprised when he saw that the tent had gone. Perhaps Snufkin had understood that Toft was the only one who should meet the family when they got home. … His dream meeting the family again had become so enormous that it made him feel tired. Every time he thought about Moominmamma he got a headache. She had grown so perfect and gentle and consoling that it was unbearable (172). …

Toft walked on through the forest, stooping under the branches, creeping and crawling, and thinking of nothing at all, and became as empty as the crystal ball. This is where Moominmamma had walked when she was tired and cross and disappointed and wanted to be on her own, wandering aimlessly in the endless forest. … Toft saw an entirely new Moominmamma and she seemed natural to him. He suddenly wondered why she had been unhappy and whether there was anything one could do about it. …

The forest began to thin out and huge grey mountains lay in front of him. [When he climbed the mountain], [t]he whole sea spread out in front of him, grey and streaked with even white waves right out to the horizon. Toft turned his face into the wind and sat down to wait (174). …

Just before the sun went down it threw a shaft of light through the clouds, cold and wintry-yellow, making the whole world look very desolate.

And then Toft saw the storm-lantern Moominpappa had hung up at the top of the mast. It threw a gentle, warm light and burnt steadily. The boat was a very long way away. Toft had plenty of time to go down through the forest and along the beach to the jetty, and be just in time to catch the line and tie up the boat”.

(Jansson, 1971: 175)

Nikolai Nosov

Nikolai Nosov (1908–1976) was born in Kiev, graduated from the Moscow Institute of Cinematography in 1932, and mostly worked in educational and scientific documentary filmmaking until 1951, except for the period between 1941 and 1945 when he fought in World War II. He began writing in 1938 (Prokhorov, 1969–1978). Among his varied interests were “music, singing, amateur theatre, writing for the journal X, as well as chemistry, chess, radio, electronics, photography. Nosov sold newspapers, worked in manual labor, in excavation, mowed grass, transported felled-wood, etc.” (Arzamastseva, et al. 1997: 312). The first book in the Dunno trilogy, The Adventures of Dunno and his Friends, appeared in 1953, followed by Dunno in Sunny City in 1958, and, finally, Dunno on the Moon in 1964. Only the first book was translated into English. The American Margaret Wettlin, who immigrated to the Soviet Union for ideological reasons in the 1930s, made a good translation, but unfortunately did not translate the more complex books that followed.

The first book depicts an idyllic, anarchist utopia based on mutual aid and co-operation where there is no need for institutions of law, police, schools, or farming. Conflicts occasionally arise in Flower Town, but the author consistently shows that its residents, the tiny Mites, are capable of effectively resolving their problems themselves, unlike the citizens of the communist Sunny City in the second book, where police interfere with order only to cause havoc. The book on Flower Town focuses on questions of knowledge, its acquisition, gender, medical authority, and incarceration. The protagonist, Dunno, the anti-knowledge character or the one who does not know, constantly challenges Doono, the one who knows and who stands for science. This conflict reveals the problems that scientific authority may pose to an anarchist community. The book opens with the society being segregated across gender lines, which the narrative shows is the result of ignorance and competition. Reconciliation occurs when boy-Mites travel from Flower Town to Greenville Town, reminiscent of La Cité des Dames,[22] where they get to know each other and the boys learn co-operation from the wise girl-Mites. In this respect, the narrative accepts the wild premise of the necessity to know the other through presence and experience and that difference is an artificial separator at the root of conflict and war.

In the second book, a magician rewards Dunno’s compassion towards human and nonhuman animals with a magic wand that can make any wish come true. Dunno wishes to travel. A car materializes from thin air and together with his best friend, a girl-Mite by the name of Buttonette,[23] and a boy-Mite by the name of Smudges Bright, Dunno visits the high-tech communist Sunny City with its futuristic architecture and complex infrastructure that relies on technological agriculture and an inefficient panopticon run by police. However, unlike capitalist societies, the communist utopia, even though not without its problems, does not have politicians or leaders.

The book explores the nature of policed relationships and further problematizes the concept of authority and incarceration. Several chapters are dedicated to exploring good and bad deeds, conscience, empathy, knowledge, and self-governance. Issues of crime, punishment, and policing and the role of doctors and hospitals or police and prisons are questioned throughout the trilogy. There could also be some personal significance in challenging notions of social control, since Nosov’s father had been censored for performing “songs of jail and freedom” (a popular genre of Russian crime folklore), after which he was forced to give up on his calling and spent his life working as a janitor and cashier.

The final book takes Dunno to the moon, where he discovers the horrendous suffering of exploited Mites in conditions of dire capitalism. On the moon, he learns the economic and political problems of a capitalist mass society and gets involved in the struggle for liberation of the proletariat and in restoring the peasants’ rights to own crops. Nosov thus depicts large societies as complex in that they raise many social and economic problems. They necessarily rely on agriculture, which in itself poses problems. In the end, Dunno and friends choose to return to their anarchist, gatherer utopia, and a tear-wrenching scene shows that not only home is best but that without it there is no life. The books offer abundant descriptions of scientific inventions and are written with a great sense of humour that problematizes the solutions, thereby inconspicuously critiquing the Soviet state. Not surprising, interpretations of Dunno abound.[24]

Alan Alexander Milne

Alan Alexander Milne (1882–1956) was of Scottish ancestry, born in Hampstead and raised in London. His father was a schoolmaster. He received his education at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. H.G. Wells was his teacher and mentor (Milne, 1974). From his 24^th birthday until World War I, he published in and was assistant editor at the humour magazine Punch. He fought during the war and upon his return continued to write in various genres: poetry, dramaturgy, stories, and novels. He considered himself an author for adults who wrote for the “child within us” (ibid). Christopher Robin Milne, his son, wrote to their friend, P. G. Wodehouse: “My father did not write the books for children. He didn’t write for any specific market; he knew nothing about marketing. He knew about me, he knew about himself, he knew about the Garrick Club – he was ignorant about anything else. Except, perhaps, about life”.[25]

The first Pooh story was published on December 24, 1925 and broadcast on Christmas Day by Donald Calthrop. It later became the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh. The second book, The House at Pooh Corner, came out in 1928. The imaginary Hundred-Acre Wood has a real-world referent: the author’s house, his son, and his son’s toys. The hierarchy is set right from the start: the main character is a human boy who reigns over a world of toys, whose reality is contingent on the human boy’s agency and will. There is also hierarchy amongst the toys. Winnie-the-Pooh, the bear of small brains, is the boy’s favourite and Owl, the most literate and, therefore, brainy, is the most important. Both act as representatives of Christopher Robin’s order. For instance, when immigrants appear, Pooh first verifies their legal status, namely that Christopher Robin approves of their presence in the Wood. He then conducts a placement interview.

In terms of gender, female characters are absent, with the exception of a later appearance of Kanga, Roo’s mother, and a mention of Christopher Robin’s mother in the dedication that acknowledges her role in inspiring the stories. The Russian translation turned Owl into a woman, but in Milne’s original, Owl, as well as the remaining characters, are all male: Piglet, the tiny pocket friend; Rabbit, the xenophobic aristocrat; Eeyore, the melancholic donkey; and Tigger, the newly arrived immigrant who moves in with Kanga and Roo to form a one-house-ghetto.

The liveliest aspect of the book is Milne’s play with language and unexpected associations. For instance, Christopher Robin’s mock-scientific expedition heads north to discover the North Pole, finds a pole, sticks it in the ground, and then celebrates the discovery with a naming ceremony: “North Pole”. However, Milne does not use language to reveal its absurdity, arbitrariness, or unreliability like Lewis Carroll does with Alice. Rather, he explores its un-logic through the lens of childhood, that not fully domesticated stage of life imbued with revolutionary potential due to the child’s uncrystallized relationship to social norms. Unlike the Moomin books where there is no need for a socially organized revolution since revolution already constitutes an integral part of chaos, and unlike Dunno’s adventures where members of an anarcho-primitivist society bring a revolution that liberates the exploited citizens of capitalist Moon, and, in spite of its potential, the underlying premises of Pooh’s narrative yield a sterile world that remains static, locked in the oppressive concept of civilized permanence, lack of movement, and ultimately lack of life. For the Hundred-Acre Wood ceases to exist after the real boy leaves for boarding school. This is the end: “Chapter X. In which Christopher Robin and Pooh come to an enchanted place, and we leave them there”; the sentence conveys a sense of doom and hopelessness as the characters know the end is imminent:

Christopher Robin was going away. Nobody knew why he was going; nobody knew where he was going; indeed, nobody even knew why he knew that Christopher Robin was going away. But somehow or other everybody in the Forest felt that it was happening at last. Even Smallest-of-all … told himself that Things were going to be Different; and Late and Early, two other friends-and-relations, said, “Well, Early?” and “Well, Late?” to each other in such a hopeless sort of way that it really didn’t seem any good waiting for the answer.

(Milne, 1992 [1956]: 162)

A Note on Illustrations

Tove Jansson illustrated her own books, starting with the first Moomin drawing in response to a philosophical debate with her brother. She was an illustrator and painter before turning to writing and had illustrated her own novels in black and white as well as in colour. Later, she collaborated with her other brother, Lars, in developing the strip comics for the Moomintrolls. Her life companion, the Finnish illustrator and painter Tuulikki Pietilä, also illustrated some of the Moomin books and, together with Jansson, made Moomin puppets. In this respect, the Moomin drawings are themselves an integral part of the text.

Nosov and Milne’s books are also illustrated albeit by different artists, some working in colour, others with ink. This is significant, since in Jansson’s case, illustrations come as hints and nuances that support the text whereas in the case of Nosov and Milne, the illustrations are readers’ interpretations. All three authors have been adapted to animation, theatre, and other cultural media.

I Read, Therefore I Am: A Sociological Perspective

Usually stories are part of a larger narrative. Narratives are complex sets of stories and as discussed earlier, so vividly illustrated by Devī Durgā in Darśan (Eck, 1985), their intention is to domesticate chaos. They claim to know what things came first, what followed, what we should be, how we should live, and where we should end. They contain in them stories of creation, morals of success, warning tales of punishment, death, and coveted rewards. Sometimes they admonish with cautionary tales of where not to stray with our desires and dreams; other times, they offer imaginary scenarios of alternative possibilities, cosmic trajectories, and the promise of rebellion to regain wildness.

Unni Wikan and Cheryl Mattingly (in Mattingly and Garro, 2000) challenge the idea that narratives offer a coherent, chronological, or even logical order to experience. They build a strong case; however, they do not distinguish between civilized and non-civilized narratives and do not specify the narrative level regarding the larger framework within which the various narratives are inscribed and which steers the contradictions to fit a specific vision. In Lyotard’s terms, these narratives constitute the metadiscourse and the metanarrative that are ultimately informed by, what Bourdieu refers to as, doxa, habitus, and ideology.

Wikan argues that because in her native Norwegian (as well as in Arabic, among other languages) there is only one word for “story” or “storytelling”, it is difficult for her to grasp the nuances and the differences between “narrative” and “story” or “narration” and “storytelling”.

In my own native Russian, however, there are differences between история, рассказ, рассказывание, повесть, повествование, излагать, поведать.[26] История (istorija) means “story”, both, as in “a story” and “history” as well as “event”. This is similar to the French “histoire”, which can be “une histoire” (a story) or “l’histoire” (history). “Istorija” thus contains hints at something that could have truly happened. Рассказ (rasskaz) means story, which can be fiction or a personal testimony of an event. Even though рассказ and история are synonymous, there are situations when one cannot replace the other; for example “вот какая история [istorija] приключилась со мной” (voilà, the “adventure” or “story” that has befallen me), but it would be wrong to use the synonym рассказ (rasskaz) or story in this context.

Рассказывание (rasskazyvanije) means to tell something that really happened or to recount a fictive tale. Повесть (povest’) is a novel, a long story, or a narrative, since it assumes a complexity of stories and time frames. Повествование (povestvovanije) is to narrate a complexity of ideas or stories that has a ring of orally transmitted truth but can also be used in narrating legends and fiction (in subsequent parts of my work, I challenge the civilized distinctions between fiction and reality). Излагать (izlagat’) means to recount through attentive description, stating and listing meticulously the various points of one’s argument in the story or narrative. This grammatical form of the verb has no time structure or limitations since it conveys a ceaseless recurrence, even an eternity, whereas изложить (izlozhit’) is the finite form of the verb: give all the details and facts and make one’s case once and for all. Finally, there is another word, поведать (povedat’), which means to impart or reveal one’s story or secret.

English words for tell also carry specific, English connotations. For example, to relate something means “to tell” but the word shares the root with relate to or connect with and make one a relative of sorts. Relay carries the connotations of convey and exchange, and narrate has a more complex and formal ring to it, while recount shares its root with account and resonates with the Russian izlagat’.

Even Swedish, in spite of the fact that it lacks the range of vocabulary for telling that Russian has, nevertheless has two words: historia for “story” and berättelse, which can be used for “narrative” or “discourse” and for narration, or narrat for “narratee”. The same applies to the two terms for tell and narrate: förtälja and berätta; the latter is more common and has a nuance of sharing, which the Russian peredavat’ carries, as well as to tell, to relate, and to narrate. Then there is relatera, which means relate or recount, and återberätta, which means to retell and transmits a sense of quotative evidentiality that is an obligatory marker in Turkish and in indigenous languages around the world. When a language imposes quotative evidentials, the speaker is obliged to pick specific words to signal the level of reliability of the information relayed, such as whether an account was retold and not witnessed personally or whether it was based on first-hand experience through the teller’s senses.[27] The closest to this in Russian is пересказывать (pereskazyvat’), meaning to retell, but it is not an obligatory choice, since other synonyms can be used without specifying presence. Finally, Swedish adopted the same French word as did Russian, and whose English equivalent shares the root with history in other Indo-European languages: historia or English story or Russian история (istorija).

Wikan’s discomfort with the word narrative, which to her sounds “foreign” and elitist, is another reminder of the link between language and experience; the ways in which we communicate affect our experience. As her essay shows, it even affects our bodies and space. She insists she does not easily see the use for the term narrative and in her research, therefore, focuses on stories, stories of illness, relationships, and language (Wikan in Mattingly & Garro, 2000). Evidently, language provides metaphors and associations that taint the perspectives on experience and reality. Still, linguistic determinism does not fully explain our domestication. Sometimes, we may be able to see and desire certain things but feel coerced, through social expectations, punishments, and rewards, to comply with the defining power of language and narrative structures.

Unlike Wikan, my consciousness was formed in Russian with its wide spectrum of ways to tell and narrate. I am hence sensitive to the differences that story and narrative convey. However, in themselves, these differences and nuances are not the decisive factors of knowing, because, when one reads Tove Jansson’s Moomintrolls in Swedish, one gets overwhelmed with the expanses of freedom and wilderness, where language is played and tampered with, burnt along with the interdiction signs that form the grammar of the Hemulens’ world view, and used to communicate and transmit personal and communal healing in Moominpappa’s Memoirs (1994), and nurture life. In Jansson’s case, narrative loses its chronological structure and becomes a series of moments caught – like the tune Snufkin chases, captures, loses, then captures again – for sharing communally in a chaotic and always new and unpredictable way. The characters do not evolve but are themselves full of chaos, and their experience is always diverse, just as the world they inhabit. In this light, a story that arises in civilization and in language can still challenge the civilized narrative because its ontological perspectives drive the desire for rewilding and, perhaps, can help us find our way back to wilderness or, to borrow John Zerzan’s (1994) phrase, lead us into our “Future Primitive”.

In recent years, palaeoanthropological, theoretical, and anthropological researchers (Jameson [2002], Mattingly and Garro [2000], Landau [1991], Lewin [2005], Martin [1987], or Vladimir Propp, inter alios) have acknowledged that stories, whether transmitted through oral or literate traditions, are not neutral. Therefore, they turned their attention to narrative structures, plot, and literary theory: narratives in medical anthropology, narratives of law, narratives of childhood, narratives of scientific interpretation of “real” phenomena, and so forth.

As discussed earlier, Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and doxa explain how narratives proliferate through time, body, and space and consolidate traditions. Oral tradition is by nature an interactive process of communication that entails exchange in knowledge. It would not be a tradition if each individual were to have an oral interaction with herself. That would be introspection. In this respect, the act of reading is similar to hearing a story since the space of reception becomes the locus of contested desires, interests, and meaning. This relationship between the reader and author/text or interlocutors conflates the dimensions of time and space, where the act and process of communicating, which we conceive as occurring through time, also form an integral component of the space of the mental and emotional as well as of past and future negotiations.

On one level, then, literature, both oral and written, opens a door to the interaction of personal and social spheres and a negotiation of personal and institutional interests since authors imbue their texts with the personal as well as with their social habitus, doxa, and knowledge or ideology. The reader tries to understand, but in turn relies on the schemata received from her own habitus and doxa. Moreover, as discussed earlier, literacy itself is problematic as it owes its genesis to language and domestication and, according to Jack Goody (1963, 1968, and 1977) and Walter Ong (1982 and 1986), is the logical development of the technology of domination. Since literacy is a corollary of civilization, it necessarily implicates relations of power that are intentionally engineered and are proliferated through unintentional mechanisms such as language and narratives. Acknowledging the problem of language and literacy raises critical issues regarding the nature and the purpose of literature and the ramifications for social relationships and communication.

Language as Grammar of Ordered Reality

Today, it is difficult to imagine a world without language or texts. However, rarely do we ponder the problem of the existence of this semiotic system and the problematic ways in which it organizes and prescribes rules for denoting and knowing. Even pictures and illustrations in children’s books require and train fluency in semiotics; they constitute a language that collaborates with the narratives. Language provides the grammatical formulae to contain meaning and predict interactions, thereby curbing improvisation to prevent the unforeseeable. Language is the civilized challenge to chaos. Its grammar imposes uniformity on assigned meanings and concepts and thus controls understanding and limits interactions. John Zerzan notes that, in Latin, the word “define” originally meant “to limit or bring to an end. Language seems often to close an experience, not to help ourselves be open to experience. When we dream, what happens is not expressed in words, just as those in love communicate most deeply without verbal symbolizing” (Zerzan, 2002: 2).

Definition, limitation, order, and domestication are hence inscribed in the very nature and purpose of language. This explains why language has not always evoked the optimistic cheer that the civilized, such as Eli Sagan, have expressed:

Eli Sagan (1985) spoke for countless others in declaring that the need to symbolize and live in a symbolic world is, like aggression, a human need so basic that “it can be denied only at the cost of severe psychic disorder.” The need for symbols – and violence – did not always obtain, however. Rather, they have their origins in the thwarting and fragmenting of an earlier wholeness, in the process of domestication from which civilization issued. Apparently driven forward by a gradually quickening growth in the division of labour that began to take hold in the Upper Paleolithic, culture emerged as time, language, art, number, and then agriculture (ibid: 3).

By defining and ordering social and personal space as well as the experiences molded to fit the civilized self, language is an effective mechanism for encoding the semantics and grammar of domestication, incorporating these dispositions into our flesh. The birth of language was a mutation that allowed human animals to systematize injustice and suffering and, through ritual and repetition, integrate material and symbolic cultures into our very being.

The more stratified a society becomes, the more complex are its semiotic systems and the more convoluted its narratives. Observing the complexity of lines and details in Caduveo paintings, Frederic Jameson (2002) and Claude Lévi-Strauss (1963) conclude that complex patterns in art and narrative are characteristic of stratified societies because they are not capable of resolving the tensions and contradictions that arise from inequality and subjugation. Injustice, violence, and convoluted art are thus inscribed in the very grammar of civilization.

As Zerzan explains in his 1994 and 1997 essays on the social construction of time and language in Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization, language is intricately connected to violence, alienation, and meaninglessness:

Symbolizing is linear, successive, substitutive; it cannot be open to its whole object simultaneously. Its instrumental reason is just that: manipulative and seeking dominance. Its approach is “let a stand for b” instead of “let a be b.” Language has its basis in the effort to conceptualize and equalize the unequal, thus bypassing the essence and diversity of a varied, variable richness.

(Zerzan, 2002: 2)

In contrast to Jack Goody and Ian Watt’s (1963) proposition that literacy and alphabetization were responsible for developing the human brain and making it capable of abstraction, Zerzan identifies the very invention of language as the cause of our rupture from the world, for language has provided the means to substitute the symbol for the real, denoting it in flat dimensions and experiencing it as a linear and organized order, thereby homogenizing diversity and simplifying the complexities by overlapping symbols.

This raises several existential questions. Are we then doomed? Or, can a different ontological premise, transmitted through language, circumvent the violence of symbolic systems? Can literature, such as a Moomin book, transmit love, life, and peace if it is based on the ontological premise of wildness, movement, and chaos even when the transmission occurs through language – moreover, through written language?

Research in cognitive linguistics and poetics supports Zerzan’s critique of the domesticating and constraining nature of language. For instance, in Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (2003) examine this nexus between understanding, experience, and observation from a deterministic perspective on metaphors in science. Their analysis shows how metaphors and turns of speech influence our perceptions, interpretations, and feelings about our observations and ultimately how language shapes values and “facts” and thereby solidifies itself by determining our experience.

Other deterministic studies in sociolinguistics explore the role of language in social injustice and stratification. For example, the works of William Labov (1972) on Black English, Lesley Milroy (1987) on language, stratification, and social networking, Deborah Cameron (1995 and 2009) on language, gender, and class, among others, demonstrate how accents, terms, and body hexis can be used to keep wealth out of reach for certain groups based on ethnicity, gender, or other discriminatory markers that are connected with linguistic expression, essentialism, and socio-economic status. Others have elaborated on the relationship between language and class, and by extension on language and disempowerment. Basil Bernstein (1971), Karen Foss and Stephen Littlejohn (2010), James Atherton (2011), inter alios, offer invaluable insights into the mechanisms behind in-group participation and out-group discrimination. However, while these theories offer important contributions regarding the use of language for the purposes of discrimination, domination, and ostracizing from economic networks, they do not question the genesis and nature of language. Their premises continue to take for granted its existence, mostly viewing language as a means of communication and a potential for progress, presumably an improvement over the dark, animal, alinguistic ignorance that leads to the elevated, even if incomprehensible for most, language of abstract poetry and artistic representation. Language, however, is neither a natural nor an evolutionary characteristic of human animals since other species also devise grammatical systems for signifiers and for the transmission of semantic information, for example dolphins, primates, prairie dogs, insects, ad infinitum. Nonetheless, the humanist perspective dominates.

Noam Chomsky (1957 and 1972), for instance, argues that human children’s brains are exclusively hardwired to learn language by a certain age – an ability that appears to be lost (atrophied) after puberty but is not related to intelligence. Psycholinguistic research on feral and deaf children appears to confirm this observation. However, researchers studying the cases of feral children have focused on grammar and syntax rather than on the ontological premises in the notions conveyed by language.

Now considered a classic study in language acquisition and childhood, Genie’s extreme case of incarceration and abuse reveals the mechanisms of domestication and its desertified landscape of loneliness. Genie grew up in complete isolation, strapped to a chair in a room. Neither her parents nor siblings (who received normal treatment) communicated with her except for her father, who growled at her to show his anger when he brought her food. Social workers discovered Genie in November 1970 at the age of almost thirteen and placed her in the care of psychologists who turned her into dissertation material, observing her learning speech and adaptation to life in society. Genie eventually learned how to communicate but had difficulty with standard grammar and concepts of politeness such as “hello” and “thank you” (Rymer, 1993).

The concept “thank you”, however, is not a neutral matter of semantics or polite socialization. It stems from the ontological premise that people have been created as self-centred, selfish, and cruel, that what they snatch from the world becomes their property and right, and that they do not have to share or be kind to others. Therefore, when they decide to show concern for someone else, for instance, in a greeting such as, “Good morning, how are you?”, in a civilized context, the response should acknowledge the fact of asking and not answer the question, because the inquirer does not care about how the other really feels. It would, therefore, be inappropriate to describe one’s real state of mind, heart, or life because the answer should signal appreciation for asking and not respond to the meaning of the question. Hence, a “Very well, thank you, and how are you?” is then also met with a “Very well, thank you; what a lovely day”, even if the day is dark and the person is hungry and has no means to procure food.

Alice Parman observes that the “thank you” issue and praise for food were the first aspects of her upbringing in the United States that stood in stark contrast to the interactions she witnessed in the home of her Indian hosts in a place in India where she had not seen a foreigner for kilometres (Parman, 2009). “Thank you for the meal, it is very good” is the American way of expressing that everything is appreciated and comme il faut, she says. “Why, the food wasn’t good last time?” the hosts asked half-jokingly. Family members, Parman observes, are expected to share and help each other. They do not need to say thank you because they will share and help out when need arises. Similar observations on thanking someone for food have been made in other non-domesticated societies. For example, a Danish traveller, Peter Freuchen, who married an Inuit woman and lived in her community in Greenland, observes that the Inuit see mutual aid and reciprocity as the nature of human relations, and as members of that community explained to him, one does not thank for what constitutes the foundation of community (Freuchen, 1961).

There are good arguments for both the “thank you” and the “thankless” way of relating to one’s community, so it is difficult to say definitively which might be the more optimal modality for expressing communal relationships while concurrently respecting personal space and effort, which the “thank you” acknowledges. At the same time, in wilderness, food is freely available for taking. No one owns it and everyone has a right to it without having to thank anyone. Living beings can share it, express mutualistic relationships through it, but not control it. Returning to Genie, however, having been abused as a child and having known only selfish cruelty – even after having been rescued only to be used as an object of study and further domestication – she knew these ontological subtleties through her habitus and body hexis. Most tragically, her extreme domestication through abuse left her with neither wilderness nor civilization and, therefore, an inability to accept the type of relations articulated through symbolic and abstract sounds that reconfirm, through a ritual exchange of politeness, that acts of kindness are the exception while acts of cruelty, exploitation, incarceration, and abuse constitute the norm. These premises of domestication and the time limitations for learning them reveal that, even though civilized human animals have incorporated language and domestication into their physiology, these remain conditional aspects contingent on the extent to which we are able to resist interiorizing civilization, abstraction, and language.

Chomsky’s observation that human animals lose the ability to learn language by a certain age thus makes sense if we define this as a loss of the ability to develop alienation through symbolic thought. There is, perhaps, a stage by which a human or other animal person grows into the world as a wild being and becomes less prone to domestication, with its promise of deferred gratification that constitutes the basis of contemporary symbolic salary-culture in which symbols are given in exchange for extorted labour. Education achieves the same with grades, which promise future good jobs and good living in exchange for complying with the board of education agenda. And since schooling and literacy are compulsory, children are left no choice but to submit to domestication.

Literacy as a Tool of Domestication

Narratives order events into a plot, which entails a specific direction and chronological order. Thus, a civilized narrative always has an agenda and constricts movement, associations, imagination, and logic. It achieves uniformity by imposing one dominant version to speak with authority on behalf of specific interests and inscribes all other, including conflicting, interests into that official chrono/logical and necessarily anthropocentric narrative.

As civilized cultural producers and consumers, we are held hostage to our anthropocentric narcissism. We, therefore, depict the world as simply existing to feed and indulge us. This self-obsession is rooted in degradation and lack that impels us to dream of unattainable bliss. Within the context of civilization, however, no matter how uncurbed and wild, our imagination still derives its life force and form (language) from experience within pre-set, previously accumulated categories of knowledge and perspectives. Science fiction and fantasy, the most fictional and imaginary of literary genres, whether written for old or young adults, reveal that civilized literature is for the most part a narcissistic endeavour always concerned with the human, the nature of the human, the interests of the human, the nature of human relationships with themselves and with the world, et al.

This obsession with humanism defines credibility for works of fiction. If humans cannot relate to a depicted world, it is deemed nonsensical or utopian, and utopia usually implies something improbable, incredible, and alien. Regardless of the author’s intent, books offer specific sets of rules that, in the case of imaginary worlds, can convince the reader to believe in that world and identify with its characters. Credibility, rules, and representation – even in the case of the fantastic – thus depend on the knowledge about the real world that the author and the reader hold, interact with, or challenge.

The concept of credibility is an issue of trust and belief. It is also an issue of agency, voice, and power, which preclude real communication. In wilderness, every human and nonhuman person knows her experience. Here, if I wanted to know someone, I would have to listen and trust her knowledge is authentic. In civilization, we trust authority to tell to us through symbolic representation what is. Between the written and the oral, authorship and authority are intricately linked to literacy and domination with written texts given weight, voice, and legitimacy which are denied to oral traditions and speakers. This renders authored, written, and published sources of information credible and the unpublished sources not; a published author here is seen as authority but an unpublished author is not; elite knowledge is credible because the elite have access to the process of production of texts and publishing as well as to the final products, while popular knowledge is not. The knowledge that the literate classes sanction and produce about the popular classes and the world constitutes the voice of authority that silences and objectifies the studied resources, who are then schooled to internalize this doxa and the ideology that tells them who they supposedly are. This intersection between literacy, social and political domination of minds and bodies, and the emergence of the capitalist mode of inventing the human has been pointed out in various historical, anthropological, and linguistic studies.

In The Domestication of the Savage Mind (1977) and The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society (1986), Jack Goody observes that it is the financial and administrative lists that predominate in the written records surviving from ancient times – not literary texts, which means that the initial intent of literacy was to establish relationships of dependence. In oral societies, Goody says, individuals memorize their personal, political, and economic transactions in a context of social relationships, “perhaps with the aid of witnesses, where the transfer establishes a specific relationship of credit or debt rather than a generalized one of dependence” (Goody, 1986:104). In contrast to oral societies, writing allows the owner to capture these socio-economic relationships and externalize them by fixing them in a document or text that can then be saved and possessed and used to remind and dominate. The lists that Goody cites deal specifically with the administration of financial debts, prices, yield, etc. and have emerged in hierarchical societies where the majority was managed to produce for the profit of the owners (at various epochs, owners went by different names: lords, merchants, aristocracy, courtly administrators, etc.).

While it is difficult to establish whether literacy caused the mutation in the human brain, shifting the mode from wildness to domestication, or whether literacy came in response to the shift, Goody refers to writing as the “technology of the intellect”, responsible for the crystallization of civilization in its current form. This technology of the intellect, Goody explains, differentiates literate cultures from oral, but he does not see the hierarchical and alienating potential of technology as necessarily threatening. As his frequent collaborator, Walter Ong, says, “[w]riting heightens consciousness. Alienation from a natural milieu can be good for us and indeed is in many ways essential for human life. To live and to understand fully, we need not only proximity but also distance. This writing provides for consciousness as nothing else does” (Ong, 1982: 81).

Goody and Ong assume the civilized perspective; they acknowledge the importance of alienation for civilized knowledge precisely because alienation entails othering and unknowing the other as knower. Alienation is violence because othering inflicts pain on those from whose experience the domesticator chooses to distance himself and to silence its expression by representing it. Pain that would have resonated sharp and loud through empathy becomes blunt and even disappears from the domesticator’s intellectual radar because it can now be (re)presented as something else – joy for instance. This alienated unknowledge is imposed as the legitimate discourse on experience instead of the knowledge acquired by tuning in to the experience itself.

The price of this alienation is change in the very constitution of civilized beings. As the civilized began to alienate themselves from themselves and their world, they began to undergo physiological, ontological, and epistemological mutation that was aided by language (Chomsky’s biological model) and literacy (Goody and Ong), thereby inducing physiological changes in the brain, which is both a vital organ of agency and a space for doxa and habitus. As topos, this organ drives humans to interact with and act upon their environment in specific ways. Therefore, in more than an abstract or symbolic way, we express our domestication through our flesh and, in this light, Goody and Ong’s research confirms Bourdieu’s processes of the embodiment of elite perspectives, knowledge, and values. Accordingly, literacy became the DNA of oppressive and concurrently oppressed brains, which effectuated a significant shift in the nature of intelligence itself, causing serious deterioration in understanding, intellect, knowledge, and relationships.

Most scholars see these changes either as inevitable or even, like Ong, as positive. In Imagined Communities, the historian Benedict Anderson (1992), for instance, argues that in post-industrial societies, literacy played a central role in making knowledge – which constitutes symbolic currency – standard and accessible to the “public”, even though, as he acknowledges, its traditions were intentionally manipulated and invented (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). The technologies of literacy have thus altered human physiology, for writing inscribed domesticated relationships and alienation into the brain while print culture imagined and imposed on us a schizophrenic consciousness rooted in an alien narrative ruptured from feelings and reality.

Unlike Goody and Ong, however, some theoreticians of literacy and capitalism consider these changes in knowledge and humanity problematic. In The Postmodern Condition, for instance, Jean-François Lyotard (1984) maintains the “grand narratives of legitimation” have lost their credibility and power of authority. He assumes that prior to postmodernism, stories about the history of humanity – such as the story of progress from the Age of Enlightenment, Hegel’s dialectic of Spirit, or Marx’s utopia of the impeding crumbling of capitalist autocracy and the dissolution of the state – had provided a convincing narrative that legitimated these stories, but since postmodernism has splintered stories, narratives, non-narratives, ahistoric epistemologies, and moral theories, people lost faith in the ability of the metadiscourse to contain the narratives and hence to provide the meta level necessary for their legitimation. Having lost its power, knowledge has become a commodity that can be easily bought or sold thus altering the nature of knowledge itself. Most important, knowledge is no longer based on facts; rather it is a product of social relations (Lyotard, 1984). In the context of civilization, these relations are based on closed group networking, hierarchy, and limitations.

Like Goody and Ong, Lyotard identifies the importance of (meta)narratives in the development of civilized hegemony. However, by characterizing the modernist, narrative, metannarative, and the metadiscursive as ineffective technologies of legitimation of knowledge and power, he conceives the possibility of rescuing the postmodern project by incorporating the splintered stories into practice. Practitioners can thus legitimate their practice within a “justice of multiplicities” (Lyotard, 1984). This concept can also allow oral traditions and non-civilized narratives to legitimate themselves through praxis as well. In this respect, Lyotard reopens the door for a possibility of liberation from the domesticating technologies of literacy, something Nosov envisions in his ideal Flower Town.

However, Lyotard’s analysis suffers from an important oversight, for even though he acknowledges the evolution of systems of relations of knowledge(s), nonetheless, like Ong and Goody, he does not acknowledge the violent effects of this evolution on life and experience or the anthropogenic devastation on earth. Fraser and Nicholoson point to another important omission in Lyotard’s theory regarding stratification:

A major problem with Lyotard’s “justice of multiplicities conception” [is that it] precludes one familiar, and arguably essential, genre of political theory: identification and critique of macrostructures of inequality and injustice that cut across the boundaries separating relatively discrete practices and institutions. There is no place in Lyotard’s universe for critique of pervasive axes of stratification, for critique of broad-based relations of dominance and subordination along lines like gender, race, and class.

(Fraser and Nicholson, 1989: 88)

Fraser and Nicholson’s own oversight, however, is as serious, since in their discussion of relations of dominance they include only the human species and hence, like Lyotard, leave intact the metanarrative of domestication, dominance, and subordination. In this way, both Lyotard and his critics actually salvage the legitimacy of (meta)narratives as abstracted from individual experience of pain that is inflicted by the meta-narrative of civilization and the technologies of modification of biology.

Approaching the problems of literacy and technologies of texts and knowledge from a different perspective, Michel Foucault (1970), Jacques Derrida (1978 and 1997), Roland Barthes (1989), among others, contest the technocratic views of literacy. Their discourse echoes the Marxist approach adopted by Bourdieu in that it views consciousness and knowledge as historically contingent upon the (civilized) narratives that correspond to economic, political, and technological conditions. In this regard, they do not question the oral/literate dichotomy per se as much as they shift the focus from the linear, closed space of print literacy to the non-linear, open-ended space of digital literacy.

For Bourdieu (1979), symbolic value is independent of truth value, which makes it possible to concoct knowledge and cultural representation whose mere prestige and high price render it credible, regardless of whether the information it purports to present is true. Limiting access to these objects of symbolic capital increases their value and the desire to possess them. The narrative of legitimation ensures that redistribution of power and symbolic capital never happens. This is why popularization of elitist knowledge does not confront inequality. On the contrary, as Bourdieu illustrates with popular and elitist art and literature, popularization decreases an article’s symbolic and material worth and the elite immediately come up with another mystical artifact to stand as a symbol of currency that remains inaccessible for the masses. Devaluation of academic degrees is another example of this process of inflation. The higher the rank, the more exclusive is the knowledge and the more scarce the degree, the more authority it earns its holder. However, as more and more people strive to advance their chances of climbing the social ladder, the less valuable these degrees become. Today, two postdocs are the equivalent of a B.A. or a Masters degree half a century ago. This inflation of certification that the institutions of knowledge sell at constantly increasing prices reveals another mechanism of ostracism, since the elimination process ultimately sieves out more people than it retains by requiring them to know the exclusive elitist cultural symbols that ultimately allow them to compete (and mostly lose) in the hierarchical system of exploitation. In this vein, making literacy available to the masses does not improve their lot. According to Bourdieu, this only devalues the currency of the symbolic capital.

Still, many, particularly leftist, thinkers such as Noam Chomsky (in Achbar and Wintonick, 1992) continue to view literacy as conducive to egalitarian redistribution of capital that can make elitist knowledge publicly accessible information. They agree that making elitist culture available to the masses ultimately devalues its symbolic and material price. However, in contrast to Bourdieu, who saw doxa – that self-evident knowledge determined by the dominant class – as a mechanism that prevents redistribution and liberation from oppressive values, the leftist proponents of literacy perceive this devaluation as disarmament of elitist power.

According to Andrew O’Malley (2003) and Gillian Avery (1975), children’s literature in England adopted this tactic to integrate classes. Their research shows, however, that the elites have always managed to regroup and salvage their new symbolic and literary capital, keeping stratification intact. For instance, earlier children’s books targeted audiences from specific socio-economic classes and ascribed different values to the characters based on their social class. Thus, the rich were praised for their sneakiness, exploitation, control, ownership, spontaneity, and a sense of personal freedom while the poor were depicted as striving to be dependable, hard-working, self-sacrificing, and content with the little joys of their poor lives. In the 20^th century children’s books have become accessible across class lines and often, O’Malley and Avery observe, the same books are targeted at multiple audiences. Nonetheless, even though the narrative allows mixing characters, their characteristics and class markers remain segregated and what is considered as positive qualities for a wealthy character are depicted as negative and even dangerous for the working class of human resources.

There are several other problems with the idea of liberation via literacy and technology. First, there is a paradox in this expectation since civilized knowledge is legitimated by its own narrative of domination and alienation. The doxa ensures this remains so. Second, there is the question of material production and labour. For, if everyone becomes free, then who will mine? Who will design? Who will work in the plastic factories? Who will assemble computers? Who will make clothes, cook, and clean? And, if all goes well, who will produce the texts and the information? How and why would they do any of it, and why would anyone be interested in it? Literacy and technology are thus products of domination as much as they are its vehicle. This critique of technology and the exploitation it demands has been raised by various authors, including in children’s literature, particularly by Nosov and Jansson.

Third, in the context of capitalism where land, resources, food, space, and time are expropriated, resistance entails tremendous sacrifices and demands immense effort that most people simply cannot afford, since the majority of global population is preoccupied with day-to-day survival. Hence, even when reappropriation of symbolic culture occurs – such as during the French, Russian, Chinese, African revolutions – the very possibility of enjoying “culture” requires time. Here, the social roles themselves become part of the mechanism that keeps the hierarchical status quo of knowledge and symbolic culture intact. These abstract entities that have concrete capitalist value are in the possession of a small group of people while the majority of the dispossessed, apart from surviving, is preoccupied with caring for the needs of the owners of time, symbolic capital, human and nonhuman resources, and material wealth. The dispossessed attend to the owners’ needs for cleaning, child-rearing, feeding, entertaining, building, servicing the elites’ leisure, doing their work for them, accumulating their wealth for them, and (ac)counting that wealth, ad infinitum. Thus, time itself becomes the locus of the civilized narrative as well as an object of possession and a tool of domination. Bourdieu explains this relationship between legitimation, oppression, time, indulgence, and possession in these words:

Legitimate manners owe their value to the fact that they manifest the rarest conditions of acquisition, that is, a social power over time which is tacitly recognized as the supreme excellence: to possess things from the past, i.e. accumulated, crystallized history, aristocratic names and titles, chateaux or “stately homes”, paintings and collections, vintage wines and antique furniture, is to master time, through all those things whose common feature is that they can only be acquired in the course of time, by means of time, against time, that is, by inheritance or through dispositions which, like the taste for old things, are likewise only acquired with time and applied by those who can take their time.

(Bourdieu, 1979: 71)

Having spent their time on those who have appropriated time,[28] the dispossessed are mostly unable to enjoy the democratization of the public or Internet space or other popularized aspects of the formerly elite culture because they continue not to have the time but also because, due their mass-cultural status, these cultural items lose their currency and legitimacy. For to be able to enjoy the valued and legitimated books, photocopies, computers, printers, intellectual resources, films, museums, art galleries, transportation, social networking, and the general conditions that induce reflection and concentration, people need time, health, space, a satisfied stomach, and more. All of these material and symbolic aspects of living in a world colonized by civilization affect both the amount and the quality of time a person has to reflect, acquire, synthesize, and produce knowledge, and all of these factors determine the nature and quality of work a person yields. Moreover, since the narrative of legitimation dismisses the insights of the dispossessed “resources” as illegitimate and bearing no value for civilized knowledge, then the endeavour becomes wasted and silenced. This wasting and silencing constitute an intimate part of economic devaluation and civilized violence.

Therefore, Foucault’s and Derrida’s optimism regarding the possibility of using textual technologies, such as the Internet, to disseminate ideas and information is valid in as much as the anarchical dissemination of knowledge devalues and thus undermines the currency of oppression. However, it remains ineffective if the fundamental perspective of civilization remains unchallenged, because ultimately the living “resources” cannot undo the structural limitation of class access to non-living resources and legitimate their value and use. Most important, they cannot benefit from symbolic capital if they themselves constitute an important portion of capital and are themselves someone’s “resources”. If the desire to achieve social justice is sincere, then all beings, human and other animals, must first be freed from the categories of civilized knowledge that confine them to epistemological cages and define them as resources. Liberation is possible only through the revolution of basic precepts, where the underlying premises of civilization have to be guillotined in the name of wilderness.

Narrative thus constitutes the nexus for the proliferation of knowledge as hegemony, legitimation of power, and oppression, with literacy playing a critical role in cementing the hierarchical structure of oppressive relationships within the physiology of living beings. To this extent, the act of narrating per se, and the larger discourse into which our propensity for improvisation inscribes it, allows for both the method and its technology to become the content. The method becomes knowledge since it is the routine, and the way in which a person learns, including the emotional and environmental contexts, that becomes inscribed as habitus in the flesh. The method – not the form or even the content – of communicating this knowledge, which is at once knowledge and method, comes as a response to the type of knowledge being communicated. If it is about life, then it inscribes itself into the memory of each living member of the tradition. If, however, it places material commitment in the foreground, then, as paradoxical as it may appear, the method’s end is not to inscribe the content as an integral part of memory, but to produce the fixed lists of accounting, debt, and dependence that ultimately cause amnesia, devour, and kill.

But literacy by itself is not the source of domestication, for it needs a preexistent premise and narrative to set the mechanism in motion. A civilized narrative in an oral tradition can be equally domesticating and by method of repetition can incorporate its meaning into the habitus and body hexis. A linear, hierarchical poem, legend, or psalm can do the job even when not written. Theoreticians generally agree on the distinctions between oral and literate technologies of transmission of ideology, habitus, and doxa and the role literacy plays both in framing the discourse of permanence, death, and stratification and in fuelling the mechanism of this perpetual machine. This is not to say that oral traditions cannot transmit a civilized epistemology. They can, and when they do, they set in motion the mechanism that fixes the plot that normalizes individual and social bodies within civilized logic. Wild epistemologies do not need a plot and, therefore, do not care for a technology to standardize and embody the chrono/logical narrative with its sense of time and direction.

Lawrence Kirmayer’s discussion on the role of poetics in medical narrative as a lever in negotiating the social constructs of mental health shows how poetry can contest the civilized plot. According to him, oral and poetic practice is critical for healing because it integrates experiences and brings out the truth or knowledge about the self, illness, health, and social relations, which the schemata of a literate narrative conceal (Kirmayer in Mattingly and Garro, 2000). Hence, even though contemporary science relies on literacy with its claims to objectivity,[29] medical and psychiatric practice is nonetheless also an oral practice, which exposes the scientific narrative to chaos, because poetic expressions have the potential to challenge meaning and experience in a dynamic relationship between the personal and the public, knowledge and meaning.

Psychodynamic theory argues that gaps in narrative may mask or hide a deeper narrative that is repressed or denied because of its painful substance. But the fractures of narrative may also reflect the inchoate nature of illness represented as islands of reason, fragmentary stories, narrative strands, and, above all, poetic evocation through bursts of figural language. This emphasis on figures and fragments rather than on extended narratives reflects a basic view of everyday thinking as rooted in poetic refigurations of the world. Research on the central role of metaphor in language and thought supports this view of the quotidian mind as poetic.

(Gibbs, 1994; Lakoff, 1993; Turner, 1996 as summarized by Kirmayer in Mattingly and Garro, 2000: 171)

Kirmayer offers a new way to understand the power of poetry to cure the depression and alienation that civilization generates. The anarchic potential of poetry, especially its illiterate potential, has in fact always been feared and repressed by authority. In this battle between the chaos of poetry and the order of civilized literacy, the role of medical panopticon becomes particularly clear, as revealed in my anthropological research on medical practitioners, social workers, and their attempt to domesticate the Somali culture discussed in Subchapter Six.

At this juncture, Michel Foucault’s (1961; 1963) work on medical discourse and power over bodies and reason is critical for understanding the nature of discourse, narratives, and the body-social-politic nexus. As my discussion in the next subchapter shows, Nosov’s trilogy provides an indepth analysis of the problems of medical normalization, discipline, overseeing, and incarceration in constructing sanity, illness, health, deviance, and normalcy. Echoing Peter Kropotkin’s critique of prisons and mental asylums in the second half of the 19^th century, Nosov explores the potential for abuse that medical power yields. He depicts this legitimating authority as even more dangerous than that of the police because it is less visible and identifiable and has a higher potential of being internalized by the subjects/objects. Dunno’s trilogy (first published in 1953) thus anticipates Foucault’s work on mental asylums and madness (1961), the origins of the clinic (1963), and questions of discipline and punishment (1979), as well as David Rosenhan’s ingenious experiment in 1973 titled “On Being Sane in Insane Places”.

First There Was Dunno, Then There Were Rosenhan and Foucault

The anti-hegemonic and anti-authoritarian premise of Dunno’s trilogy permeates all the spheres of its socio-economic culture: knowledge, learning, health care, etc. Hence, notwithstanding the fact that literacy has a place in Dunno’s world, it is never imposed. There are no schools and everyone is deemed perfectly capable of learning on her own and at her own pace.

Dunno never could do anything right. He never got beyond reading in syllables, and he could only write printed letters. Some people said his head was empty, but that was not true, because he could not have thought at all if it had been empty. To be sure, he did not think much, but he put his boots on his feet and not on his head, and it takes some thinking to do even that.

(Nosov, 1980: 16)

Literacy is important here, but knowing how to live comes first. Literacy does not replace worldly intelligence, the savoir vivre, and can be easily acquired by anyone once the need to read and write arises. To know how to live entails making one’s own decisions and even mistakes, which ultimately means coming in conflict with authority whose goal is to maximize resources’ yield and minimize costs and errors. The trilogy is replete with episodes of the problems caused by doctors and police whose roles intertwine, often becoming interchangeable as they try to affirm a specific order and narrative. As a strategy to neutralize the literary hierarchy that privileges protagonists over secondary characters, Nosov portrays as one of the protagonists Dunno’s whole community, consisting of sixteen boy-Mites who live in a house on Blue-bell Street in Flower Town.

Dunno’s is an unschooled[30] world where Mites learn when they are interested and become professionals by practising their chosen vocations. Like Lyotard’s (1984) practice within the justice of multiplicities, here becoming an expert requires no legitimating process since practice and knowledge of each member of the community evoke the respect of others. In Dunno’s world, expertise comes as a result of passion and is always needed by the community. Hence, a poet, a madman, a traveller, a doctor, an astronomer, a cook, and even a thief all have a place in this society. School, teachers, academia, or other institutions of teaching and the production of legitimate knowledge have no place here, with the exception of conference debates that are open to everyone. For instance, in the third book, Dunno on the Moon, Doono, Professor Starson, and astronomer McGlass debate the genesis and nature of the moon at a conference in the academy of sciences in which the general public participates and votes for the theory they deem closest to truth. Thus, it is the general public and not the academy who legitimates knowledge and discoveries. The academy is situated in the communist Sunny City, and its function is to offer a place for debates between anyone wishing to present a theory, a published book, or research, regardless of where they reside (Doono is not a resident, for instance). In contrast to North American universities, where attendance and access to libraries and other resources require membership and are allowed only through admission in exchange for tuition fees, Nosov’s academy functions on the principles of a free school such as, the Collège de France, where research and lectures have been historically open to the public for free and without obligatory registration or other forms of legitimated usage.

To participate in these events or academies, one simply needs to be passionate about something and learn autonomously. Hence, Doono becomes a scientist by simply doing science and elaborating his method. Blobs is a painter because he paints. Doctor Pillman is a doctor because he heals and learns his métier by experimenting with medicinal plants and discussing ethics and other aspects of the profession with colleagues. Separate chapters of The Adventures of Dunno and his Friends (1980) depict Dunno’s attempts to learn how to play music, paint, or write poetry. He turns to the musician Trills, artist Blobs, and poet Turnips for help and they lend him their musical instruments, brushes, and paints and leave him to play. Their response stems from the pedagogical principle that the master of the art cannot teach – only share what she has in terms of tools, instruments, and experience, responding to the learner’s questions that arise along the way of exploration. Hence, when someone wants to learn something, one simply needs to practise, play, and experiment with possibilities. And if one changes her mind, there is no harm in dropping one’s interest. But if the learner is driven by passion, hard work becomes a pleasure and leads to expertise. This applies to everything: music, writing, and reading, which Dunno learns by himself when the need arises, such as to write letters to his friends. Autonomous learning constitutes the core of the unschooling approach to pedagogy here, and, therefore, there is no standard age for learning anything, including reading and writing, which, in the real world, some learn at four while others at thirteen but they always learn and when they do, even the children who started reading “late” surpass the average fluency of school children within a year (Suggate, 2009).[31]

In addition to pedagogy being a concept of domestication, autonomous, or wild, learning is also an issue of trust: trust in the other’s ability to learn, trust in their intentions, and trust in the kindness of the universe. In Miteland, the fundamental premises underlying the personal, social, and environmental relationships are based on trusting that because people mean well, their passions and idiosyncrasies are valuable to society. It is this passion and originality that make significant discoveries possible. Hence, Dr. Pillman heals and helps his fellow Mites. Doono’s science serves his community; he invents the air balloon, studies the stars, and conceives interplanetary travel. Bendum and Twistum, the mechanics, design cars and various forms of mechanization, etc. The characters are named after their passions and, in this sense, their skills, professionalism, and knowledge also have the potential to confine, as disciplines do by their nature: they discipline, punish, and circumvent both the bodies of knowledge and the bodies that know. The only two characters who break out of such confinement or discipline are Doono – who knows everything – and Dunno, the hero, who does not know anything: in short, the multi- or ultra-disciplinarian and the anti-disciplinarian.

Dunno is complex. He does not possess institutionalized knowledge, yet even if the narrator introduces Dunno as “not knowing anything at all”, a few paragraphs later he says about him that he did just fine in life and learned at his own pace. In fact, Dunno is a free thinker, a traveller, the village fool, the philosopher, and his type of knowledge can be said to be the crucial link that allows Doono to make his scientific discoveries.

In contrast, Doono is a tacit model of authority for those with specialized, i.e. limited, spheres of knowledge. Critics such as Boris Kuprianov and Lev Pirogov (2004) define Doono’s knowledge as potentially totalitarian. This totalitarianism is juxtaposed to and threatened by the anti-authoritarian, the anti-totalitarian, and anti-disciplinarian Dunno who, with his imagination and improvisation, constantly challenges this authority and puts this knowledge to the test. More than anyone else, Dunno disrupts Doono’s attempt to order society’s knowledge and structure experience into a (meta)narrative.

But Doono is not the only one whose endeavour Dunno challenges. “In this same house lived Dr. Pillman, who looked after the Mites when they fell ill” (Nosov, 1980: 11). The true nature of the controlling and oppressive role of the doctor is revealed in his encounters with Dunno and finally clearly articulated in a debate with Honeysuckle, a girl-Mite doctor from Greenville Town. These encounters illustrate Kropotkin’s thesis that “[t]he chains disappeared, but asylums – another name for prisons – remained, and within their walls a system as bad as that of the chains grew up by-andby” (Kropotkin, 2002: 369). Here, the methods of disciplining the body by physical means have been replaced by “curing” the mind through the panoptical gaze and the ordering of space, bodies, desires, and thoughts, which were the exact same topics Foucault later explored in The Birth of the Clinic (1963), The History of Madness (1961), and Discipline and Punish (1979).

The first encounter between Dunno and Dr. Pillman appears in Chapter Three, titled “How Dunno Became an Artist”. Dunno decides to learn how to paint. He goes to Blobs, who lends him his materials and leaves him to work. Dunno approaches drawing creatively and produces fifteen social caricatures of his housemates. Such fellow dwellers in the life of a real child comprise the members of the first community in which the child is socialized and, according to Freud (1933), they become the first figures for the child’s identification. It is the agency with which they act on behalf of the child that provokes the child’s need for rebellion and self-assertion. In contemporary society, this tension is even more pronounced in the relationship of citizens with their general physician or pediatrician, since the parents renounce their authority over their own body and health as well as over the health of their children in favour of the family doctor. Nosov depicts this position and role of the doctor as a disciplining body that integrates the child into society by suppressing the child’s wildness and resistance to this centralizing medical force.

The first to wake up was Dr. Pillman. As soon as he saw the paintings he began to laugh. He liked them so much that he put on his spectacles to get a better look at them. He examined each picture in turn, laughing very hard.

“Good for Dunno!” he said. “I never had such a good laugh in my life!” At last he came to his own picture.

“Who is this?” he asked in a stern voice. “Me? It couldn’t be me. No likeness at all. Take it down.”

“Why?” asked Dunno. “Let it hang there with the others.”

“You must be mad, Dunno!” said Dr. Pillman angrily. “Or, perhaps, there’s something wrong with your eyes. What makes you think I have a thermometer instead of a nose? I’ll have to give you a big dose of castor oil tonight when you go to bed.”

Dunno disliked castor oil very much.

“Please don’t,” he whimpered. “I can see for myself that the picture isn’t like you.” And he took it down and tore it up.

(Nosov, 1980: 22–23)

Even though all the Mites enjoyed the caricatures of their friends and disliked the ones that made fun of themselves, they used negotiating tactics to convince Dunno to pull down their pictures. Dr. Pillman is the only one to use his authority to force compliance by, first, diagnosing Dunno as “mad” or “ill” – “You must be mad.... Or, perhaps, there’s something wrong with your eyes” (ibid) – and, second, by threatening to administer medication: “I’ll have to give you a big dose of castor oil” (ibid). Thus, his medical knowledge is not reserved exclusively for the purpose of curing his fellow Mites’ health afflictions; he also uses it to advance his own interests. He employs this power to intimidate, punish, and to repeatedly suppress social commentary and artistic expression as he also does in Chapter Four, when Dunno becomes a poet and declares, “I’ve written a poem about Dr. Pillman too”. Pillman’s response:

“We’ve got to put a stop to this, friends. … Are we to stand calmly by and let him go on telling fibs about us?” “No, we aren’t!” agreed everybody.

(Nosov, 1980: 28)

Whereas the other characters simply express their dissatisfaction and attempt to negotiate with the artist, Dr. Pillman sets the tone of public opinion and initiates the repression of art. Steering the social consensus towards his own ends, Dr. Pillman succeeds in suppressing Dunno yet again, just as he did when he mobilized the mob to rally against Dunno’s musical and painting endeavours.

These episodes explore the tensions between the public, artists, and artistic critique of society and are revisited in later discussions with the artists of Greenville Town. These debates question the nature and role of art by juxtaposing the realist and symphonic depictions of an idealized reality versus the critical and cacophonic potential of social experience – a conflict exposed by the encounter of the rebellious artist with medical authority. Dunno’s encounters with the doctor reveal the purpose and oppressive nature of this authority and contest its claim to truth, for, after all, the civilized, authoritarian, and authorized narrative derives its power and legitimacy by presenting its knowledge as truthful, as reflecting the “real” nature of beings and their “real” needs.

Not only does Dunno reveal the problems of reality and representation, however, he also exposes Dr. Pillman as a liar. In the chapter “How Dunno Took a Ride in a Soda-Water Car”, Bendum and Twistum invent a car that runs on soda water and syrup. Dunno drives their car into a ditch and, having lost consciousness, ends up in Dr. Pillman’s clinic. At first, the doctor expresses surprise, almost lamenting the fact that Dunno is not in a worse state: “Strange as it may seem not a bone is broken” (Nosov, 1980: 35). Then, each time Dr. Pillman plans to perform a procedure, such as take out splinters or apply iodine, he lies that it is not going to hurt, and every time it hurts. Finally, Dr. Pillman announces he needs to take Dunno’s temperature.

“Oh, don’t! Please don’t!” [cried Dunno]

“Why not?”

“It’ll hurt.”

“It doesn’t hurt to have your temperature taken.”

“You always say it doesn’t hurt, but it always does.”

... “Silly! ... Well, now you’ll see it really doesn’t hurt,” said the doctor and he went to get the thermometer.

As soon as he was gone Dunno jumped out of bed, leaped through the window, and ran off to Gunky’s. When Dr. Pillman came back with the thermometer, Dunno was gone.

“A fine patient!” muttered the doctor. “Here I am doing my best to make him well and instead of thanking me, he jumps out of the window and runs away! He ought to be ashamed of himself!.”

(ibid: 36)

Michel Foucault’s statement that “[p]ower is tolerable only on condition that it mask a substantial part of itself. Its success is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms” (Foucault, 1978: 86) applies to Dr. Pillman’s treatment of his patient. It is necessary for authority to conceal its truth, which is what Pillman does, because, as we learn later, he inflicts pain on purpose yet lies that it is not going to hurt, masquerading his real intentions under the guise of “curing”. However successful Dr. Pillman may be with the other Mites (the masses), he fails to trick Dunno, the illiterate, traveller, anarchist. Evidently, the comic aspect of this scene works better with a reader who has prior acquaintance with vaccinations and other medical procedures. But regardless of the extent of the reader’s contact with doctors, this scene raises three critical points that have drawn extensive attention across a range of disciplines, particularly in medical anthropology.

First, there is the problem of over-medicalization and incorrect diagnosis. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 33% of diseases today are caused by medical treatment or doctors’ intervention. According to Barbara Starfield, “Doctors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S. after heart disease and cancer causing an estimated 250,000 deaths each year” (Starfield, 2000). In Europe and Japan, Associated Press reports the high use of medications in rape and violence. For instance, in Sweden, the

demand for flunitrazepam – a sedative sold as Rohypnol and widely known as a “date rape drug” – increasingly is being met by unauthorized production, and North America, where widespread abuse of prescription drugs, including the narcotic fentanyl – 80 times as potent as heroin – has been blamed for a spike in deaths.

“The very high potency of some of the synthetic narcotic drugs available as prescription drugs presents, in fact, a higher overdose risk than the abuse of illicit drugs,” said Narcotics Control Board President Philip O. Emafo.

(Associated Press, 2007)

Of course, most real and fictional doctors do not prescribe such medications with the intent of having them used in rape and other acts of violence. However, the larger narrative that frames this parasitic relationship between rapists, doctors, and victims is rooted in the doxa that the doctors’ own well-being and prosperity are contingent on there being enough patients incapable of taking care of themselves and thus depending on doctors and drugs. This is more than a metaphor of rape, since the doctor’s expertise, legitimacy, and authority are a monopoly acquired at the expense of the patient’s dispossession of such knowledge. Together with blocked access to cures, this dispossession renders individuals impotent regarding their own health and dependent on the monopolist-domesticator. The war on herbal self-healing is a continuation of the medieval war on witches, whose defeat brought about the new age of the panopticon overseen by the doctor (Ussher, 1991; Foucault, 1963).

Sociologist Stuart McClean stresses the importance of narrative and personal knowledge for healing. A “healing method or practice is deemed acceptable ‘if it works for you’” (McClean, 2005: 629–30). His research on chronic illness among Canadians reveals that patients generally prefer the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) approach because “… participants perceived themselves as healing the parts of their lives over which they had some inherent control” (Thorne et al. in McClean, 2005: 637). Personalizing the narrative of illness is a “form of knowledge [that] is fundamentally different from scientific knowledge”, giving the CAM or the “witch medicine” an advantage over the biomedical approach (ibid: 637).

The oppressive nature of narratives and language is further punctuated by the fact that … military metaphors have more and more come to infuse all aspects of the description of the medical situation. Disease is seen as an invasion of alien organisms, to which the body responds by its own military operations, such as the mobilising of immunological “defences”, and medicine is “aggressive”, as in the language of most chemotherapies.

(Sontag in McClean, 2005: 640)

It is common knowledge that freedom, access to space, clean wilderness, and food are necessary for happiness and health, while exploitation, expropriated resources, and a domesticated world suffering from devastating pollution and violence produce malnutrition, contagious diseases, and high early-mortality rates. Yet instead of solving these problems by addressing domestication, dispossession, and poverty, people are required to depend on doctors and medication for functioning at work as resources in the same system that abuses them and in spite of the extensive research that demonstrates holistic approaches and egalitarian relations are better for health, longevity, and well-being.

This is common knowledge, yet civilized human decisions, fears, and choices continue to be guided by a narrative that imposes literacy and misleads in the meaning of life. It demands activity yet denies agency by putting the birth, life, and death of the domesticated masses in the hands of the physician. Dunno, however, jumps out of this narrative and takes off to live, learn, and have joy with no punitive consequences, thereby demonstrating that, regardless of the motive, the doctor lies about pain and about the fearsome consequences of disobedience.

Dunno thus exposes the dishonest nature of the doctor-patient relationship. This relationship is not only parasitic ontologically, it is a practical system of overt financial dependence of doctors on the lucrative pharmaceutical business, built on confiscated expertise and monopolized specialization. The underlying basis for the doctor-patient relationship is the proliferation of illness. The more people take medicine, the better it is for the medical and pharmaceutical establishment as well as for those in charge of administrating the whole scenario (government). According to Herper and Kang (2006), “Global spending on prescription drugs has topped $600-billion.... Sales of prescription medicines worldwide rose 7% to $602-billion.... [The] emerging markets such as China, Russia, South Korea and Mexico outpaced those [American] markets, growing a whopping 81%”.

The U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry Report (2008–2009, which, incidentally, costs US$999) states that in 2007, revenue from medication sales in the United States amounted to US$315-billion. “Since the year of 2000, the pharmaceutical R&D expenditure has been maintaining an increase, even in 2008, impacted by the global financial crisis, the pharmaceutical R&D expenditure totaled at US$65.2-billion, up 3.16% of last year. There are 2,900 drugs currently in research in the U.S.” (US Pharmaceutical Industry Report, 2008–2009).

However, this is not merely a problem of capitalism. Pain and suffering – the very factors that drive a person to seek help – are the essential components of domestication, for they are used to coerce human and nonhuman animals into compliance with the civilized narrative and concomitantly are the corollary of civilization. Edifying for this discussion on the place of the medical narrative in pedagogy and domestication is a debate that transpires during a ballroom dance between Dr. Pillman and Dr. Honeysuckle as they argue about the role the doctor plays in deterring deviance and whether the administration of pain is an effective pedagogical method.

“You must admit our methods of treatment are better than yours,” she whispered into his ear. “Honey is the thing to treat all scratches, bruises, wounds, boils, and even abscesses with. Honey is a strong

disinfectant and keeps things from festering.”

“I must disagree with you,” said Dr. Pillman. “All wounds, scratches, and boils must be treated with iodine. Iodine, too, is a strong disinfectant and keeps things from festering.”

“But you can’t deny that your iodine burns the skin, while our honey is absolutely painless.”

“I can’t deny that your honey may do for treating girl-Mites, but it can’t possibly be used on boy-Mites.”

“Why is that?” asked Honeysuckle.

“You yourself have said that treatment with honey is painless.”

“And do you think treatment ought to be painful?”

“I do,” said Dr. Pillman firmly. “If a boy-Mite climbs a fence and scratches his leg, the leg must be painted with iodine so that the patient will know it is dangerous to climb fences and will not do it again.”

“He’ll just climb roofs instead and fall down and hurt his head,” said Honeysuckle.

“Then we’ll paint his head with iodine so that he’ll know it’s dangerous to climb roofs too. Iodine has great educational significance.”

“A doctor should be more concerned with relieving suffering than with education,” said Honeysuckle. “Your iodine only increases suffering.”

“A doctor must think of everything,” said Dr. Pillman. “Of course, if you’re always treating girls there’s nothing to think of, but if you’re treating boys –”

“Let’s change the subject,” said Honeysuckle. “It’s impossible to dance with you.”

“It’s you it’s impossible to dance with.”

“You might be more civil.”

“It’s hard to be civil when I meet with such ignorance.”

“It’s you who are ignorant. You’re not a doctor at all, you’re just a quack!”

“And you’re a ... you’re a ...”

Dr. Pillman was too furious to speak.

(Nosov, 1980: 172–174).

The fact that Dr. Honeysuckle’s definition remains the last word – “You’re just a quack” – while Dr. Pillman stays speechless signals Honeysuckle’s victory in this debate. The earlier scene in which Dunno escapes from Dr. Pillman without consequences substantiates this interpretation. Furthermore, it is in Greenville Town that Dunno realizes his faults and is “rehabilitated” with the gentle methods of the girl-Mites, who treat him with compassion, understanding, and forgiveness, once again proving Dr. Pillman wrong. By ridiculing gender stereotyping, Nosov also reveals his personal preferences in healing methods. The fact that the escapethe-doctor scene takes place at the beginning of the book while this episode occurs towards the end demonstrates that this thread is deliberate, intended to develop a cogent and thorough critique that runs throughout the trilogy.

In the middle of Book One, Nosov raises another critical aspect, mentioned by Kropotkin (2002) in “Are Prisons Necessary?”, written in 1887, a theme that was explored in-depth by Michel Foucault (1963) twenty years after Dunno’s trilogy was published, namely, the role of the psychiatric hospital as a place of confinement for deviants, vagrants, and the insane, that is, those who threaten the civilized order with free movement and whose unreason disregards civilized reason and purpose, since the deviants, the vagrants, and the insane disorder uniformity and challenge the very concept of sedentarism at the core of the logic of civilization, incarceration, and pedagogy.

As Pillman and Honeysuckle’s dialogue reveals, if Pillman uses corporal punishment (iodine inflicts pain) – methods Kropotkin and Foucault attribute to the earlier, feudal methods of coercion and control – then Honeysuckle, according to this thesis, is a modern overseer of public order; she not only cures but also confines the deviants and the vagrants.

When Doono invents the air balloon, all sixteen boys who share his household in Flower Town decide to travel. At a certain point in the journey, the balloon begins to lose hot air and descend. Having prepared for this eventuality, Doono instructs everyone to put on a parachute and evacuate and, to lead by example, jumps out first. But as soon as Doono is gone, Dunno notices the balloon gets lighter and picks up some altitude and speed. So he tells everyone not to follow the “cowardly” scientist and they remain in the balloon until it crashes on the outskirts of Greenville Town. Dunno bounces away from the group and gets picked up by two girls by the name of Cornflower and Snowdrop. When the other girls discover the rest of the boys, they take them to the hospital (in Flower Town there are no hospitals, only the stern Dr. Pillman). Since Greenville is a girls-only town, the boys become social deviants. They are also travellers, in other words, vagrants, a status debated and contested in Greenville Town. This is a historically accurate depiction for, according to Foucault, during the Renaissance vagrants became the first to be incarcerated in the special hospitals that served as quarantines (Foucault, 1961). Similarly, in the fictional Greenville, Greenville Town, Dr. Honeysuckle runs the hospital. She defines boys as dangerous and states clearly that, therefore, they need to be confined and refusal to obey her orders constitutes defiance:

“What’s that on your forehead, Cornflower – a plaster? Clever girl! I warned you it would come to that. Nobody knows better than I do how dangerous those boys are....”

“Hm, I told that young fellow to stay in bed, and here he is, up and about in defiance of doctor’s orders. …”

(Nosov, 1980: 96)

First, this scene depicts how the doctor monopolizes the narrative of illness and health and imposes it on the patient, regardless of how the patient feels. This comes up repeatedly in the book. For instance, when Dunno wants to get up and explore after the accident, Cornflower tells him he cannot know whether he is ill or well, only Dr. Honeysuckle can. Second, the hospital is not only a place that confines but also acts as a quarantine that isolates the persons who pose danger for social health and economic order.

The civilized medical narrative has serious repercussions in real life. For instance, in Fit to Be Citizens, Natalia Molina (2006) shows how quarantine, social policy, and health were used to construct race, ownership, and stratification in California from 1879 to 1939 and informed the Planned Parenthood practice for reproduction control by sterilizing certain races and persons scoring low on intelligence tests. Thus, not only does the medical institution “know” bodies and persons, it isolates them, confines them to specific space and time, controls their reproduction (breeding was the first domesticating practice), and blocks their access to participation in social, material, and symbolic capital and ownership.

Accordingly, when Dunno’s request to see his friends is met with a categorical refusal, Dr. Honeysuckle exercises her power to control by quarantining the deviants indefinitely and diagnosing them regardless of whether they have symptoms or whether the symptoms warrant the diagnosis and confinement. As soon as Dr. Honeysuckle has left the room,

Dunno caught sight of a white smock and cap hanging on a hook. He instantly put them on, and he also put on a pair of spectacles Honeysuckle had left lying on the desk. Then he picked up her wooden trumpet and went out of the room. Snowdrop stood watching him in awe and admiration.

He went down the corridor and opened the door of the ward in which his friends lay. In the first bed he found Grumps who was looking more surly and sullen than ever.

“How are you feeling, my friend?” said Dunno, changing his voice.

“Wonderful!” said Grumps, making a face as if he were to die.

“Sit up, if you please,” said Dunno.

Grumps sat up with a great effort and stared dully in front of him.

Dunno put the wooden trumpet to his chest.

“Breathe deeply, if you please,” he said.

“Can’t you give a man any peace?” grumbled Grumps. “ ‘Sit up!’

‘Lie down!’ ‘Breathe deeply!’ ‘Stop breathing!’”

Dunno gave him a little whack on the head with the trumpet.

“You haven’t changed in the least, Grumps,” he said.

“Dunno!” he said, amazed at seeing him.... “Listen, Dunno, help me get out of here,” whispered Grumps. “I’m perfectly well, honestly I am. I just gave my knee a little bump. It doesn’t even hurt any more, but they won’t give me my clothes. I’ll go mad here. I want to get up and go out.”

Grumps seized Dunno by the sleeve and wouldn’t let go. “I’ll do something,” said Dunno. “Just be patient a little longer. Promise to do as I say, and if anybody asks you who made the balloon, tell them it was me, will you?”

“I’ll say anything you like if you just get me out of here,” said Grumps.

(Nosov, 1980: 97–98)

People who are not themselves confined but enter into a relationship with the confined acquire power over the disciplined person, regardless of how egalitarian their relationship had been prior to incarceration. Hence, even if in Flower Town, Dunno and Grumps were equals, everything changes in Greenville Town when Dunno, masquerading as a doctor, agrees to mediate between Dr. Honeysuckle and her victims, a social position that immediately grants him power to manipulate his friends.

Perhaps it is not so ironic, then, that it is Dunno – the subversive anti-disciplinarian – whom Dr. Honeysuckle discovers dressed up as a doctor in a white smock and cap conducting a mock medical examination of his friends, the patients.

Just then Honeysuckle and Cornflower came back.

“Who told you could put on that smock?” said Honeysuckle angrily. “I never saw such disobedience!”

“I wasn’t disobedient,” said Dunno. “I just went to see how my friends were.”

“And how did you find them?” asked Honeysuckle mockingly.

“I found that all but one of them were well and could leave the hospital.”

“What?” said Honeysuckle in fright. “Can you imagine what would happen if we let out fourteen boys all at once? They would turn the town upside down! Not a house would have a whole window left in it, and all of us would be covered with bumps and bruises. The boys must be kept in hospital to prevent an epidemic of bumps and bruises.”

(Nosov, 1980: 100)

In Nosov’s narrative, disobedience is empowering, and it is not driven simply by the need to disobey but by a genuine desire for symbiosis and care: Dunno states he was not disobedient, he only wanted to see his friends and find out how they were doing, and he would not have succeeded in this task had he followed the doctor’s orders. Furthermore, as later episodes with the police in Sunny City demonstrate, punishment is ineffective; for authority fails to restore harmony and actually causes more harm than good. Only conscience can regulate behaviour and control possible impulses for “hooliganism”. In effect, by disobeying doctors and police, the anarchist restores order and community. Hence, in the earlier episode, Dunno escapes Dr. Pillman to join his friend Gunky and in the latter scene, he succeeds in convincing Dr. Honeysuckle to free the hostages. This carnavalesque overturning of the roles contradicts Bakhtin’s conception of the carnival as reconfirming the status quo, because in this encounter between authority and anti-authority, the anarchist triumphs.

Dr. Honeysuckle thus agrees to follow Dunno’s proposed list of which two Mites to free each day and confesses the boys have been healthy all along, never needing any treatment at all. The quarantine turns out to have been a preventative social measure:

Once more Honeysuckle examined the list. “It’s too soon to let Shot out,” she said. “His ankle’s still swollen. He’s my only real patient, you know.”

“What about Grumps?” said Cornflower.

“Never! I wouldn’t let him out for anything!” cried Honeysuckle. “He’s such a nasty chap! Always grumbling ... gets on everybody’s nerves. Let him stay where he is for being such a grumbler. Of course, I’d be only too glad to get rid of him, and of that insufferable Pillman, too, who calls himself a doctor and is always trying to prove my methods wrong.”

“Let them both out if they’re such a nuisance,” said Cornflower.

“Not for the world! Do you know what that horrid Pillman said to me today? He said I made people sick instead of well! … You can be sure I’ll keep him here just as long as I can. And Grumps too”.

(Nosov, 1980: 140)

In spite of the contrast between the vengeful, authoritarian male doctor and the motherly, gentle female doctor in the dance scene, encounters with medical professionals underscore the inherent perils not of the doctors’ personal traits but of the medical métier itself. The hospital becomes a prison, a quarantine, or a disciplining and rehabilitating institution, regardless of whether it is Dr. Pillman or Dr. Honeysuckle who runs it. In both cases, the doctor knows, diagnoses, and decides for the patient how to re/integrate her into the social order.

In this sense, Dunno’s trilogy offers a satire of medical diagnostics and raises the question of truth and lie in the civilized knowledge of illness, healing, and health, preceding by almost two decades one of the most important and creative experiments in the history of psychiatry.

In 1973, David Rosenhan conducted an experiment titled “On Being Sane in Insane Places” (Rosenhan, 1973). He asked:

If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them? ... At its heart, the question of whether the sane can be distinguished from the insane ... is a simple matter: Do the salient characteristics that lead to diagnoses reside in the patients themselves or in the environments and contexts in which observers find them? (ibid).

The results of the experiment demonstrated that the circumstances under which a patient is admitted into a mental institution (such as “credible” or wealthy family members complaining about a disruptive relative) and the fact of admission itself already prove in the mind of the diagnostician a preconceived diagnosis. Namely, literacy or fluency in psychiatry frames normal behavior as illness if, in the eyes of the authority, a person fits the social category “ill”, i.e. is someone who does not participate in civilized economy.

To find how diagnostics work, eight sane people agreed to participate and “gained secret admission to twelve different hospitals”, some of them deemed the best in the United States. Among the patients “were three psychologists, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a painter, and a housewife”. Only once during the interview for admission did the pseudopatients lie that they sometimes heard same-sex voices that sounded “empty,” “hollow,” and “thud”” (ibid). Otherwise, during the interview and after admission, they provided truthful information about their personalities and lives and acted sanely, as they normally would in their daily lives. They engaged in conversation with staff and other patients, readily accepted medication (which they did not actually take), and took notes for their research.

Yet the staff never detected their infiltrator status. Moreover, the staff attributed normal behaviour to compulsive traits of the pseudo-patients’ mental illness – schizophrenia – and interpreted the behaviour as “too talkative”, “compulsive writer”, etc. even while the medical staff themselves engaged in these same practices of talking, asking questions, and taking notes. Most important, however, the labels were irrevocable even after discharge. Once a person was known to be a schizophrenic, that person was always a schizophrenic – for life.

Admitted, except in one case, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, each was discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia “in remission.” [The pseudopatient who was admitted to a private hospital was the only one diagnosed with a milder form of the disease, indicating the relation between social status and diagnostics (from footnote)]. The label “in remission” should in no way be dismissed as a formality, for at no time during any hospitalization had any question been raised about any pseudopatient’s simulation. Nor are there any indications in the hospital records that the pseudopatient’s status was suspect. Rather, the evidence is strong that, once labeled schizophrenic, the pseudopatient was stuck with that label. If the pseudopatient was to be discharged, he must naturally be “in remission”; but he was not sane, nor, in the institution’s view, had he ever been sane (ibid).

Rosenhan observes that the hospital staff failed to detect the pseudopatients’ sanity even though they had enough time for observation (seven to fifty-two days), and “this failure speaks more to traditions within psychiatric hospitals than to lack of opportunity” (ibid). Knowing that in their own medical narrative, these diagnoses were permanent, life-altering verdicts, the doctors nonetheless readily categorized their victims. It is significant that, while the staff failed to diagnose correctly, the other patients were able to detect the pseudopatients’ sanity.

During the first three hospitalizations, when accurate counts were kept, 35 of a total of 118 patients on the admissions ward voiced their suspicions, some vigorously. “You’re not crazy. You’re a journalist, or a professor (referring to the continual note-taking). You’re checking up on the hospital.” While most of the patients were reassured by the pseudopatient’s insistence that he had been sick before he came in but was fine now, some continued to believe that the pseudopatient was sane throughout his hospitalization. The fact that the patients often recognized normality when staff did not raises important questions (ibid).

This is exactly what transpires in Greenville Town. Dr. Honeysuckle attempts to construct Dunno as a patient and confine him to bed, and it is the patient who reveals the good health of the other “patients” who knew all along they were healthy. Just like Dunno, “On Being Sane in Insane Places” raises critical questions regarding the truth value of medical knowledge and narrative and exposes the relationship between narrative, normalization, and oppression.

How many people, one wonders, are sane but not recognized as such in our psychiatric institutions? How many have been needlessly stripped of their privileges of citizenship ...? How many have feigned insanity in order to avoid the criminal consequences of their behavior, and, conversely, how many would rather stand trial than live interminably in a psychiatric hospital – but are wrongly thought to be mentally ill? How many have been stigmatized by well-intentioned, but nevertheless erroneous, diagnoses? [And] psychiatric diagnoses are rarely found to be in error. The label sticks, a mark of inadequacy forever.

Finally, how many patients might be “sane” outside the psychiatric hospital but seem insane in it – not because craziness resides in them, as it were, but because they are responding to a bizarre setting, one that may be unique to institutions which harbor nether people? Goffman calls the process of socialization to such institutions “mortification” – an apt metaphor that includes the processes of depersonalization that have been described here (ibid).

This is exactly what Grumps voices in Greenville Town’s hospital: “I’m perfectly well, honestly I am. I just gave my knee a little bump. It doesn’t even hurt any more, but they won’t give me my clothes. I’ll go mad here. I want to get up and go out” (Nosov 1980: 97–98). Confinement itself renders the patient insane and in this context only one narrative frames deviance and automatically delegitimizes the deviant. Rosenhan’s experiment thus refutes Lyotard’s “justice of multiplicities”, for it demonstrates that regardless of the multiplicity of knowledges, authority diagnoses in accord with a predetermined, civilized narrative the goal of which is to organize and maintain its order within a specific, domesticated economic structure. This narrative and its diagnoses end up confirming themselves, regardless of whether the facts are relevant or even true, and thereby silence their victims.

Like the internalized gaze of the panopticon, this oppressive, exploiting, and silencing narrative becomes part of the physiological makeup of the human brain and body hexis, inadvertently squeezing all practices and relationships, including the contradictory ideologies, into the metadiscourse or metanarrative. Even if the details comprising this civilized narrative appear to be fluid and in a permanent mode of reshuffling and renegotiation, the structure itself not only remains solid and static but proliferates and, like a malignant tumour, colonizes more and more topoi, minds, bodies, and space.

Jack Zipes’ (1983) work on the Weimar Republic’s nationalization project for children through fairy tales, and his later research on the reconfiguration of consumerist and capitalist culture in America through children’s literature and culture, shows how the potential of stories, narratives, and literature – and hence of literacy – was consciously exploited to disable children’s wildness and integrate them into the system (of resources). According to him, European collectors of folk tales, such as the Brothers Grimm, Afanasiev, and particularly Charles Perrault, were climbing the social ladder, striving to please no less than the king (1997; 1994; 1983; or 1979). They styled and embellished the oral tale to align it with the European civilizing process and by disciplining their content they mortified the living oral tales. Literacy was thus recognized for its potential to provide an improved tool for domestication. My anthropological research, entitled The Encounter (AbdelRahim, 1998), on the relationship between Somali immigrants in Sweden and the Swedish medical sector and social workers, demonstrates the same mechanism operates in any domesticated context regardless of the details that supposedly differentiate one totalitarian system from another and that could go by a different name – such as a capitalist democracy, socialist democracy, monarchy, or whatever – regardless of whether we are talking about the Greek civilization or the Arab, the Weimar Republic or contemporary Sweden.

The Encounter in contemporary Sweden supports Zipes’ analysis of the evolution of children’s literature in terms of gender and economic class divisions. It also reveals that state representatives (beneficiaries and administrators of domestication) understand clearly the crucial role that literacy and medical control play in economic relations (namely, in the exploitation of human and nonhuman resources). These agents of the state act concurrently on behalf of their own interests and on behalf of the institution through which they live, even while they may be honest when they declare they are driven by the most sincere desire to help and care for their clients. In contrast to government representatives and people with social capital, whose personal interests intertwine with those of the institution, the personal interests of “resources” are mostly in conflict with those of the institution. This conflict of interests as well as of bodies, knowledge, and narratives comes to the foreground when people refuse to comply with the imposed ideology, whether for cultural reasons or for reasons of mental health, as demonstrated by Rosenhan, so vividly depicted by Nosov, and so aptly articulated by Irma, the social worker in Eskilstuna.

Somalis and Swedes as Fiction and Reality of Winnie-the-Pooh’s Immigration Policies

Trahison

Ce cœur obsédant, qui ne correspond

Pas à mon langage ou à mes costumes

Et sur lequel mordent, comme un crampon,

Des sentiments d’emprunt et des coutumes

D’Europe, sentez-vous cette souffrance

Et ce désespoir à nul autre égal

D’apprivoiser, avec des mots de France,

Ce cœur qui m’est venu du Sénégal? –Léon Laleau

In 1996, the Swedish Board for Health and Social Work (Socialstyrelsen),[32] the principal ministry of Sweden, commissioned the Centre for Studies on Immigration and Ethnic Relations at Stockholm University to conduct an eighteen-month anthropological study on The Encounter between Somali immigrants’ conceptions of illness and health and the highly centralized Swedish health-care system. The persons acting on behalf of the Board stated that Somali refugees had a “difficult time integrating into the job market; did not trust Swedish doctors; and refused to take their children to the state run clinics for regular observation”. My research revealed that the members of the board drew clear links between (1) the cultural conception of health, literacy, and the job market and (2) children’s literature and access to the job market.[33] I conducted the research in Stockholm, with a few visits to Eskilstuna where the other part of the project was concerned with the successful integration of Vietnamese refugees. The following excerpt from my field notes depicts the interaction between Irma, a Swedish social worker in Eskilstuna, and Aisha, a Somali woman who had immigrated to Sweden five years earlier. Since there is no immigration policy in Sweden except for refugee status, Aisha had spent two years in a Swedish refugee camp outside Stockholm before receiving a residence permit. I met Irma at her office.

Irma greeted me with exuberance, stating immediately her appreciation of the Somalis who were “so beautiful, with such smooth and deep, dark skin. They have such suave manners and look at you with this dark, languorous gaze. These men are just so gentle and plain beautiful. I love the Somalis”– setting off an alarm in my head: What does she mean by “Somalis” and what do I expect next? I did not have to wait long, for she swiftly proceeded to complain “there [was] a lot of trouble with them. Because they are illiterate. Papers don’t mean anything to them. They just don’t understand the importance of paying bills. They simply throw away the bills. Can you imagine? A Swede would never dream of doing such a thing. Throwing away the bills! And then this Aisha. She’s a nice woman. Always smiling and so personable when I come to see her [at her home]. Never objects to anything I say but then just ignores my recommendations. Plain simple ignores me”.

“Are your recommendations a must to follow?” I ask.

“Of course I can’t force her. But if she doesn’t comply with what I recommend in her children’s best interests, then she can’t provide a good environment for them. A good future. And if there’s trouble, then the social office can intervene. … As it is, they [the Somalis] already have problems getting jobs,” explains Irma.

“I see. So what kind of things do you recommend?” I inquire.

“Well, one problem is that she refuses to read to her children. I brought her all these nice books to read [to them]. She thanks me every time – all smiling. Never refuses them. Always polite. And then just ignores them. She has not read a single book to them,” says Irma.

Later, Irma takes me to visit Aisha. Aisha, true, was smiling. She offered us Turkish coffee and supermarket biscuits. Her unread-to children, aged seven, five and two-and-a-half years, were playing quietly, occasionally stealing in to beam at us, then scattering away in giggles.

Knowing Somalis value highly their rich oral tradition in which every Somali can be compared to a walking encyclopedia of poetic, historic, and religious heritage, I asked Aisha what it was that she liked to do with her children. It turned out that the kids already knew bits from the Qur’an and some of Somali poetry by heart. “You mean, you do NOT prefer Cinderella and The Ugly Duckling?” Aisha smiled and took a sip of coffee.

(AbdelRahim, 1998)

This encounter exemplifies my earlier discussion on the links between hierarchical economy, literacy, children’s books, medical knowledge, control, and government. It also illustrates Goody’s point that, from its very inception, literacy was a tool of oppression. The written word fixes the relationships of dependence and overwrites the living with their drive for chaos and meaningful relationships that require presence and memory. Here, the social worker is an individual acting on behalf of the socializing project, following, and imposing on her “clients”, the agenda of those who “lead” and “manage”. While Irma may be driven by a genuine intention to facilitate the integration of the people she said she loved into her society, this love expressed in the context of civilization becomes one of hierarchical value and helps mask and justify abuse. Irma is not concerned with the Somalis’ experience with Arab and European invasions and the devastation of Africa or with what it means to be a Somali in Sweden. Irma readily accepts the civilized blueprint, with its doxa and ideology, that explains to her the Somalis are faring poorly because they have not learnt how to be Swedes.

Furthermore, this interaction between the state and the citizen reveals that the agents of the state are aware of the connection between children’s books and bills (i.e. domestication through lists of debts) and intentionally use this instrument of domestication. Finally, this is not simply an issue of “in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Irma’s rationalization stems from her doxa that accepts the hierarchy of cultures in favour of her own. Reading from a Swedish book is more valuable than spending time together, reciting poetry, or creating new poems, particularly when those poems are Somali or the threatening to her Qur’an. Irma’s doxa also dismisses the value of Aisha spending time with her children because in the feminist and socialist ideology in civilization, just as in capitalism, Aisha’s value is based on her fulfilling her role as a resource. One of the suggestions discussed with complete seriousness at the meetings with Socialstyrelsen, for instance, was that “if the Somalis are so wild and un-integratable into the Swedish economy but love and are good with camels, how about helping them start camel farming in Sweden? Give them something to do, and raise the Swedish economy by introducing a new variety of meat. This way it will be good for everyone” (except the camels, of course).

The fact that Socialstyrelsen is responsible for both health and social order demonstrates that in civilization, these concepts are intertwined with literacy and education on several levels. Personal health is measured by one’s functionality as a worker and is related to a “healthy” education. This means individuals agree to fulfill, and be content with, the role for which their starting symbolic and material capital plus years of schooling prepare. As well, a society’s health is measured by how stable the system of exploitation is, regardless of the statistics demonstrating the extent of poverty and unhappiness of the population and the high numbers of persons medicated for chronic depression, insomnia, and other indicators of despair. As discussed earlier, the construct of health in a civilized culture is contingent on the social status of the person being diagnosed (Rosenhan, 1973). Here, poverty and travel constitute symptoms of illness that strip the poor or the migrant of agency, citizenship, legitimacy, and credibility. Civilized children’s literature, too, taps into these diagnoses of illness and health.

For example, Frances Hodgson-Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911), considered an important classic, is often used as a metaphor for the sequestered world of children’s literature. The story projects an integrated process of healing through the relationship of three protagonists in a secret garden, namely Mary, Martha, and Colin. Their relationships remain framed by economic disparities dividing them across lines of class, race, illness, and health and encompassing a conception of justice rooted in rightful ownership and stratification. These categories constitute the main forces that shape them as characters and as society. Here, to integrate into her new environment in a functioning and socially healthy way, the bad-tempered, wealthy orphan Mary, who is used to being served by “blacks” in India, has to learn that “white” servants in England are different. Colin is a wealthy, albeit sick, boy in a wheelchair. The healthy peasant, Martha, is depicted as always ready to give and happy to remain poor and hard-working. The narrative shows it is not only her moral duty but an integral part of her nature to want to integrate Mary into this class structure and to return Colin to life, a healing that enables him to reign over the land and its human and nonhuman resources, including over her kin, the peasants. The book presents Mary’s role in life as being a poor but happy peasant servant who is eager to serve those who own her land. The recovery of the boy means he returns to his status and rules over his domain with “love”. In civilized society this love means the landlord (or any other owner) does the dispossessed a favour by exploiting them – after all, what else would the peasants, workers, or employees want in life? – and exploits their health “kindly”, ensuring nothing changes: the peasants remain the property of the rich and the rich boy does not share his wealth, thereby ensuring the “health” and stability of that social system and its unjust class relations.

The narrative could have constructed the boy’s health as contingent on the restoration of economic and gender equality between the characters, particularly as the author makes an attempt to critically raise the issue of racism. Yet the problematics of exploitative relations disappear as the narrative domesticates both girls and elevates the boy to a state of health as he inherits his father’s regime. The book fails to examine tradition and ownership laws as the vehicle that structures the wider framework for social illness and health. Instead it romanticizes poverty and ignores the perspective of the oppressed. This injustice becomes particularly clear in the scene where the boy’s father “repays” Martha’s months of care by giving her siblings a golden sovereign.

“If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for each of you,” he said. Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind”.

(Hodgson Burnett 1911: 297)

The book tells us that Martha did not deserve recompense for her care; this sovereign was an act of charity – not of robbery, which it really is – and even as miserly as it was, it was still more than the peasants ever expected to receive. Apparently, they would have done just as well without it, but Colin and his kin, for some reason, cannot do without their wealth, their land, their peasants, and their servants. This deceptive caricature of the nature and culture of the rich and the poor is never once questioned in the book.

Another example is The Chronicles of Narnia where C.S. Lewis (1950– 1956) depicts Edmund’s temporary illness, caused by his “bad” choice of the “wrong” political camp, as curable because Edmund was destined to become a king of Narnia, whereas the little creatures at the bottom of the social hierarchy making the same “bad” choice must be exterminated, hence the endless wars. By following the White Witch and her food, Edmund almost dies, and the narrative thus illustrates the same principle of capital punishment that compels individuals to work for the civilized system. But when Edmund chooses the right side – that of the Lion King – he heals and reintegrates into the structure that punishes by death those who refuse to play the prescribed roles of resources.

Winnie-the-Pooh illustrates even better Socialstyrelsen’s concern with the “healthy” integration of immigrants in Sweden, as well as the immigration policies of such countries as Canada, France, the U.S., inter alia, which demand an expensive and thorough medical examination and literacy skills upon immigration. In the first book, one day:

NOBODY seemed to know where they came from, but there they were in the Forest: Kanga and Baby Roo. …

“What I don’t like about it is this,” said Rabbit. “Here are we – you,

Pooh, and you, Piglet, and Me – and suddenly …” “And Eeyore,” said Pooh.

“And Eeyore – and then suddenly –” “And Owl,” said Pooh.

“And Owl ... Here – we – are,” said Rabbit very slowly and carefully, “all – of – us, and then, suddenly, we wake up one morning, and what do we find? We find a Strange Animal among us. An animal of whom we had never even heard before! An animal who carries her family about with her in her pocket! Suppose I carried my family about with me in my pocket, how many pockets should I want?”.

(Milne, 1992: 90–92; underlining mine)

This passage is a direct statement on immigrants from places where child-rearing practices differ from those of the civilized English. Rabbit, a hypocritical upper-class snob, has good manners to match his xenophobic, classist, and sexist attitudes. He keeps forgetting to include Eeyore and Owl in the “us” and mobilizes an anti-immigrant act to chase the strangers Kanga and Roo out of the Wood. However, Christopher Robin, the human monarch, authorizes the immigrants’ stay and thus disperses the xenophobic movement, thereby resolving the problem.

In the second chapter of Book Two, another immigrant arrives and this time goes through a meticulous immigration-placement procedure, similar to the ones I observed during my anthropological research in France in 1993–94, in Sweden during The Encounter, and one I personally experienced upon immigration to Quebec.

“Oh, there you are!” said Pooh. “Hallo!”

“Hallo!” said the Strange Animal, wondering how long this was going on.

Pooh was just going to say “Hallo!” for the fourth time when he thought that he wouldn’t, so he said: “Who is it?” instead.

“Me,” said a voice.

“Oh!” said Pooh. “Well, come here.”

So Whatever-it-was came here, and in the light of the candle he and Pooh looked at each other.

“I’m Pooh,” said Pooh.

“I’m Tigger,” said Tigger.

“Oh!” said Pooh, for he had never seen an animal like this before.

“Does Christopher Robin know about you?” “Of course he does,” said Tigger.

Now that Tigger’s legal status has been established – Christopher Robin knows and approves of his presence, the next step is to determine his class (category) according to what he eats, in order to place him. It turns out Tigger does not eat the food of the Wood’s “natives”; he eats (only) Roo’s strengthening medicine. Thus, Tigger is placed with Kanga and Roo (the other immigrants) and the three form a neighbourhood or a ghetto, particularly visible since all the other natives live in houses by themselves. The aristocratically, hypocritically polite Rabbit later organizes another anti-immigrant demonstration in an attempt to drive the stranger out of the Wood. In this respect, Milne links medication with consumption and the control of space, residents, and resources, and the book reflects the temporary status of childhood that is seen as something to be remedied and children to be strengthened, managed, and curtailed according to the “instructions from above”.

Even if Milne’s text has several layers by virtue of it being intended for multiple audiences, most children’s books are one dimensional and written with the assumption that childhood is a temporary period of ignorance and deviance that eventually will be cured. Jack Zipes (2009) observes that a plethora of texts written for children address the future adult instead of conveying to children – who are already people – the magical and magnificent wholesomeness of childhood. The temporary and disposable quality of these texts reflects an integral characteristic of civilized childhood that speaks to marketing strategies the goal of which is to manipulate children to consume and dispose. Zipes observes that children contest these messages. Yet, judging by these texts’ omnipresence and resilience, this literature is financially successful and hence effective. These books would not be there if they did not sell since in a capitalist structure, the product must yield profit to the owner as well as be able to finance the apparatus of exploitation, coercion, surveillance, and oppression. The Barbie book series alone provides an ocean to drown a person of any age in the problems of fashion, jewellery, and manners. The Disney series, for instance – Barbie Loves Ballet and Fashion Show Fun (2009) or books by individual authors, such as Barbie and the Diamond Castle by Depken (2008) – overwhelm with their endless demands for paraphernalia to be purchased so that children and their parents feel like “normal” citizens of a consumer society. Their success owes largely to the generally accepted claim that consumerism is empowering and allows a person – in this case, a child – to feel herself as agent of her life, with a voice and will, when in reality she is being sold a prefabricated, temporary , contingent, and inferior humanity, just like the rest of the disempowered, oral, “uneducated”, dis-authorized, and silenced adults.

It is in this sense that the above passage from Winnie-the-Pooh designates a literary immigrant ghetto using medicine and knowledge in the control and distribution of space. As discussed earlier, the very concept of “cure” presumes an understanding of normalcy and temporariness, namely the notion that if something fails to function, it can be rehabilitated to function normally. Perhaps, by giving Roo and Tigger strengthening medicine, Milne intended to present a possibility of overcoming the temporary attributes of childhood, like frailty and irrationality. On another level, this chapter draws on the civilized premise that migration is illness (see Kropotkin and Foucault’s hospitals for vagrants and the mentally ill and Molina’s study of medical knowledge and the policies for land ownership in California), and hence illness is also a permanent category of otherness: Tigger and Roo eat not food but medication and they are “strangers” who, among other things, raise their children differently.

The feudal aspect of social relationships in the Wood mirrors the encounter of Somali immigrants with Swedish state representatives. In both the imaginary and the real worlds, control of movement and constructs of normalcy and health are directly linked to land and ownership, reminiscent of the feudal practice of holding peasants tied to the land and the lord who owned the land. Even if the book omits references to work and production, the same narrative frames the domestication of residents and immigrants “who carry their children in their pockets” and the Somalis who refuse to read.

Both, the medical narrative in the book and the doctors and social workers in Sweden operate from the same principle that accomplishes the colonization of space through bodies and minds. In this narrative, the movement of human and nonhuman animals is not voluntary, as it is in nomadic societies where movement constitutes a vital aspect of life; theirs is forcible displacement due to anthropogenic destruction of their environment in a post- and neo-colonialist reality in which the colonizer first cripples and then diagnoses the colonized as crippled. Since productivity and wealth ultimately determine the diagnosis, civilized concepts of “handicap” and “invalidity” mean “non-validity” as a resource unable to work. Some groups are labeled for life, e.g. schizophrenics (Rosenhan, 1973); others, such as children, are constructed as temporarily deviant from the productive norm but who, given the right methods and tools, can be healed and may graduate to become legal participants as either owners or owned resources.

These definitions have serious repercussions on the reality of one’s life, for they have the power to marginalize or grant membership in the exploitation of resources. Life expectancy itself is contingent on these definitions and relations of inequality. Citing Oxfam statistics, Sumlennyj and Koksharov (2010) find that a child born in an economically deprived neighbourhood of wealthy cities e.g., Glasgow, can expect to live almost thirty years less than a compatriot born in a well-to-do neighbourhood of the same city. In a society where food and the means of livelihood (including time and space) are limited to when a person is usable, the repercussions of illness are severe for the economically disenfranchised. Individual health is thus directly related to assigned roles, class, or categories and, as the case of Socialstyrelsen illustrates, persons with authority make an active and conscious effort to impose their definitions on resources.

Legitimated by their own power and backed by laws and police, authorities dictate to parents what form, methods, and syllabi their children’s upbringing should adopt. The underlying premise of civilization holds that parents are not free to choose how to raise their children and children as well as adults are not to be trusted to choose what to do with their learning, because if left alone, they will not comply with the economic mandates of business owners and styrelsen. Furthermore, both children and oral traditions are constructed as deviant, unreliable, temporary, and forgettable, which means they need to be reformed and can be remedied. This explains why Irma perceives Aisha’s illiteracy as deviance and, acting as authority, Irma knows that if at any point this deviance poses a threat to her order, Irma has the right and the power to intervene and take the necessary steps to correct Aisha’s lack of co-operation, if necessary by means of legal violence.[34]

Hence, even though Irma says she only offers Aisha recommendations, she expects obedience. Until my remark, she did not respect the way in which Aisha spent time with her children and did not value the content of what she was transmitting to them in lieu of The Ugly Duckling. Reading in itself seems to be so important to Irma that it overwrites all other aspects of family relations and pedagogy. It overwrites the fact that Aisha does indeed transmit a literary tradition, only one in a different “alphabet” from the written tradition.

At the time, Socialstyrelsen considered two groups to be troublesome: Somalis and Roma, who, I was told, were difficult to instruct and force to comply – the term used was “integrate” – because they were illiterate and refused to be monitored via regular medical checkups. Illiteracy, however, does not mean the Roma and Somalis do not know how to read and write or refuse totally to read and write. They simply preferred a mode for memory and social interactions rooted in presence rather than in lists of economic relationships of dependence and replacement.

My Somali interlocutors have helped me see a critical nuance usually glossed over in the literacy versus oral tradition dichotomy, namely that they reject literacy as a method of formulating human relationships but they do not refuse literature per se. In other words, they do not reject cultural articulation in a literary – even if not literate – form. This means an oral tradition such as Somali poetry, which holds the whole history of Somali clans, has room for narrative(s), even a civilized one if domestication enters their ontological conceptions. This is precisely what happened with the spread of Islam that appears to have reached Somalia in the 7^th century AD. It was easily incorporated even while the clans remained mostly nomadic and pastoral.[35]

During the early stages of childhood, the child can access literature through caretakers by means of repetitive reading aloud and memorization. Similarly, the Qur’an is a text that lives through memorization, repetition, and vocalization, a practice that bridges the gap between the ontological meaning of the traditional storyteller and a written narrative. Like all poetic traditions,[36] it is daily revived by the ability of Muslims to recite from memory, sometimes in solitude and other times in communal prayer. Here, both the oral and literary modes can transmit the ideology of domination through doxa and habitus, even if both children’s literature and the religious text offer a compromise between literacy and oral culture.

Children use books in a similar way to how adults employ holy books. Both practise repetition, rereading, and memorization of beloved texts, regardless of whether this takes place in the company of siblings, adults, or in solitude and thereby children, holy-book devotees, theatre-goers, and lovers of poetry negotiate a compromise between the written word and presence. What determines the outcome in reading is the ontological basis of the text: Is the basic premise civilized or wild? Does it prompt death or inspire life? Does it follow rigid rules and is squeezed into an unyielding structure or is it flexible and unpredictable even when reread for the hundredth time? Finally, can children withstand the mortifying effect of a literary narrative in face of the intensive schooling, early literacy, and domestication?

The myth that the earlier a child acquires literacy, the better are the chances for the future adult’s success has been challenged extensively. For instance, Lena Nikitina (1998) critiques early schooling from the perspective of socialist anarchy on physiology (Arshavsky and Ukhtomsky). She argues that civilized pedagogy suppresses children’s inborn instincts for learning, rendering them dependent, manageable, and immoral. David Nasaw (1979) examines the history of schooling and arrives at the same conclusions as Nikitina. He argues that from its inception, public schooling was a project of exploitation, and the ordering of the poor. From teachers’ experiences, John Taylor Gatto (1992 and 2003) and John Holt (1969, 1982, and 1983) have documented the harm of teaching. Gatto specifically highlights that the idea of contemporary compulsory schooling comes from Bismarck and Fichte’s militarization and nationalization projects in Germany (Gatto, 2003). These critiques of schooling and literacy have found their way into the academy.

In 2006, Sebastian Suggate conducted research entitled The Role of Age-related Development in Literacy Acquisition and Response to Reading Instruction (Suggate, 2009), in which he demonstrates that the stress on early literacy in public school yields problematic results. Later literacy, when a child had already formed her anthropological foundation, allows for more effective interaction with the text. In this light, the above discussed case of Aisha’s insubordination to literacy requirements in itself is not the cause of her children’s possible lack of integration into Swedish economic order in the future. It is the doxa of the racialized dispositions of the wealthy groups and their representatives with regard to the markers of otherness and insubordination to the literacy imposed by the medical panopticon that would play a major role in their discrimination. The Somalis who have immigrated to Minneapolis, Minnesota within the last twenty years, for instance, followed a completely different economic trajectory (Skoglund, 2010). Incidentally, many of them have landed there via Sweden, leaving their former compatriots in Sweden still marginalized.

… Omar, a Somali doctor in Stockholm, who spoke fluently Russian, English, Swedish, Arabic, and Somali explained to me that for an average Somali person, a piece of paper does not signify a commitment. “If a Somali does not give his word of honor face to face, then he does not see the point of being obligated to someone who does not have the courage to look him in the eye. … Somalis respect living memory. A person who cannot remember things without making a note in his agenda is a dead person. What can such a person know? How can he ensure the living memory of his ancestors if he cannot remember his own commitments? A person who does not remember his people’s history is handicapped, invalid, dead. … Every Somali is a poet and remembers by heart all the important poets of his people. This is the history that makes him a Somali”.[37]

(AbdelRahim, 1998)

Not only has literacy mutated the civilized brain, cementing in it relationships of debt, as Dr. Omar observes, literacy is linked to death. In the Old Testament, logos is the beginning of the world as we know it. For Amilcar Cabral (in Arlignton, 2001) the construct of the “history” of the world “as we know it” is based on colonial (civilized) European interests and terms. For Dr. Omar, abstraction leads to amnesia and buries the living beneath the word. Particularly through symbolism, it subtracts from and kills the real, imposing a simulacrum in its stead. This subtraction from reality also erases the boundaries of truth and hence makes it easy and probable to intentionally and unintentionally convey false information. Many indigenous languages around the world tried to solve this problem grammatically by signalling through evidentiality markers, which oblige the speaker or writer to choose between two different words that indicate whether the person speaks as a witness of an event or has received the information second hand. Evidentiality markers thus help these languages and traditions maintain an emphasis on presence, memory, reliability, and trust that are characteristic of relationships in oral cultures. Obliging the speaker to highlight presence and absence exerts certain demands on the speaker, who is held responsible for the reliability of the information conveyed, which in turn plays an important role in negotiating relationships. Stemming from a position of wildness, these demands render the culture qualitatively different from one where the emphasis is on education and the domestication of people into relationships based on symbolism and abstraction. Because the emphasis in civilized cultures is not on truthfulness but on legitimacy, whose purpose is to subjugate those who are denied authority, then submission, dependence, and stratification are inscribed in the very core of that narrative and are imposed by the technologies of language and literacy themselves.

Writing on the history and philosophy of education, Peter Roberts says:

In many societies, the value of literacy is frequently taken for granted. The ability to read and write is often regarded as an indispensable prerequisite for active participation in the contemporary world. It is sometimes helpful to remember, however, that human beings survived without literacy for hundreds of thousands of years. Harvey Graff notes that while the species homo sapiens is roughly 1,000,000 years old, writing did not emerge until approximately 5,000 years ago. Western literacy (based upon the Greek alphabet) has been with us about 2,600 years, and printing is just 430 years old (Graff, 1987: 26). Literacy, then, as it has typically been defined, has been a feature of everyday life for but a fraction of the total period of human existence. All basic human needs (including food, clothing, shelter, and social contact) can be met without literacy. In addition, humans can communicate with one another without reading and writing (through the spoken word, through pictures and other forms of visual representation, via gestures and sign language, and so on). Why, then, do we invariably take it for granted that people ought to become literate?.

(Roberts, 1997)

The curriculum vitae of the alinguistic, illiterate, and oral traditions clearly boasts a much longer and wealthier record than the literate period of human history, which is tightly linked to the spread of civilization without whose narrative individuals and groups have better chances of remaining alive as they pursue chaos and enjoy the cacophony of the multiplicity of voices, poems, and dreams. In Somali society, “poetry is the medium whereby an individual or a group can present a case most persuasively. The pastoral poet is, to borrow a phrase, the public relations man of the clan, and through his craft he exercises a powerful influence on clan affairs” (Samatar, 1982: 3). In light of Kirmayer’s study discussed earlier, poetry is “science”, capable of scientific reasoning and perhaps more effective in communicating knowledge and experience.

It is this tradition that Aisha is transmitting to her children, but which the Swedish social worker dismisses because it is not designed for “children”, is not literate, and is perceived as incompatible with the civilized Swedish narrative for economic needs. The social worker intervenes to “medicate” the children through civilized books because she mistrusts the children’s ability to learn and acquire the culture of their environment in Sweden through school and friends, an adaptation that happens regardless of whether or not Aisha reads Swedish books to them at home. But perhaps these are not the only concerns of the state. For by transmitting to her children the complex narratives of her oral tradition, Aisha does not fully participate in the contemporary consumer culture the products of which are marketed explicitly for simpler minds and tastes.

In spite of the evidence that the books that touch children and adults the deepest are the ones that are complex with multiple dimensions, the majority of the books on the market continue to betray the underlying assumption that children need “suitable” big and bright pictures, “accessible” (simple) language, and more linear (simplistic) narratives than “real” literature. This dumbing-down rationale is behind the Disney “translations” of stories that originally addressed multiple audiences. As Zipes observes, the goal of Disney is not to bring viewers together “for the development of community but to be diverted in the French sense of divertissement and American sense of diversion. [This diversion] is geared toward nonreflective viewing, everything is on the surface, one-dimensional” (Zipes, 1994: 95).

Simplicity is a response to the civilized conception of childhood as a temporary, disposable period. Because of this doxa, children’s merchandise is often of inferior quality: children will grow out of the pants fast; they will break the object easily; they will lose the pages of the book; they won’t appreciate the story when they’re seven; and so on, hence, “Why invest in something that will pass away anyway, will be broken or quickly forgotten?” Of course, the contemporary system of production provides the context to this reasoning. For in a capitalist system, objects, and services are priced according to demand and profit rather than with respect to the principles of exchange or the cost of labour. In a stratified society, this unjust economic exchange imposes serious constraints on parents, most of whom are unable to afford quality things, including time, for their children. However, the irony is that this stage cements taste permanently and thus, by dismissing their participation in consumer culture as “temporary”, this dumbing-down rationale ignores the fact that if a child’s experiences are simplified, if she is overwhelmed with temporary and disposable things instead of lasting and durable relationships, this experience of temporariness and the dispositions it instills becomes the durable habitus ingrained into the permanency of the child’s body hexis.

Paradoxically, then, temporariness and mortality acquire a permanent presence in civilized life. This narrative thus obtains another dimension that provides the framework for stratification and abuse, for temporariness is rooted in the notion that children, poverty, and crime are corrigible and curable, even though ten thousand of years of civilization have demonstrated that the more civilized the globe becomes, the more there is violence, poverty, and extermination. Still, the narrative tells us that if people are educated even further, domesticated even more deeply, and punished even more sternly, then happiness shall come.

Taming Children’s Inner Landscape and Other Wild Things

Constructed as temporary and, therefore, corrigible, the “illegal” and “deviant” status of children and oral and nomadic cultures provides the rationale for education and its corollary: punishment. Corporal punishment remains legal in most countries around the world. In Canada, for instance, the Criminal Code reiterated in 2004 that a child is “allowed to receive” corporal punishment from the age of two to twelve years, administered by an adult in charge of the child. Commonly referred to as the “spanking law”, Section 43 of the Canadian Criminal Code (1) reads as follows:

Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.

In Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams (2013), I discuss this law in the context of education as a methodological system of domestication. Here, I repeat the central problems of the punitive paradigm in the context of civilized narratives. Namely, this law assumes the adult knows correct behaviour and has the right to define it, while the child’s knowledge, and, therefore, humanity, is suspended until corrected and surpassed. The category “human” is, therefore, provisional and conditional, since people are not born human; they have to be forced, corrected, and bullied into becoming human. Ontologically, this means that without coercion and violence, we are not human, which means two things: without legalized, premeditated violence we are animals; and animals do not coerce or use violence as an educational method; only those destined to become human do. In other words, violence is a strictly human property. This understanding leaves us either with fear and despair or hope and rebellion, for either we agree to submit to the whipping hand of domestication or insist on dreaming savagely of the vast possibilities of wilderness and strive incessantly towards a return to our true animal essence.

Broken down to its basic components, the position for punishment postulates: (1) children learn through conditioning, and intentional infliction of pain and rewards can act as pedagogical stimuli; (2) children have an innate side to their nature which, if left unconditioned and allowed to act according to its wishes, will ultimately wish “evil”, while the right type of conditioning can reform the wicked streak; (3) the wrong-doer is responsible for wrongdone acts and when exposed to pain, the decision to do wrong becomes also a conscious choice, since punishment is supposed to teach and imprint on the memory that specific acts are wrong because they provoke pain to the doer (the question of sentience and empathy towards the victim is ignored here); and (4) people should believe in the justice of the authority designated to inflict pain as punishment.

The opposite stance, holding that children do not need punishment, stems from the position that: (1) children and human animals in general strive for harmony and goodness, they are good, deep inside, and do not wish to do harm; (2) the intentional infliction of pain teaches by example how to intentionally inflict pain and hence alienates people from each other and is destructive for community;[38] (3) punishment teaches a person to surrender to the dictates of authority figures who inflict pain (hierarchical subordination) and whose interests become the guidelines for “right” and “wrong” instead of conscience, which atrophies under these conditions; (4) finally, children are hard-wired to learn what is necessary for life; if other animals can, why would human animals be unable to?

The concept of punishment thus presupposes specific notions about the nature of the child and the perceived deviance, as well as the nature and intentions of the perpetrator of punishment. These basic premises in the rationale of punishment span a variety of contexts and relationships, usually between unequals: between adults from unequal socio-economic groups, between adults and the elderly, between human and other animals, or between adults and children. A relationship can be punishing even in the absence of corporal pain.

For instance, the Caillou series may at first glance appear to have nothing to do with the civilized narrative of illness and health, like the one explicitly articulated in The Secret Garden or The Chronicles of Narnia. Yet it fulfills the same function as the psychotherapists in Kirmayer’s study (in Mattingly and Garro, 2000), whose aim is to reintegrate and recycle the “in-valid” persons into society. Caillou strives to integrate the wild child into the civilized order. Having been created for the very young by various contributors, the Caillou series (first published in Quebec in 1987) depicts problematic situations that threaten the eponymous child protagonist by withdrawing social acceptance and love. The authors offer solutions for the child’s integration and ways to win acceptance by pointing out these are common problems, so the child identifies herself with Caillou and the “normal” standards outside, regardless of her own needs or self-knowledge. The aim of such books is to offer a narrative that demands the child trust that, by following the recipe, integration shall come and happiness shall follow.

In Caillou: Potty Time (Sanschagrin, 2005), Caillou does not understand where to poop. Parents buy him a potty as a gift and when he goes to the kindergarten, he learns it is socially unacceptable to wear a diaper or to poop around; people laugh at you and turn away. In order to integrate, Caillou chooses to poop in the potty and is rewarded with social acceptance. The narrative thus presents the child as incapable of learning by himself where to defecate and the right amount of punishment (withdrawal of love) and reward (integration) are necessary to modify his “natural” tendency to soil. The fact that it is the adults who first teach the child to eliminate on himself and then apply punishment to un-teach it is omitted from this civilized narrative.

In contrast, the Semai in Malaysia (among other indigenous societies in the world) do not impose restrictions or any form of psychological, moral, or physical punishment on children because they see the child as desiring and capable of learning these things simply by living and enjoying the safety of the unconditional love the community provides (Dentan, 1968). In these societies, as soon as they begin to crawl children learn where to go to the toilet without books, narratives, or the threat of ostracism.

A celebrated 1963 picture book by Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, illustrates civilized premises even better. Here, wilderness is a place of punishment to which a child is exiled. Wilderness is assumed to be undesirable and abnormal, something that is dangerous and can be used to scare and inflict emotional, psychological, or physical pain in order to modify the child’s behaviour. It begins when Max, the protagonist, wants to play a beast, perhaps be one in the family space – a place of domestication. He wears fur and acts “naughty”. His parents banish him to his room, depriving him of supper. So he goes to a “dark”, “scary”, “wild” place and we are told he conquers it and its inhabitants by staring into their eyes. This gaze tames them, just as the gaze of science and art tames, objectifies, and renders pornographic the women turned into observed, gazed-at commodities of knowledge and marketing strategies (for example, see Berger, 1972).

The narrative follows a linear development from wildness to taming, thereby depicting the evolution of a little boy shaped by punishment. Punishment is effective in domestication because it appeals to fear of pain and death. To civilize a person, the pedagogue needs to create the logic of endangerment on purpose, a purpose that is absent in the wild because, even though beings learn from experience, in wilderness experience is never static and one needs to constantly improvise in the complexity and unpredictability of chaos, where applying a standard rule cut to fit only static, inorganic, simplified programs can prove fatal.

To civilize Max, his masters have to teach him that rebellion against those who possess food threatens him. Therefore, it is not wilderness that endangers him; rather, it is his parents who demand that wilderness be banished, conquered, and destroyed. By threatening his wildness, his parents instill in him a fear of it, and through punishment he learns that in order to be safe in the colonized space of home and its relationships, he must colonize the wilderness around him and inside of him. Only then can he return to the conditional love in the world of rationed food. Compliance with the hierarchical norms demands of him expansionism in which he himself provides the terrain for the colonization of new territory. Successful colonization brings Max to food and teaches him to do to the wild “things” (they are not beings, according to the text) exactly what his parents do to him. Namely, they conquer his will by inflicting emotional pain and frightening him by withdrawing unconditional love and – the most important tool of domestication – food. Having tamed that place of wilderness, the boy returns to the world of confiscated food and rewards – a world we call civilization. The first thing that happens upon his return is he smells food and through that he knows he is loved as long as he obeys. Like the dogs stripped of independence and will by Pavlov, Max cues in and does what his parents demand of him: Stop craving wildness, renounce chaos, enter the domesticated space, and submit to its order. On a deeper level, Max also learns there is an emotional-psychological reward in this system. As the owners of food exert control over his will, he too can domesticate those rendered weaker than him. This food chain allows each member in its hierarchy to feel himself to be concurrently a victim and a tyrant and thus submit to its ontological definitions through personal, even if miserly, stakes.

The Metanarrative of Literacy and Crime in the Hundred-Acre Wood

The same civilized precepts provide the foundation for the relationships in the Hundred-Acre Wood, even if they are not articulated. First of all, the book opens with school and ends with Christopher Robin leaving for boarding school. From the onset, therefore, literacy and authorized knowledge define this stagnant space that nobody, except for the human boy, can leave. Second, it is a hierarchical world and its chain of command is obvious when we look at who names, controls writing, issues signs, possesses human attributes or personhood, who is the overlord, and who is the overlord’s favourite. For instance:

“A lick of honey,” murmured Bear to himself, “or – or not, as the case may be.” And he gave a deep sigh, and tried very hard to listen to what Owl was saying.

But Owl went on and on, using longer and longer words, until at last he came back to where he started, and he explained that the person to write out this notice was Christopher Robin.

“It was he who wrote the ones on my front door for me”.

(Milne, 1992: 51)

This book is about literacy and control, even if the above scene depicts language as inadequate. Miscommunication recurs throughout the books as characters talk past each other. Underlying this lack of communication lies the drive for greed and unvoiced desires for consumption that manoeuvres the characters’ interactions. Hence, when outwardly they may appear to be indulging in polite conversation about pleasant things, inwardly they are calculating how to trick each other out of something:

... Rabbit said, “Honey or condensed milk with your bread?” [Pooh] was so excited that he said, “Both,” and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “but don’t bother about the bread, please ....” And for a long time after that he said nothing ... until at last, humming to himself in a rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and said that he must be going on.

“Must you?” said Rabbit politely.

“Well,” said Pooh, “I could stay a little longer if it – if you –” and he tried very hard to look in the direction of the larder.

“As a matter of fact,” said Rabbit, “I was going out myself directly”.

(Milne, 1992: 26)

This stereotypically English scene of polite hypocrisy spells out that there are no misunderstandings about who wants what: When Pooh knocks on the door, Rabbit pretends he is not home. Then he lies that it is someone else who is home, and finally does his best to get rid of the avaricious guest, who “so as not to seem greedy”, eats the cream and leaves the bread. The reason why the two have to dance around the bush is the symbolic economy of manners inscribed into the established hierarchy. Rabbit is a xenophobic aristocrat and has to be reckoned with, regardless of whether he is right or wrong and whether or not one agrees with him, as depicted in the scenes in which the characters side with his attempts to chase away the immigrants; Owl is the literate intellectual with long words and here, as in the civilized “real world”, accuracy is not an issue; Winnie is the favourite nobleman with no brains; and so forth. In all of this, the one who controls literacy, language, and knowledge is the one who controls time and space and everything and everyone who dwells there. Namely, the monarch is Christopher Robin, the only one who holds the empowering title “human”.

Private property, names, and written signs intertwine here as they establish a hierarchy of domination in which characters dwell under signs with written names, thereby enunciating the links between literacy, domination, ownership, and deprivation inherent in the concept of “trespassing”:

Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.

(“What does ‘under the name’ mean?” asked Christopher Robin. “It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it”).

(Milne, 1992 [1954]: 4)

Or, here is another example:

Next to [Piglet’s] house was a piece of broken board which had:

“TRESPASSERS W” on it.

(ibid: 34)

And:

... Winnie-the-Pooh went round to his friend Christopher Robin, who lived behind a green door in another part of the forest.

(ibid: 11)

Literacy in the Hundred-Acre Wood thus plays a critical part in the colonization of space, encircling it within walls, locking “resources” behind doors, and constitutes a grave, invisible, and symbolic yet real barrier to freedom. It provides its holder with agency over others, but it does not allow the agent to be free of domination or subordination – after all, Christopher Robin is not moving out to do as he pleases; he moves to school where he is going to be domesticated. Literacy permanently confines the characters to the circumscribed and domesticated space of the Wood, and the only ticket out is through belonging to the category of humanity and the possession of literacy. However, even the human agent can leave only to be taught, domesticated, and civilized, which brings an end to his own agency over his imaginary world and hence over his imagination. Christopher Robin is thus inscribed into the food chain as an object of domestication, in spite of having control over the inhabitants of the Wood, their literacy (grammar as rules and laws), and space. The power he exercises over their existence – they are, after all, figments of his will and imagination – is, however, a greater impediment to the self-realization and free movement of his subjects whose whole world is destined to end as he grows out of this temporary phase known as childhood and enters the real world of domestication and permanent dying.

The hierarchical, Christian, and monarchist structure of the HundredAcre Wood is further inscribed into the metanarrative by the omniscient narrator – the literary and concomitantly real-life father of the human son who reigns in this kingdom. Notwithstanding the fact that Milne challenges the confines of adult language by playing with concepts and turning their meaning upside down, the larger civilized metadiscourse remains intact: The academy headed by Christopher Robin still seals the final, even if random, meaning of names, places, and “facts”.

Hence, the residents of the Wood value knowledge and studiousness yet the “expotition” to find the “North Pole” in Book One, Chapter VIII plays on the arbitrariness of terms and the rules that structure the meaning of referents and references. Christopher Robin and his “scientific crew” embark on an expedition to discover the North Pole. Winnie-the-Pooh, the scientist, finds a pole; Christopher Robin, the academy or authority, sticks it into the ground, marks the stick as “North Pole”, and finally holds a ceremony to honour Winnie. Thus, the team succeeds in making a “scientific discovery”. Their proceedings follow the logical prescriptions, methodology, and authorization process of real science, even though we might laugh or shake our heads in disbelief because we know this “North Pole” is not the “scientific” referent on the map and the classification, categorization, usage, and referents are different from “real science”.

Nonetheless, we know the rules, meaning, and terms of real science are arbitrary and the process by which knowledge is constructed, authority identified, and deviance and conformity structured is an exercise in the ordering of chaos through specific domesticated logic that curbs imagination and controls the analysis of the data. The grammar of the scientific language hinges on the logical links, such as hence, therefore, because, thus, etc., since they contain the premise of permanent, natural laws. A random example: “If a boy wears frills as a child, he will grow up liking dresses as a man”. This sentence contains a generalized assumption about the evolutionary narrative of boys and men and concomitantly a recipe for control. “If something comes from that source, it turns into that and if you want to avoid it, you should change the behaviour”. In both the fictional world of the Wood and our “real” world, science is an exercise in power, and this power names, orders, commissions its “scientific discoveries” as well as bestows awards, condones, punishes, and imposes logical links.

In a system the end of which is domestication, the concept of consequences is implicated in the notion of reward, which in turn is contingent on an existent system of punishment. Awards are selective and excluding; when one receives an award, others are denied that acknowledgement. The nature of pyramidal hierarchy demands that few receive awards and hence most people get punished implicitly by being excluded. This contrast between winners and losers is an essential in punitive logic that implies the winner deserves the rewards because she has done well, and, therefore, the loser must not have done as well and deserves to be left with nothing. The system of awards breeds envy and competition – precisely the behaviour of the dwellers of the Wood, who constantly check themselves against each other and compare who has more or less brains, longer words, more information, better food.

For instance, in Chapter X, Christopher Robin calls for “a special sort of party” (Milne, 1992: 149). When “they had all nearly eaten enough, Christopher Robin banged on the table with his spoon and everybody stopped talking and was very silent ... ‘This party,’ said Christopher Robin, ‘is a party because of what someone did, and we all know who it was, and it’s his party, because of what he did, and I’ve got a present for him and here it is’” (ibid, 155). Everyone is supposed to know the meaning of Christopher Robin’s words. Indeed, almost everyone does, except for the usually melancholy Eeyore, who for once exhibits optimism and confidence. He thinks the speech is meant for him and that at last he is receiving recognition. He even gives a speech of “modesty”, “gratitude”, and “acceptance”, only to be ridiculed and brushed aside “because it’s because of what Pooh did when he did what he did to save Piglet from the flood” (ibid, 149).

In this scene, Christopher Robin summons, announces, and rewards in the best of authoritarian traditions. He rewards the one he deems deserving and deprives the undeserving, regardless of whether the undeserving Eeyore believes himself to be deserving or not. Other characters support Christopher Robin’s preference for Pooh over Eeyore, thereby confirming his power and authority and supporting the social order and knowledge of what is appropriate, good, and rewardable behaviour and what is deviant and criminal.

Crime is “any act that is ‘legally’ designated as such and is prohibited by law” (Pozdnjakov, 2001: 33, translation mine). Philosophically, then, it is the context that defines what the criminal act is and thereby creates crime. As Pozdnjakov puts it: “Crime was born with the social human being and is characteristic only of the social human being” (ibid: 11). He connects the concept of crime to civilization and states that correction and punishment constitute some of the most fundamental civilized features. In a similar vein, The Dictionary of Philosophy defines “ punishment” as follows:

The word in its full and central sense may be defined as the intentional infliction by some authority upon an offender, of some penalty intended to be disagreeable, for some offence against rules authorized by that authority. The references to intention and to an authority are both essential.

... What is philosophically controversial is not so much the definition of the word “punishment” but the justification of the institution. Should it be in terms of deterrence, retribution, reparation, or reform?.

(Flew, 1984: 293)

Even if Flew does not question the definition of punishment and believes the institution, whose justification he admits to be controversial, is related neither to the definition nor to the authority which is “essential” in his words. He nevertheless identifies the ontological problem of the institution itself: What is the foundation of its existence? What is the knowledge that it takes for granted about permanence and temporariness of acts, motivations, desires? How do we identify authority in this system of relations and why is this authority above the “normal” and the “deviant”? Finally, Flew identifies the link between pain and the goal to “reform” individuals according to authority’s definitions.

The order of the Hundred-Acre Wood reflects the author’s own cultural context. British Common Law has provided a model for the laws of Commonwealth,[39] e.g. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, including the U.S. This law is based on the “rule of precedent”, which institutes the historically established authority as rule for justice, thereby revealing the historicist nature of its law. This method of writing and practising the law is reminiscent of individual habitus and body hexis. It creates a “body” of “knowledge” that contains and depends on historicity and already established solutions worked out through the struggle for power. Namely, justice is the outcome that had already been decided before and accepted by authority to become the rule and law that defines subsequent behaviour, thereby guaranteeing the status quo of civilized resolution of conflict. It is this lack of flexibility of the legal structure that renders civilized spaces sterile and asphyxiating. Eeyore’s depression reflects the reaction of the millions of people, whether medicated or not, who suffer from a feeling of entrapment in civilized social structures.

Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta proposes a definition of crime that contests the Commonwealth definition:

Naturally the crimes we are talking about are anti-social acts. That is those which offend human feelings and which infringe the right of others to equality in freedom, and not the many actions which the penal code punishes simply because they offend against the privileges of the dominant classes.

Crime, in our opinion, is any action which tends to consciously increase human suffering, it is the violation of the right of all to equal freedom and to the greatest possible enjoyment of material and moral well-being.

(Malatesta, 1984)

In conceptualizing justice as an egalitarian issue, Malatesta’s definition of crime focuses on the well-being of all. From this perspective, the intentional infliction of pain by Christopher Robin or by a judge issuing the verdict “guilty” – as in the classical example immortalized in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, where a man gets punished for stealing bread to feed his family – both verdicts of guilty equally constitute crime and, from Malatesta’s perspective, the authority required by Flew and exercised by Christopher Robin is criminal.

Depriving Eeyore the award thus implies punishment and is criminal. The decision is made by authority, Christopher Robin himself. It is meant to deter undesired behaviour (nagging, pessimism, slowness of thought and action, lack of initiative in “discovering the North Pole”) and intended to foster desired behaviour (activity, satisfaction, and support of Christopher Robin’s initiatives). Eeyore’s pain and discomfort are blamed on his nature and in our “real” world, he would have been diagnosed with mental illness, such as manic depression, dyslexia, serotonin imbalance, et al., and would be medicated, even hospitalized and controlled, i.e. punished and marginalized. Here, Eeyore personifies the marginal. He lives on the outskirts, feels lonely among the self-centred inhabitants, and is depressed by the hopelessness of that sterile and claustrophobic world.

In contrast to Milne and echoing Malatesta, Nosov delineates crime and punishment as complex phenomena that transpire on both the vast social plane and the deeply personal level. In Dunno’s universe, crime can occur only in a social context since it necessarily involves hurting someone else. Because the right to punish can exist only in the context of unequal power relations, in Dunno’s world punishment is not only ineffective but detrimental to society. Only conscience can prevent people from causing pain or guide them to correct their mistakes. Like the Semai and other indigenous peoples, outsiders, including those who are hurt by the “crime”, can help reintegrate the perpetrator by offering empathy, kindness, and community. Nosov’s position thus reflects Kropotkin’s premises regarding Russian and French prisons (2002) in which Kropotkin calls for reforming – not the conditions of the prisons but eradicating the root causes that create the need to steal from others. In contrast to the civilized capitalist stance that condemns the poor and disenfranchised, Kropotkin calls for remedying the craving for and possession of power and wealth.

In Book Two, Dunno travels to Sunny City, where Mites have discovered the bliss of industry and technology and which, at first glance, appears to be a utopia come true. On a closer look, however, no matter how wellintentioned the inhabitants of Sunny City may be, their society is ordered by police who have prisons and, therefore, crime, the two concomitants of complex, hierarchical city structures. Along with the title’s reference to Campanella’s totalitarian utopia, The City of the Sun, the extensive space allotted to the discussion of crime and punishment renders Nosov’s trilogy a sophisticated critique of both communist and capitalist systems.

When Dunno is detained by Sunny City police, his response is to destroy the prison with his magic wand: “I want the police walls to collapse, and that I get unharmed to freedom” (Nosov, 1984: 122, translation mine). The formulation of his wish is significant, since Dunno knows he can wish for anything and his wand will make it come true. He could have simply asked to be taken out of jail, or open the window, or anything else. Yet he wishes for the prison to collapse. Many revolutionaries (remember those who stormed the Bastille?), including Kropotkin, have called for the abolition of prisons:

The prison does not prevent anti-social acts from taking place. It increases their numbers. It does not improve those who enter its walls. However it is reformed it will always remain a place of restraint, an artificial environment, like a monastery, which will make the prisoner less and less fit for life in the community. It does not achieve its end. It degrades society. It must disappear. It is a survival of barbarism mixed with Jesuitical philanthropy.

The first duty of the revolution will be to abolish prisons, those monuments of human hypocrisy and cowardice.

(Kropotkin, 2002: 235)

Like Kropotkin and later Arshavsky, Nosov sees conscience as the beacon of integration into community and life. He, therefore, dedicates a whole chapter to Dunno’s discovery of conscience, then several subsequent chapters to debates with her,[40] and then several more to her growth and development as her voice becomes stronger, louder, and more confident. There are also several chapters depicting Dunno’s encounters with the local police, who punish him in an attempt to correct, ironically, not his real wrong but what they deemed as wrong. For the real wrong, which is what caused suffering to another Mite and three donkeys, can be “punished” only by Dunno’s conscience, since no one even sees his naughty trick with the magic wand that turns a boy into an ass and the three donkeys into boys. In this trilogy, discipline and punishment, whether carried out in the hospital or the prison, are presented as useless, even harmful, just like in Kropotkin’s words:

It is not insane asylums that must be built instead of prisons. Such an execrable idea is far from my mind. The insane asylum is always a prison. Far from my mind also is the idea, launched from time to time by the philanthropists, that the prison be kept but entrusted to physicians and teachers. What prisoners have not found today in society is a helping hand, simple and friendly, which would aid them from childhood to develop the higher faculties of their minds and souls....

(Kropotkin, 2002: 233)

The anarcho-communist position of Nosov, Kropotkin, and Malatesta is an attempt to negotiate a middle ground between the paradigm of civilization – with its drive for colonization, education, ignorance, apathy, and a systemic infliction of pain – and the freedom of wilderness – with its trust, empathy, multiplicity, and chaos. Nosov’s and Malatesta’s position is definitely more anthropocentric than Kropotkin’s. Nonetheless, as the following subchapters will try to show, omitting nonhuman exploitation from this important critique of the place of language and literacy in medical and legal institutions without addressing carnivorism and nonhuman incarceration leaves the predatory system ontologically intact.

The ways in which fictional characters in children’s books react to the social construction of deviance reveal the underlying narrative premises. Hence, they might be selective in their reaction to it, like Piglet scorning Eeyore’s deviant melancholia and social awkwardness while ignoring Winnie-the-Pooh’s earnest and honest avarice. They might also choose to punish it. Or they might work together to awaken Dunno’s conscience in the manner of Greenville Town girl-Mites. Or perhaps they might embrace life in all its diversity as do the blithe dwellers of Moominvalley.

Wild Stories, Wild Justices in Moominland

Domesticated narratives provide the schemata for crime and deviance by means of logical or rational linkages. To correct or punish certain behaviour, it first needs to be denominated, circumscribed, defined, and then disciplined. The knowledge derived through the various disciplines then establishes logical sequences between acts and results, such as between the correctional methods, the acts of deviance, their results, and finally, the outcome of the correction itself. The very purpose of the civilized story is to make a point, limit, and define. Where the wild narrative is free to wander, the civilized story projects an expectation of a climax through a possibly dynamic and evolving plot that seizes time and assumes it to be a natural structure bound to the concept of a finite frame. Thereby the civilized story constricts experience and directs the object of domestication, through the promise of punishment and reward (i.e. threats), to a world of civilized obedience. The events that make up the civilized story may be imagined, invented, or lived. They may question time as do time-travelling science fiction stories. Nonetheless, the plot directs us to a specific point of domestication through punishment and reward, failure and success, and the ultimate resolution in favour of the hierarchical system of resources. If it refuses to deliver, then “What is the point of that film?” audiences ask baffled by underground cinema, or “What is the point of your story?” creative writing professors demand of their apprentices, or “What is the point of your essay?” professors ask of students, etc. Civilized stories make their points regardless of the medium in which they are told: a live storytelling in a public reading session, an actor interpreting the role of a character in a story or a play on stage or through a technological medium such as TV or film. Be it through live interaction, oral or audio-visual performance mediated through technology, whether recorded on tape, transmitted on screen, or written on paper, each story becomes an integral part of the larger narrative, the civilized story.

This applies to Nosov’s attempts to envision alternatives to capitalist ways of relating to the world, but even more so toWinnie-the-Pooh, since this narrative projects a sterile world locked in domesticated logic, a world that is logical and linear in its graduation from childhood to adulthood, from agency to education, and from freedom to responsibilities. Conversely, since the premises of wildness provide no grammar for narratology, wild stories are not defined by social constructs of permanence or logic and hence may or may not have a point, a chronological order, or even a main character or hero.

Some oral tales may propose patterns of punishment and reward, such as the abused step-daughter receiving rewards and the pampered daughter getting punished,[41] while other tales, such as the north Russian tale about a woman wanting to taste a female bear’s foot, do not appear to have any logic except for the narration of a series of events that have no direction or aim. They simply express someone’s desire to share an experience or impression. There is no “why”, no “because”, no “therefore”, no punishment, and no reward in that type of tale. For instance:

A man was walking to Njonoksa, on the bridge ... he saw a she-devil rambling: “A dress to impress I had; everything was taken away; but today, into the water I probe in a fashionable German robe, all bright, and with a haircut short and never will I emerge again, and never will show my voice”.

(Onchukov, 1998 — vol.2: 230; translation mine)

The above is a story. It is not a narrative. But the cacophony of the tales comprising the volumes of this collection by Onchukov reveals the narratives of the northern peoples of Russia. Wild narratives are numerous stories, points, contradictions, aimlessness, logic, and lack of it, among endless possibilities, all of which fuse into the larger picture of the multiplicity of meanings.

Moomin books too provide pieces for the larger narratives of wilderness. In this wild world, language can happen, but then an event or a series of scenes will challenge it and show that communication is more effective without it. For instance, in the eighth book, Moominpappa at Sea, the family spends days on end on a solitary island without speaking with each other. Because they pass most of their time in silence and each with his or her own self, they explore their own souls, discover their own secrets, and we learn about their lives through their thoughts, experiences, and actions. In the Moomin world, literacy is present but no one cares about it. When someone decides she needs it, she learns it. Hence, having grown up in an orphanage, Moominpappa learned how to write books, memoirs, and rhymed tragedies all by himself simply by doing it. Presence can happen in absence and vice versa. Schools and prisons, Snufkin shows us, must be brought down, burnt, and abolished. There is no linear plot, no dependence on systems or signs, and no promises of predictability and order.

A scene from the first Moomin book illustrates how Jansson uses language to project a non-linear narrative. Here, a great marsh Serpent pursues Moominmamma, Moomintroll, and Sniff. Moominmamma was carrying a glowing tulip to light the way through the dark forest. As the Serpent was nearing, a tiny girl dwelling in the flower suddenly appears and lights up. Blinded, the Serpent falls into the marshes and the Moomins are saved. In describing this scene, Jansson omits causal conjugations and thus presents the Serpent’s cessation of the pursuit and their saving as a singular event:

Something very remarkable had happened. Their tulip was glowing again; it had opened all its petals and in the midst of them stood a girl with bright blue hair that reached all the way down to her feet.

Brighter and brighter glowed the tulip. The Serpent began to blink, and suddenly it turned right round with an angry hissing and slid down into the mud.

(Jansson, 1946: 3)

By means of a sequence of images, Jansson offers a path to harmony through randomness. Yet this harmony is not the logical predictability of a controlled reality and time, for logical and causal conjugations are absent in the descriptions, which are necessary for drawing a rule that can be applied to other situations. In this story we simply learn that things happen and creatures make sense of them as they come along. Since manifestations are never the same, categorization, although helpful at times, is questionable and does not allow us to draw the conclusion that if this time it worked to have a glowing tulip girl to stop the Serpent, it should also work in the future, because the future will consist of another set of unique circumstances and variables that will probably require new solutions. We may, therefore, assume the Serpent stopped following the Moomintrolls because the girl in the tulip blinded it. But we cannot do so with certainty since the author does not provide us with the logical link that excludes other possibilities in interpreting the causal relationships in this scene, such as because a girl glowed brightly, the Serpent was blinded; when Serpents are blinded, they stop their pursuit; hence, if we want to stop a Serpent or other dangerous pursuits, then we should get a glowing girl. By omitting these logical links, Jansson does not allow us to make rules, and the absence of “because” leaves space for other possible factors in the Serpent’s ceasing the chase – such as it rationally or irrationally changed its mind, got tired, distracted, got overcome by magic, or whatever else. The author describes only what happened then and there, which may or may not work again.

Yet even if we cannot draw a rule from these events, the moments described in the Moomin books usually work out smoothly, revealing the author’s trust in the harmony of universal chaos in which our world is but a speck among milliards of other specks. As Comet in Moominland tells us, some stars are harmonious, some threaten the cosmic order, but still in the end, everything works out in favour of life. And, most important, every creature is also a star:

“Stars!” [Snufkin] exclaimed. “... Stars are my favourite things. I always like and look at them before I go to sleep, and wonder who is on them and how one could get there. The sky looks so friendly with all those little eyes twinkling in it.”

“The star we’re looking for isn’t so very friendly,” said Moomintroll. “Quite the contrary, in fact.

“... And then I asked pappa if comets were dangerous,” he went on, “and pappa said that they were. That they rushed about like mad things in the black empty space beyond the sky trailing a flaming tail behind them. All the other stars keep to their courses, and go along just like trains on their rails, but comets can go absolutely anywhere; they pop up here and there wherever you least expect them.”

“Like me,” said Snufkin, laughing. “They must be sky-tramps!”.

(Jansson, 1959: 56–57)

The lack of causal relationships in the first example expresses the cosmic principle of surprise also present in the tales of gatherer societies that often depict encounters between predators and prey, all of whom exist for their own purpose. These encounters are singular, and each time participants must negotiate anew the terms of co-existence, co-operation, strife, empathy, threat, and love in an unpredictable harmony of the balance of life.

It is within this framework of wildness that Jansson explores literacy, schooling, prison, and justice. For instance, Mymble’s daughter thus explains monarchy, citizenship, meaning, writing, and words:

“Tell me,” said the Joxter, “why are all these walls here? Are you shutting people in or out?”

“Oh, they have no special meaning,” answered the Mymble’s daughter. “The subjects think it’s fun to build them, because then you can take your food along with you and have a picnic. My maternal uncle has built ten miles of them! You’d be surprised at my uncle,” she continued happily. “He studies letters and words from all sides and likes to walk around them until he’s quite sure of them. It takes him hours and hours to do the longest words!”

“Like ‘otolaryngologist,’” said the Joxter.

“Or ‘kalospinterochromatokrene,’” I said.

(Jansson, 1994: 86–87)

Joxter’s question triggers the discussion: Are walls built to shut someone in or out? For where there are walls, there are rulers and where there are rulers there is discrimination (shutting some people out), incarceration (shutting others in), and hierarchy. The insightful Mymble’s daughter, despite being an untrustworthy source on the truth of things with her rich, playful imagination, explains that walls and words have no special meaning unless one decides to heed their power and succumb to the authority of those who impose their meaning. Obedience and faith prevent a person from movement, entropy, and play. Reality is truth and truth is chaos, which dwells in the joy of transcending these barriers and in disobeying their laws and arbitrary meaning, Mymble’s daughter explains, and takes the Joxter and his companions to the great feast of the greatest joker: the King. The Moomin narrative stands on anarchist premises regarding crime, namely, that in the absence of oppressive structures, including money, there can be no crime and, therefore, no one can be locked in and nothing can be stolen if it is there for all who need it. Diversity of desires ensures not everyone will want the same thing and of course, if one really needs something, one can make it.

Jansson’s anti-capitalism is thus ontological. A scene depicting a “commercial” interaction between Moomintroll and friends with a tiny old lady, owner of a store, in the second book, Comet in Moominland, illustrates the underlying anarchist premises of exchange as based on need and not on price and profit.

In the store, Moomintroll and Snork Maiden exchanged gifts, Sniff drank lemonade, Snork found himself a notebook, while Snufkin tried on some trousers but declined to take them because they were too new. Finally, the moment has come to pay:

None of them even had pockets except for Snufkin, and his were always empty.... Not one of them had a single penny!

“That’ll be 40 pence for the exercise book, and 34 pence for the lemonade,” said the old lady. “The star is 3 marks and the lookingglass 5 because it has real rubies on the back. That will be 8 marks and 74 pence altogether”. Nobody said anything [they began to put back the things on the counter, except for Sniff who had vomited his lemonade].

The old lady gave a little cough.

“Well, now, my children,” she said. “There are the old trousers that Snufkin didn’t want; they are exactly 8 marks, so you see one cancels out the other, and you don’t really owe me anything at all”.

(Jansson, 1959: 122)

After debating among themselves whether that was correct, the old lady realized she “still owed” them 74 pence and gave them lollipops.

The commercial exchange that takes place here is not one of accumulation based on pre-set fixed prices; rather it transpires according to the anarchist motto of “each according to her needs”. Moomintroll and Snork Maiden needed to give each other presents (in this case, rubies are precious because they are gifts and the old shop owner gives them away to facilitate the relationship between Moomintroll and Snork Maiden), Sniff needed to drink, Snork wanted a notebook to record tactics to avoid the impending disaster, and Snufkin did not need anything because “possessions are dangerous”.

Here, ideal, material, and other possessions are relative concepts exchanged outside the symbolic and monetary dimensions. Snork’s notebook is important for jotting down ideas of how to evade the comet and, even if the others do not share his belief, no one argues with him and they let him have his notebook. The shop owner even sacrifices one from her store, although it is obvious it is not Snork’s notes, i.e. not his “ideal production”, that is going to save them but some miracle beyond their comprehension or control. Yet in some mysterious way, this notebook with the jotted-down ideas do help Snork, perhaps by making him at peace with himself and his surroundings, thus inscribing him into the general harmony. Snork needs literacy and it helps him. But it is not indispensable for the rest of the group and in this way, Snork can neither become the sole monopolist of the “right” knowledge; nor can he become an entrepreneur who possesses the rights and the means to the production of ideal capital by hindering its access to others; rather, he facilitates it. Snork and his list of ideas have no power to force relationships of dependence upon others. The effort, role, and existence of each member of this community are esteemed. Even the annoying and pestering Hemulens are aided and adopted. In the Moomin world, therefore, there can be no crime and no theft because the notions of property and monetary exchange have been a priori eliminated from its life stance. Only the Hemulens[42] are capable of coming up with such an absurdity as a prison. In Moominsummer Madness, the Hemulens run both facilities, thereby establishing an interconnection between kindergartens as children’s correctional institutions and imprisonment, just as Nosov links the medical establishment with incarceration.

Prior to this book, Snufkin has already several run-ins with police and the Hemulens’ law. Here, however, the wandering anarchist returns deliberately to liberate the children kept in a park run by two Hemulens and to destroy the walls and the interdiction signs. He announces his intentions in a song he plays on his harmonica, while Little My, whom he finds in Moominmamma’s work basket in the reeds where, just like baby Moses, she has been carried by the waves, sings the words:

All small beasts should have bows in their tails Because now the Hemulens are closing the jails Whomper’ll dance to the moon and rejoice.

(Jansson, 1955: 79)

After the song, Snufkin announces he is here to “settle an old account I have with a villain!” (ibid: 80). When they arrive at the school fence (all establishments of discipline and exploitation have fences or walls), they find it “was hung with notices at regular intervals: ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE” (ibid: 80) and other interdictions such as “NO SMOKING”, “LAUGHING AND WHISTLING STRICTLY PROHIBITED”, “NO HOP, NO SKIP, AND DEFINITELY NO JUMP ALLOWED HERE”, etc. Basically all normal children’s activities, fun, and play have been outlawed on these grounds, and, as the twenty-four woody children sat in the sandbox and stared in silence, Snufkin enjoyed tearing down and burning the signs. “Little by little it was dawning on them that he had come to their rescue. They left the sand-box and gathered around him” (ibid: 86).

Snufkin is compared to Moses on several occasions. In this scene, the parallel is even stronger, for just as the people gathered around Moses, a criminal and fugitive according to Egyptian law who had killed one of the enslavers and then led the Israelites to freedom from the oppression of Egypt, so did the woody children gather around Snufkin, the outlaw, the criminal by Hemulens’ standards, who tramples their fences, burns down their written words of interdiction, and liberates the woodies by leading them to the promised land of Moominvalley.

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.... When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh, and stayed in the land of Mid’ian.

(Exodus 2:11–15)

Sunfkin and Moses’ rebellious actions acquire different meaning depending on the perspective from which one approaches them. From the perspective of domestication, in a scenario in which both the Israelites and the Egyptians agree there should be a social order, with management of resources, it is normal there should be some individuals designated to control the productivity of others. The question here would be who should constitute the category of the resources and who would make up the management and administration. This paradigm would fail if everyone wanted to become the boss or if everyone were to constitute the resources. If both groups, the management and the resources, believe this order is natural, then in this scenario, the Israelites would believe it should be them controlling the order, whereas the Egyptians believe it should be the Egyptians. Hence, from the perspective of the Israelites, Moses was right to break the Egyptian law and lead them to a land where they could eat for free. But from the perspective of the Egyptians, Moses was a criminal who broke the law of their civilized society, a law that was there to protect the social order. From the perspective of any civilized nation state, the one in the right is the one in a position of power and who is legitimated by that same power. Hence, the Egyptians were legitimated by the authority vested by their abuse and Moses, the outlaw, should have been hunted down, sent to a Guantanamo or some other prison, or even worse, like some 21^st-century examples from Iraq demonstrate, executed.

From the perspective of wilderness, however, Moses is a righteous and courageous rebel, fighting against injustice and domestication, because no one – neither the Israelites, nor the Egyptians, nor the horses, nor anyone else – should be exploited and oppressed. He is a hero who leads the people from slavery and injustice to a land with no civilization, exploitation, borders, categories of discrimination, or control. To domesticate this revolutionary, Moses is inscribed into the hierarchy as obeying a higher order than the Egyptians, namely, the divine order, whereas Snufkin remains completely undomesticated and free. Both, however, can be seen as elements of chaos heeding a cosmic voice, for Moses the divine will and for Snufkin the divine song.

According to biblical scholar Christine Hayes, the story of Moses is part of a well-established literary convention that has existed since at least 2300 BCE in the parallel birth story of King Sargon of Akkad. As a baby, his mother places him in a basket lined with tar and sets him afloat on the river. Hayes thus places the Exodus story in the literary narrative genre (Hayes, 2006) and by drawing a parallel with Moses’ birth, Jansson too inscribes her narrative into that tradition. Yet even though Snufkin leads the woodies to the promised Moominland, he himself remains forever a nomad, without a parent, a home, or a land. No one knows how he grew up except he has always been welcome at the Moomin home. In this he deviates from the biblical narrative that tells that “fortune” had decreed Moses be raised by his own mother even after she abandons him, even though, as Hayes points out, the biblical account, too, remains vague about the details of Moses’ childhood and growing up, revealing only that he had developed an Israelite identity in spite of having grown up in the Pharaoh’s court.

Jansson provides slightly more information about Snufkin’s childhood and genealogical narratives that connect creatures, even when scattering them and even while Snufkin remains homeless, without any group identity. Like the Bible, particularly important are Moominpappa’s Memoirs, the healing book that Moominpappa writes during illness and that presents a genealogical narrative for Snufkin and other characters, thereby healing Moominpappa himself and strengthening the spirit of continuity and community. Thus, the scene of the woodies surrounding Snufkin, who heeds their plight, conjures the biblical image of the prophet gathering his people around him:

Snufkin looked at the silently admiring group that had flocked around his legs.

“As if one weren’t enough,” he said. “Well. Come along, then. But don’t blame me if everything goes wrong!”

And with twenty-four serious little children at his heels Snufkin wandered off over the meadows, bleakly wondering what he would do when they got hungry, had wet feet, or a stomach-ache.

(Jansson, 1955: 87)

The responsibility that befalls Snufkin is great and, like a father to his people, he faces it stoically and with responsibility. He leads them even if, like Moses and his people, he does not know what they will eat. Yet, like Moses, he feeds them as chaos leads them to the Fillijonk’s house where they are greeted by the feast she had prepared for her uncle who never visits anyway.

As Snufkin takes the woodies to freedom after having attacked the institution of confinement, the Hemulens must punish someone for this crime, and mirroring the events in Nosov’s Sunny City, detain the innocent, namely, Moomintroll, Snork Maiden, and the Fillyjonk who had prepared the feast. A subsequent chapter titled “About tricking jailers” is supported by a later scene in the book depicting Snufkin helping them successfully escape the pursuit by police, particularly significant since Snufkin has previous experience with escaping from jail. These scenes reveal the author’s intention to depict the arbitrariness of punishment and sentencing. Evading incarceration in these books offers a possibility for liberation for all from any type of oppression, not intended in the classist sense such as projected in The Wind in the Willows, where only the rich enjoy the luxury of tricking jailers and impunity. In this respect, Nosov’s and Jansson’s positions vis-à-vis crime, punishment, and justice are almost identical and diagonally opposite to those of Grahame and Milne.

Jansson challenges the civilized conception of crime and punishment in other domains as well, including parenting. The text repeatedly states that Moominmamma never punishes her children, the underlying assumption being that all creatures yearn for harmony and do not need the fear of punishment for guidance. Her vision of justice in chaos is elaborated in Finn Family Moomintroll (1958), where she depicts a court trial as it would transpire from the perspective of wildness and which raises questions about the nature of language, foreigners, property, theft, and a judicial process.

One day, two tiny foreigners with an enormous suitcase appear in Moominvalley. Thingumy and Bob speak an incomprehensible language in which the first letters of the words spoken in Moominvalley are switched. No one can understand these foreigners, the residents complain, except for the Hemulen, who becomes their interpreter-liaison. The Moomin family extend their usual hospitality as they do with everyone and, as always, respect the newcomers’ idiosyncrasies and secrets. One day, Moominmamma’s handbag disappears. It is later discovered serving as a bed to the little funny duo, but they are so lovable and the Moomin family so forgiving that, instead of punishing the thieves, everything ends with the family offering a feast in their honour. However, not everything is rosy and cozy in Moominvalley. Two frightful characters inhabit that world: the ever cold and freezing Groke and the ever tragic and stern Hobgoblin, both of whom are drawn to the valley by Thingumy and Bob’s mysterious and enormous suitcase. The Groke claims Thingumy and Bob are thieves who stole their possession from her and demands they give it back. But, even though nobody knows what the suitcase holds, at first everyone sides with Thingumy and Bob because they are small and cute and the Groke is big and scary. The situation, however, turns out to be much more complex than what they had initially thought:

“I’ve been talking to Thingumy and Bob.... It’s their suitcase the Groke wants,” explained the Hemulen.

“What a monster!” burst out Moominmamma. “To steal their small possessions from them!”

“Yes, I know,” said the Hemulen, “but there is something that makes the whole thing complicated. It seems to be the Groke’s suitcase.” “Hm,” agreed Moominmamma. “That certainly makes the situation more difficult”.

(Jansson, 1958: 132–133)

Snork then decides to hold a court trial, appointing himself as the judge. The nihilist philosopher Muskrat serves as the Prosecutor for the Groke, but sleeps through the trial, as do many judges and lawyers around the world who in many cases hand death sentences upon waking up at the end of the trial (recent trial cases from Australia and the United States have become particularly notorious according to Asimow and Mader, 2007; Clear et al., 2006; Banner, 2002; inter alios). Sniff “who hadn’t forgotten that Thingumy and Bod had called him a silly old mouse” (Jansson, 1958: 133) volunteered to be their Prosecutor. The Hemulen chose to be the Counsel for their Defence; the Snork Maiden agreed to be the Moomin family’s witness; Snufkin was to take notes concerning the proceedings of the Court; and the rest of the residents constituted the public whose opinions and proposed solutions highly mattered:

“Why doesn’t the Groke have a Counsel for the Defence?” asked Sniff.

“That isn’t necessary,” replied the Snork, “because the Groke is in the right....”

(ibid: 134)

The Groke is in the right but this does not automatically render Thingumy and Bob in the wrong, hence the need to establish how to rule or divide the “possession”. To further complicate things, it turns out that only the Contents of the suitcase belong to the Groke while the suitcase belongs to Thingumy and Bob:

“Ha!” said Sniff. “I can well believe that. Now everything is perfectly clear. The Groke gets her Contents back and the herring-faces keep their old suitcase.”

“It’s not clear at all!” cried the Hemulen boldly. “The question is not who is the owner of the Contents, but who has the greatest right to the Contents. The right thing in the right place. You saw the Groke, everybody? Now, I ask you, did she look as if she has a right to the Contents?”.

(ibid: 135)

Justice is not about ownership, the characters tell us, but about rights. This problem is also at the heart of the issue of the stolen lands from indigenous human and nonhuman peoples. However, how does one know who is in the right and who has the right? The Hemulen, being prone to order and stereotyping, evokes the concept of credibility: the Groke is not likeable and hence cannot be credible, thereby reflecting the numerous anthropological studies and books on law that demonstrate economically and socially impoverished African Americans, for instance, are the ones most prone to receiving the death penalty and other serious sentencing in the United States even when their crimes are less grave, and sometimes they are innocent victims of wrongful convictions (Forer, 1994; Bedeau, 1997; Sarat, 1999; Sarat and Boulanger, 2005; inter alios). The Moomin characters continue to debate these problems of trust, authority, and rights as the trial progresses. To counter the Hemulen’s attack on credibility, Sniff evokes compassion:

“That’s true enough,” said Sniff in surprise. “Clever of you, Hemul. But, on the other hand, think how lonely the Groke is because nobody likes her, and she hates everybody. The Contents is perhaps the only thing she has. Would you now take that away from her too – lonely and rejected in the night?” Sniff became more and more affected and his voice trembled. “Cheated out of her only possession by Thingumy and Bob”.

(ibid: 135–136)

This argument for compassion and extenuating circumstances is not exclusive to fiction. Professor of Law Peter Fitzpatrick makes a similar call in his essay on “how law is decomposed and made inadequate by the death penalty” (in Sarat, 1999: 131). Statistics continue to demonstrate black defendants in particular are discriminated against on various levels and receive harsher sentences, including a disproportionate rate of death sentences. But death is not reversible. It is not adjustable and “responsive possibility can hardly be made available in capital cases. If the evidence were to be allowed cogency in such cases, then the black defendant should never be executed. Comparable evidence would serve also to exempt people denied equal protection for other reasons, such as poverty. The outcome would be that only people not so discriminated against could be executed” (ibid: 131). The conclusion that, if there must be a death penalty, then only the wealthy and the privileged should be executed while the oppressed need understanding, support, and compassion, thus delegitimizes the authority of the civilized institution of criminal justice, once again, echoing the anarchist stance on punishment.

Sniff’s position reflects Fitzpatrick’s reasoning and argues that compassion should be extended to all, particularly to someone who hates everyone and is not liked by others. Seventeen years later, in Moominpappa at Sea, Jansson returns to this theme of the Groke needing compassion to heal, which I discuss in Chapter two and which mirrors Dunno’s “healing” generated by his community’s understanding and forgiveness.

Furthermore, in addition to credibility and compassion, the Moomin family’s witness, Snork Maiden, raises the question of prejudice when she states that “We like Thingumy and Bob very much” and “We disapproved of the Groke from the beginning. It’s a pity if she must have her Contents back” (ibid: 136). The participants agree they must overcome their biases and solve the problem for the satisfaction of all. Finally, to understand who needs the Contents the most, they ask Thingumy and Bob to reveal what is in the suitcase:

“It’s a secret,” he said. “Thingumy and Bob think the Contents is the most beautiful thing in the world, but the Groke just thinks it’s the most expensive.” The Snork nodded many times and wrinkled his forehead. “This is a difficult case,” he said. “Thingumy and Bob have reasoned correctly, but they have acted wrongly. Right is right. I must think”.

(ibid: 136–137)

As Snork and the others reflect on the problem of the contradictions between reasoning and acting and on whether the emotional value gives the right to own a thing or whether it is the market value that determines ownership and rights, the Groke appears and Snork decides to solve the matter in favour of both needs: the Groke’s for value and Thingumy and Bob’s for attachment. Hence:

“Stop, Groke!” said the Snork.... “Will you agree to Thingumy and Bob buying the Contents of the suitcase? And if so what is your price?” “High,” said the Groke in an icy voice.

(ibid: 137)

But because this is a non-commercial world, rather this community is based on mutual aid and co-operation, the Groke is allowed to decide what is satisfactory for her in this exchange, with everyone entering into negotiations with her and offering to chip in for Thingumy and Bob. After all, a symbolic need is easy to substitute, whereas a need for the existence of the “thing” itself is a communal need for the right of the “thing” to exist amidst them for its own sake. Thus, the trial is not about finding who is wrong and deserving of punishment and who is right. Here conflict is resolved when all the needs are satisfied. Those needs are different and must – and can – be all reckoned with. Only when everyone responds can there be justice:

“Would my gold mountain on the Hattifatteners’ Island be enough?” asked the Snork.

“No,” answered the Groke as icily as before....

“Here is the most valuable thing in the whole of Moominvalley, Groke! Do you know what has grown out of this hat? Raspberry juice and fruit trees, and the most beautiful little self-propelling clouds: the only Hobgoblin’s Hat in the world!”

“Show!” said the Groke scornfully.

Then Moominmamma laid a few cherries in the hat.... When the Groke looked into the hat a handful of red rubies lay there....

The Groke looked at the hat. Then she looked at Thingumy and Bob. Then she looked at the hat again. You could see that she was thinking with all her might. Then suddenly she snatched the hat and, without a word, slithered like an icy grey shadow into the forest.

(ibid: 138–139)

Thus, Moomin novels tackle the interconnections between desires, which motivate actions, language, literacy, borders, and walls, and the questions of freedom and oppression. Here, freedom entails liberating individuals from dogma, sterility, and the calculated predictability of the mundane personified by the nagging Hemulens, those pedantic bureaucrats obsessed with order: they run schools, prisons, orphanages, and other institutions of oppression. Still, regardless of their compulsive need for order, even the Hemulens are capable of tuning into the Moomin chaos. The Moomins extend their friendship even when the Hemulens are most annoying and adopt them when they need a home, kindness, or a breeze of unreason (such as depicted in the last book). The Hemulens keep coming back to them even while they suffer from the explosive creativity and diversity, for like everyone else, they need this love, openness, and sharing, which brings them solace and healing.

Therefore, Moominvalley has no place for hospitals or doctors. If anyone feels ill, Moominmamma helps heal by offering acceptance, care, and warm onion soup. Moominpappa cures himself by writing memoirs that provide a narrative of strength, continuation through genealogy, and community. The invisible child, Ninny, for instance, “who has faded away from sight because she had been ‘frightened the wrong way by a lady who had taken care of her without really liking her,’ the icily ironical kind” [sic] who ridiculed instead of scolded” (Huse in Milner and Milner, 1987: 137–8). Moominmamma refuses to take her to the doctor and instead, cures Ninny’s invisibility by offering her presence and acceptance. Healthcare in Jansson’s world is not about professionalism, which is depicted as failure; for all the institutions of care for children, such as orphanages, kindergartens, and schools, generate unhappiness and the desire to either rebel or escape.

Two major forces underlie Moominvalley’s wilderness: the generative power of Moominmamma’s love and Snufkin’s music and chaos, who like a prophet, opens his friends’ eyes and soul to the generosity and splendour of the universe. Embodying that ultimate sense of freedom that no walls, whether those of home, prison, orphanage, school, or any other institution, can contain or domesticate, he brings to them divine song.

The underlying premises of wildness and civilization hence yield different narratives. As seen, Milne presents humanism and the sterility it sows as an ineluctable fate and dreaming of the wilderness of yore as nostalgia for an impossible state of being. For Nosov, civilization is part of an evolutionary tempo that can be manoeuvred by co-operative effort to stop and preferably avoid altogether totalitarian exploitation, domestication, and control, whereas Jansson dreams of a world with no borders, where sorrow can be cured by acceptance, where healing comes through movement and Moominmamma’s love, and where Snufkin destroys the incarcerating power of literacy and language and reinstates authentic communication and understanding with his song.

On Cosmogonies in Science and Art

In an attempt to make sense of the present and plot a future, people have explored narratives to understand our beginnings and offer convincing explanations, or etiologies, of why things are and how they got to be this way. These explanations also work as justifications for human decisions, choices, and actions. During the 20^th century, some, mostly western, scholars saw human knowledge as a product of such narratives, an approach that converged a wide range of disciplines, such as medicine, astronomy, palaeontology, anthropology, politics, religion, cultural studies, folklore, linguists, literature, inter alia.[43] But prior to the 20^th century and to the mere seventeen thousand years of agricultural civilization, there have been billions of years of wilderness. However, our myopic scientific storytellers mostly skim over this fact and invariably tie the genealogical account of humans to European history as rooted in the historical narratives of civilization, mostly Greek, but also of the Fertile Crescent with an occasional applause to the Egyptians – all slave societies.

These accounts construct knowledge based on isolating, classifying, and categorizing the characteristics of what differentiates human animals from nonhuman. This methodology reduces usable information, eliminates what it deems useless, and separates the various genealogical branches from one another, building the argument for this alienation on either a mythological or scientific understanding of blood relations, or of linguistic families,[44] or genetic groups, thereby leaving everyone who does not belong to the civilized genealogy outside narrative or “outside history”, to borrow Amilcar Cabral’s expression.[45]

As discussed, our perspectives on life guide our epistemologies, which in turn influence our lives and scientific and literary creations. For the most part, contemporary epistemology prides itself on being grounded in science and fact. Lakoff and Johnson (2003) challenge this conviction, demonstrating that scientific methodology is not bias-proof because what and how we see is contingent on linguistic metaphors, which colour the perspectives that direct our gaze. What we deduce is thus tainted by the culturally fostered premises and our manipulated and domesticated desires. Hence, even if microbiologists, physicists, palaeontologists, or anthropologists rely on tangible pieces of evidence, how they see these pieces, the choices of what goes into the larger picture, and the conclusions they draw are structured by the previously acquired knowledge, language, and assumptions, as well as fostered urges and desires. Ultimately, when putting the pieces together, scientists rely on imagination and the ability to narrate. This makes science as much a product of imagination and preconception as art and religion are a product of truth to which they respond. It is, therefore, imperative to study them together.

No wonder, then, certain topoi have pervaded the animist, heathen, pagan, monotheistic, and scientific epistemologies. The adaptation and reinterpretation of the fundamental tenets in these topoi had direct repercussions on the world, since how we choose to narrate our birth and the birth of the universe frames our meaning and instructs us how to navigate through life and what to make of – and do with – its diversity. In other words, cosmogony informs our ethical, moral, legal, and political constructs and, by offering explanations, legitimizes the stance we take visà-vis such critical matters as the anthropogenic destruction of forests and seas. The formulation of these stances is often a question of life or death. For instance, do we choose to view desertification and the extermination of thousands of species as a natural manifestation of an amoral order of natural selection in evolution’s battle for the “preservation of favoured races in the struggle of life”? Or should we judge it as an immoral act of a people gone rampant with megalomania and should we thus do everything possible to stop the tragedy? Or is it yet another expression of divine will in response to the dark forces of evil that either warrant us punishment or absolve us of responsibility?

Children’s authors struggle with these questions, and the books discussed here reflect the different approaches adopted in tackling mythological, theological, and scientific topoi – in that chronological order, with the mythological topos of genesis infiltrating all the disciplines. For the

mythology of a people is far more than a collection of pretty or terrifying fables to be retold in carefully bowdlerized form to our schoolchildren. It is the comment of the men of one particular age or civilization on the mysteries of human existence and the human mind, their model for social behaviour, and their attempt to define in stories of gods and demons their perception of the inner realities.

(Davidson, 1964: 9)

Hence, a people’s mythology not only reflects the cultural effort to define the self and the world but, at its core, informs the scientific and judicial perspectives that structure and direct individuals and society in how they interact with the world and the way they impact it. In the end, the laws we devise, the stories we narrate, the food we eat, and how we go about our daily lives are some of the components that constitute culture and whose existence is owed to the way epistemologies have come to influence our aspirations, desires, and strife. Culture is thus a consequence of both perspective and knowledge, and knowledge is, concomitantly, a scientific and poetic narrative that drives us with culture through our lives.

Misia Landau expresses eloquently this connection between narratives, history, scientific methods, and texts in her article “Human Evolution as Narrative”:

Have hero myths and folktales influenced our interpretations of the evolutionary past?

Scientists are generally aware of the influence of theory on observation. Seldom do they recognize, however, that many scientific theories are essentially narratives. The growth of a plant, the progress of a disease, the formation of a beach, the evolution of an organism – any set of events that can be arranged in a sequence and related can also be narrated. This is true even of a scientific experiment. Indeed, many laboratory reports, with their sections labeled “methods,” “results,” and “conclusions,” bear at least a superficial resemblance to a typical narrative, that is, an organized sequence of events with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Whether or not scientists follow such a narrative structure in their work, they do not often recognize the extent to which they use narrative in their thinking and in communicating their ideas.

(Landau, 1984: 262)

Because everything – what we do or do not do in civilization, that order in which the world has been divided and capitalized – has political ramifications, on the deepest level the premises of our knowledge influence our “political unconscious”, to borrow Fredric Jameson’s expression.

Narrative plays a critical role in articulating this knowledge and history as they are extracted from both the conscious and the unconscious and as our present materializes in that

single vast unfinished plot: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles....” It is in detecting the traces of that uninterrupted narrative, in restoring to the surface of the text the repressed and buried reality of this fundamental history, that the doctrine of a political unconscious finds its function and its necessity.

(Jameson, 2002: 4)

Nosov’s Mite trilogy shows how a fictional narrative for children may intersect simultaneously with biblical and mythological topoi, Kropotkin’s (2006) theory of evolution through mutual aid, and Marxist interpretation of class struggle as ultimately leading to socialist anarchy through the withering away of the state.[46] At first glance it may appear that Nosov presents a classical evolutionary theory scenario. He begins with an anarcho-primitivist or gatherer society that gets infected by the developments of a socialist state in Sunny City and, as the technologies are perfected, ventures to outer space, landing into full-bloom capitalism inside the moon – i.e. it appears the narrative follows a linear evolutionary pattern in which the world of Mites “progresses” from no technology to technology and then descends into capitalist technology. Still, Nosov chooses to end the trilogy with the return of the Mites to the state-free, community-based Flower Town, and there they find health, happiness, sunshine, and life. His concept of evolution is, therefore, not linear and trajectories can be reversed even when a society has been affected by other societies’ developments.

In contrast to Dunno, the domestication in the Hundred-Acre Wood renders the characters static due to immobility and locked space. Except for the human character, who inevitably leaves for the “real” dimension of adulthood, literacy, education, and then probably a job, the “unreal” characters remain trapped in their perpetuity and domestication, sometimes named, sometimes their names revoked by the human Christopher Robin. The underlying assumption here is that imagination can empower the child to invent his own world to dominate, while he himself is being domesticated – after all, the book opens with the information that Christopher Robin goes to school to become domesticated and then, as the civilized narrative goes, the nature of things is to graduate, leaving behind the idyllic happiness and moving into the dominated reality. If Nosov simply ignores the problems inherent in identity and professionalization, Milne depicts essentialized specialization and identity as the foundation of healthy relationships. He opens his book with the act of naming, i.e. domestication and identification, and this spirit transfuses the relationships between the dwellers of the Hundred-Acre Wood.

For the Moomins, on the other hand, life always was, always is, and always will be. Apocalyptic events such as great floods and comets that threaten their world are cosmic caprices to be accepted, negotiated, avoided. Death is a part of life – a season in the various dimensions, which in Moominland Midwinter (1957) is characterized by the little squirrel who dies because he looks into the eyes of the Lady of the Great Cold after which the Snow Horse carries him away to everland. The squirrel himself, or a new version of his self, reappears in the spring. Jansson consistently refuses the traps of domestication: there are no names and no professions in Moominvalley. Living in a world of chaos, there is constant change and movement in what we cause and what we do, making identity impossible. Hence, Moominpappa travels, but he is not simply a traveller. He writes, but he is not only a writer. The family explores the theatre, but they are not always actors and playwrights. Moominmamma sews, cooks, plants, cures, travels, paints, and dreams. Even after settling down, the Moomins sometimes stay in the valley, but often venture beyond the mountains and sea. The last book is about their home when they are away living on an island and in this sense they never end, for even in absence they remain in our lives.

Most non-domesticated cosmogonies depict life as already existing at the beginning of the narrative. In these stories, life itself is divine, embodied by gods who can be animals, celestial bodies, or women and men. In medias res, new forms can be created, often for a reason of their own or to help a god, the sun, or a star with some task (Crozier-Hogle, Wilson and Leibold, 1997) and, mostly, their primary cause is an act of love that gives rise to a tree, fresh and saltwater (as in Enûma Eliš), a germ, or land and its creatures. Tricksters, monsters, strange desires or thoughts may mess things up and add tension to the plot, but the original reason for creation remains that of goodness and a striving towards cosmic balance. For instance, Darryl Babe Wilson (2008) recounts a California Indian creation tale in which the world was spun out of a song and given as a gift to children to dwell in.

In contrast, Nosov is not concerned with the origins of the world but rather with what we do with the world and with life, for our actions, desires, and beliefs affect the world and its future. For Milne, the narrator is the first cause of the book and it starts and ends with his progeny: his son. Other (literary) worlds, we are told from the start, have existed, but we are concerned with what happens in this one while it lasts. In Jansson’s books, like in Wilson’s cosmogony, Snufkin, the tramp who is afraid of possessions, wanders through the world, sometimes hand in hand with that primordial tune that dwells in the universe and which he at one time holds under his hat but then it flees. When it gets away, he walks the earth in search of it so as to catch it with his harmonica and share with the world its magic, which announces spring, love, catastrophes, and all.[47]

As Moomintroll and Sniff got nearer they heard quite unmistakable sounds of music, and it was cheerful music, too. They [Moomintroll and Sniff] strained their ears excitedly, drifting slowly nearer. At last they could see it was a tent, and gave a shout of joy. The music stopped, and out of the tent came a Snufkin with a mouth-organ in his hand. He had a feather in his old green hat and cried: “Ahoy! Ship ahoy!”.

(Jansson, 1959: 54)

Before even meeting Snufkin, Moomintroll and Sniff capture his music and throughout the novels it is that song that, like the Hindu Om which contains in it the singularity of God and all of existence, fills the Moomin world with wonder.

In Wilson’s (2008) version of genesis, narrative is posterior to thought, voice, and song. First there was a vast void; then there was thought; then there was song; and then came the word. For how could there have been word before thought? Wilson asks. Certainly, God couldn’t be so thoughtless as to talk without having thought first. Language must have followed an already existing reality filled with concepts and knowledge, and not the other way around, as the theory of linguistic determinism maintains.

How we believe the world to have come about, says Wilson, is how we are going to live in it. Seeing the world as punishment for sin or as a gift of life has serious implications with regard to whether people will honour and safeguard its diversity or whether they will treat it with disdain, approaching it as the averse consequence of a repugnant act (ibid). The difference between these two stances is what differentiates “primitive” society, where members express gratitude for all creation and warn against futile destruction of life, from “civilized” (consumer) society, which sees its meaning for existence in domestication, exploitation, and a birth-given right to devour.

The animist ontology is evident in the Moomin world, where Moominmamma is the original love and Snufkin is the force that links this love to the cosmic song, which is the original cause of creation the song ultimately expresses. In Flower Town, the world exists as evolutionary, unfolding in step with human needs even while it is generated by Mother Earth, whose love is both tangible yet unfathomably immense. Finally, in the HundredAcre Wood, the world appears and vanishes at the whim of the ruler. Even though the poem that dedicates the book to its original inventor, Christopher Robin’s mother, links love to motherhood, the next mention of love appears right after the poem, in the introduction, where the beloved is locked behind bars, as an object of voyeuristic fetishism.

2. Genealogical Narratives of Wilderness and Domestication

Identifying the Ontologies of Genesis and #_Toc268866 Genetics in Children’s Literature

The Ontological Roots of Knowledge

To understand the epistemological basis of children’s literature, the first chapter examined the roots of knowledge that inform imaginary and real worlds. It explored how experience and motivations constrain both our knowledge and imagination. Namely, the position from which we view the world informs our ideology, doxa, and language with far-reaching repercussions on the ways we choose to interact with each other and with our world. Life in domestication demands that we engage in systemic and epistemological violence the very genesis of which owes to symbolic thought and language. If these two characteristics supposedly mark humans as different from other animals, then language, symbolic thought, and violence could be the forces that gave birth to humanity – a new type of ape that acts as an all-devouring tumour of the planet. This link between language and our genesis is also articulated in the civilized monotheistic topos of the creation of the word (logos) and of the world the way we know it.

This chapter explores the ontological premises of wilderness and civilization in creation narratives. These ontological explanations of genesis inform our understanding of relatedness – or its lack – to other living and non-living beings. The kinship systems that flow from these narratives have specific anthropogenic effects on reality, since the explanations provided by the genesis stories offer justifications for our actions and pave the way for our interactions and culture (a.k.a. socio-economic and political systems). Moreover, they provide a language pregnant with metaphors that formulates religious and scientific principles that conceptualize our existence.

The collage of peoples who have migrated through and populated Europe has given a distinctive flavour to the fundamental topoi and metaphors that unconsciously guide the three children’s authors’ play with literary forms and myths. Before patriarchal and hierarchical Christianity colonized Europe, Vikings had settled the British Isles and marked the Slavs through constant raids and invasions. H.R. Ellis Davidson (1964) particularly highlights the legacy of the Scandinavian worldview in Northern Europe where conceptions about the world branched out and intersected with the cultural imaginary. These animist conceptions of the forces behind our universe blend into a chorus of scientific and Judaeo-Christian voices that form the fabric of East and North European epistemologies, ultimately affecting the imaginary of children’s literature, be it written in the Slavic-Soviet space, the cold winter of World War II in Finland, or in the epoch of British imperialist supremacy in the U.K.

The prevalent topos in animist cosmogonies around the world is that of the life-giving and world-forming tree, which had a lasting impact on monotheistic genesis and science. Along with stories of floods, or of battles between the cosmic forces of good and evil, often depicted as the battle between the Bird of the Sky and the female Serpent of the Land, or of stories about the various creatures from different worlds, these images have come to occupy a central place in literary, scientific, and spiritual knowledge of who or what we are and how we have come about. These topoi are the foundation of human ontologies.

These underlying premises become apparent right from the first scenes of the books. Jansson opens The Little Trolls and the Great Flood (1954) with Moominmamma and Moomintroll crossing the deep, dark forest; Milne begins Winnie-the-Pooh with the assumption the reader knows this is a continuation of a supposedly already existent story of possession and the power to name and indulge in sado-masochistic and pornographic relationships, which he calls love; while Nosov’s book opens with a depiction of Mites (general, not the specific “protagonists”) living in a town of flowers surrounded by wilderness and embraced by the community they built. In all three books, there are spaces called forests, rivers, and homes, but they are characterized differently as the characters live with them, live by them, or domesticate them.

Tiptoe Lightly Among the Trees

It must have been late in the afternoon one day at the end of August when Moomintroll and his mother arrived at the deepest part of the great forest. It was completely quiet, and so dim between the trees that it was as though twilight had already fallen. Here and there giant flowers grew, glowing with a peculiar light like flickering lamps, and furthest in among the shadows small, cold green points moved.

“Glow-worms,” said Moominmamma, but they had no time to stop and take a closer look at them. They were searching for a nice, warm place where they could build a house to crawl into when winter came.

... So they walked on, further and further into the silence and the darkness. Little by little, Moomintroll began to feel anxious, and he asked his mother if she thought there were any dangerous creatures in there. “Hardly,” she said, “though we’d perhaps better go a little faster, anyway. But I hope we’re so small that we won’t be noticed if something dangerous should come along”.

(Jansson, 2005: 1)

The first characters we meet when we open The Little Trolls and the Great Flood are a child and his mother. We see them in the depth of a great, dark forest and realize a whole universe already exists as we plunge into the lavish world of trees – a timeless place beyond any physical or geographic location. At the moment of the narrative’s birth, mother and child are in movement; they are coming from a different place, travelling to a new home. To get there, they must learn how to tiptoe lightly past the trees and the beings without altering or disturbing them. Everything in this world of trees exists for its own purpose, and here Moomintroll and Moominmamma find their own wilderness.

The motif of the world tree that holds existence and is the source of life permeates a wide range of epistemological disciplines around the world. We have met it as the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge and as the forest trees in the Garden of Eden; it reappears throughout folk wisdom the world over as well as in science inspired by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s (1809) tree of life in Philosophie zoologique or by Edward Hitchcock’s (1840) application of the metaphor to geological forms in the late 18^th and beginning of the 19^th centuries. Ernst Haeckel (1883) proposed several trees of life for the pedigree of homo sapiens sapiens in the 19^th century and numerous others have relied on this metaphor to map an interpretation of human familial relations in and to their world. Darwin places the Tree of Life at the heart of his theory of evolution “by natural selection or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life”. After all the adaptations in scientific, theological, and mythological theorizing before, during, and after Darwin’s era, the Tree of Life has provided a central topos for mapping genealogies. In Norse mythology, it connects the different worlds and the creatures dwelling in them; in evolutionary thought, it maps the relationship between life and nonlife, connecting homo sapiens to the animal kingdom and to all who lived and died before (Stearns and Hoekstra, 2005); in religious imaginary, the family tree connects bloodlines and, through genealogy, explains the history and fate of the world.

This archetypal tree also pervades Scandinavian mythology. In the Edda of Norse mythology,[48] the World Tree with a sacred spring at its foot occupies a central place since it gave life, provided food and drink for the gods, and tied their domains to the worlds of humans, giants, the living, and the dead.[49] “The tree marked the centre of the universe, and united the cosmic regions. Some Finno-Ugric tribes believed that the gods feasted upon its fruits, and that souls were born among its branches. It was characteristic of this World Tree that its life was renewed continually: thus it became a symbol of the constant regeneration of the universe, and offered to men the means of attaining immortality” (Davidson, 1964: 192).

This history provides a rich context for the Moomin journey that leads them to discover life in the forest, mapping their trajectory through the domains of life and death. They face monsters, descend into the centre of a mountain, and overcome the rushing waters of the Great Flood reminiscent of the archetypical flood of Edda or the Middle Eastern mythological and biblical texts, and, in the Great Tree, reunite with Moominpappa. This itinerary reflects mythical odysseys for immortality, which, in a metaphorical sense, they attain in the eternally peaceful Moominvalley.

The quest “for a nice, warm place where they could build a house to crawl into when winter came” (Jansson, 2005: 1) sets them off on “a long and perilous journey from one world to another over mountains and desolate wastes of cold and darkness, or of a tedious and fearsome road down to the abode of the dead. Long before astronomy revealed to men the terrifying extent of the great starry paces, the idea of fastness and of distances to tantalize the mind was already present in heathen thought. In Norse mythology also, as in that of many other peoples further east, we find the image of a bridge that links the worlds” (Davidson, 1964: 193).

The Moomin books contain so many elements of Scandinavian mythology that one can easily replace a synopsis of the books with Davidson’s text on the poems and prose of Edda, as the above exercise demonstrates, revealing the rich mythological foundation of the Moomin world. For example, a bridge over the river is the first thing Moominpappa builds when they find the house he had built sometime earlier, someplace else. Movement is presented as the nature of being. And it is that enormous river, grown pregnant with life during the flood, that carries the house Home to Moominvalley – their paradise found. Opening the first Moomin book onto the majestic and intricate world of trees and the diverse forms of life it sustains, while telling a story about a Great Flood and Small Trolls, also ties the narrative to the motif of water as possessing both life-giving and destructive properties: great bodies of salt and fresh water are a recurrent theme both in pre-domesticated creation stories and in civilized narratives.

Civilized myths warn of divine wrath summoning great destructive floods, either because of general cosmic anger or specifically to punish the humans gone astray, as transpires in the epics of Gilgamesh, Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Utnapishtim, Enûma Eliš, and in the biblical tradition. In all of these motifs, water pre-dates the genesis of the world. It is the pre-existing realm of chaos out of which life springs by divine will. Scientific narratives, too, propose that life came out of water and great historical floods shaped the fauna of today. Even in the biblical tradition, water pre-dates creation and God finds it already present as he roams over the deep:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

(Genesis 1:1–2)

Also, God creates darkness and light and orders “a firmament in the midst of the waters” (ibid: 1:6).

Floods and storms reappear throughout the Moomin books. As discussed, at one point, Snufkin is compared to Moses and later, in Midsummer Madness, Little My provides a much closer parallel to Moses, who was found in a basket among the reeds just as Snufkin finds the tiniest of Mymble’s daughters sleeping in Moominmamma’s work basket in the reeds after having been carried away by water during yet another great flood (Jansson, 1954).[50] In Comet in Moominland, when Moomintroll and Sniff first meet Snufkin, the question about the absence of Snufkin’s mother leads them to comparing him with Moses:

“Haven’t you got a mother?” asked Moomintroll, looking very sorry for him.

“I don’t know,” said Snufkin. “They tell me I was found in a basket.” “Like Moses,” said Sniff.

(Jansson, 1959: 114)

First, this parallel with Moses constructs Snufkin as a force of resistance to ownership and exploitation. As discussed earlier, Moses killed an Egyptian who was abusing an Israelite and Snufkin repeatedly breaks the Hemulens’ laws. Second, Jansson presents the very concept of genesis as inextricable from motherhood, sacrifice, and love: Moses’ mother abandoned him so he could live, thereby tricking the civilized confines of kinship.

Moomins’ kinship system reflects the adoption principles of many indigenous peoples around the world, notably of the Somali clans such as the Hubeer, despite their seemingly rigid agnatic patrilineality principles ( Helander, 1988). The Hubeer provide a great anthropological example of a dynamic and flexible kinship system. This kinship model is horizontal and limitless and, therefore, allows the Moomins to blend the topos of genesis with chaos theory and the anarcho-primitivist perspective, resulting in a rich text where trees, water, a living and throbbing universe, and constant movement are all understood to be integral elements of being – a text that invites the reader on a journey of exploration of childhood, motherhood, and belonging. This belonging is expressed in friendship and kinship with the world, including facing the elements that threaten life.

On Monsters, Wilderness, and Love

The opening scene presents the forces of life as contingent on mother’s love, which allows her child to build knowledge of the actual world as together they search and face difficulties. The viability of that knowledge, child, mother, and the whole Moomin world depends on the existence of the forest and on knowing how to go through it and in it find life.

According to palaeobiological evidence, the genesis of life owes to “an electrochemical gradient between alkali and acid in the sea water, which provided the basis for the living cell: acetyl phosphate and pyrophosphate. We are then all connected to the sea but also related to all forms of life, including the rocks on the ocean floor. That electric current, charged by storms, has been the sparkle of genius driving our unrelenting yearning, so beautifully captured by Tove Jansson in the character of the perpetual travellers in Moomin books, the Hattifatteners, whose life force derives from the electric charges generated by the storm, and who are forever drawn by the vast expanses of the sea, desiring nothing but to forever move in silence towards the horizon. They are not blighted by language and are the most mysterious, primal, vital, and intense form of life. Tove Jansson, like the indigenous storytellers, knew the essence of life” (AbdelRahim, 2013).

Jansson wrote this story during the harshest winter of WWII and, whether intended or not, Moominpappa’s departure with the Hattifatteners who live permanently on the move, as a mob with no individual thought, in search of what they do not even articulate, could serve as an allegory for fathers leaving for the war. As Moominmamma walks with Moomintroll and the newly adopted “small creature” into life, a generous and kind universe greets them, albeit with an occasional danger. This danger may spring out of the depths of a dark forest marsh in the form of a Giant Serpent (another archetype) or descend out of nowhere, on a quiet sunny day on the beach, in the form of a tiny but territorial and vicious ant-lion. But regardless of whether the enemy is stronger or weaker than her, Moominmamma succeeds in preserving her own and her child’s lives and to build a community of mutual aid and support.

Her statement to Moomintroll in the opening scene, that smallness and inconspicuousness make for effective self-defence strategies in the face of danger, implicitly responds to war, for “Whoever fights monsters, should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you” (Nietzsche, 1989: 89). The Moomins refuse to be monsters. However, this strategy works in the conditions of smaller nomadic groups with a stable zero rate of population growth. Today, for many human and nonhuman victims of colonialism, this option is not available due to the fact that the world has become overpopulated by human animals since the adoption of civilization. Nation-state borders and land ownership leave nowhere to flee to and hence those fighting oppression are forced to become infected by the aggressor’s violence in order to survive.

Traditionally feared creatures, trolls in Scandinavian folklore are dangerous tricksters, but in Moominland trolls are small, cute, and loving. Presenting them as harmless, even as fair and respectful (no one, especially children, is ever forced to do anything against her will), Jansson invites the reader to question the premises of an ontology that constructs the world as populated by inherently violent creatures and to subvert its implicit logic of war. “Dangerous creatures must be fought and killed” is the logic behind the dogmas that fuel white people’s fears of such socially constructed menaces as the “yellow peril”, the “red scare”, the “black (anarchist or people of colour) violence”, or the “Arab/Muslim terror”.

Moominmamma’s peaceful, generous, and forgiving demeanour is not an essential quality but rather a process of search and learning. For she too can be sad and angry. However, she can get in touch with that anger or pain in solitude in the forest and she has friends capable of understanding her and her feelings who are willing to ask themselves what they could do to help.

Toft walked on through the forest, stooping under the branches, creeping and crawling, and thinking of nothing at all, and became as empty as the crystal ball. This is where Moominmamma had walked when she was tired and cross and disappointed and wanted to be on her own, wandering aimlessly in the endless forest.... Toft saw an entirely new Moominmamma and she seemed natural to him. He suddenly wondered why she had been unhappy and whether there was anything one could do about it.

(Jansson: Moominvalley in November 1971: 174)

This ability to understand the feelings and experiences of the other is a recurring theme in the books. Moomintroll’s relationship with the Groke shows this ability to empathize is a skill that requires effort, time, patience, introspection, and the desire to look into the other’s soul, echoing Nietzsche’s aphorism to the extent that, by looking into the Groke’s eyes, the abysmal loneliness of her soul gapes back at Moomintroll. But unlike Nietzsche’s conclusion, this act does not render Moomintroll monstrous; rather, it awakens his understanding.

The Groke appears as absolute terror in Finn Family Moomintroll and reappears throughout the four subsequent books. Whenever she approaches, the world freezes around her and everything dies. However, in Moominpappa at Sea, Moomintroll discovers the Groke is that way because of the unbearable emptiness that comes with everyone fearing and avoiding her. The more everything she touches dies, the colder she becomes. His empathy drives him to overcome his fear and reach out to the Groke, a gesture of understanding and care that needs no words and that causes her to thaw.

Moominmamma explains in Chapter One: “We’re afraid of the Groke because she’s just cold all over. And because she doesn’t like anybody. But she’s never done any harm” (Jansson, 1966: 15). Moominmamma believes the Groke has a right to not like others and in no way should we be afraid or intolerant of her even if she dislikes us. After all, it is the deeds that count, not what we think we know.

“The Groke. Did somebody do something to her to make her so awful?”

“No one knows,” said Moominmamma.... “It was probably because nobody did anything at all. Nobody bothered about her, I mean. I don’t suppose she remembers anyway, and I don’t suppose she goes around thinking about it either. She’s like the rain or the darkness, or a stone you have to walk round if you want to get past”.

(ibid: 27–28)

Indifference and apathy, Moominmamma explains, breed monsters. This attitude echoes Alice Miller’s thesis of “poisonous pedagogy” in which abuse and neglect in childhood infuse adult life with horror. For Jansson, ignoring and dismissing a person is tantamount to abuse. This is the horror of the Groke and, without even knowing it, she keeps looking for the warmth of light. However, every time she approaches it, she extinguishes it with her freezing loneliness. “The light from the lamp shone on the grass and on the lilac bush. But where it crept in among the shadows, where the Groke sat all on her own, it was much weaker” (ibid: 12). Moomintroll “knew that if she sat on the same spot for more than an hour, nothing would ever grow there again. The ground just died of fright.... She couldn’t help it, she had to come as close as possible, and everything died” (ibid: 17–18). “She came over the water in her cloud of cold like somebody’s bad conscience” (ibid: 116).

Despite the terror the Groke instills, Moomintroll seeks her out and she, too, keeps returning to the spot of their tacitly agreed upon nightly rendezvous to stare at the light he brings with him. “She stared at the lamp, following a ritual of her own.... The Groke was dancing! She was quite obviously very pleased, and somehow this absurd ritual became very important to Moomintroll. He could see no reason why it should stop at all, whether the island wanted it to or not” (ibid: 147).

Moomintroll learns how to respond to this terror and takes the time to explore her needs by imagining what it would be like to be the other; “Moomintroll imagined he was the Groke” (ibid: 18). His empathy warms up the Groke and she begins to look forward to Moomintroll’s company every night. At first, she fears he might not show up, and when he appears she greets him with song and dance. Little by little, the Groke realizes she no longer needs the lamp because the light is in the warmth of Moomintroll’s commitment, and he goes to a great length not to disappoint her. While the Groke learns how to trust, the island learns how to live with her. Moomintroll

could hear the beating of the island’s heart.... Suddenly the Groke started to sing.... There was no doubt about it: the Groke was pleased to see him. She didn’t mind about the hurricane lamp. She was delighted that he had come to meet her” (ibid: 212). “Somehow he knew that she wasn’t afraid of being disappointed any longer”.

(ibid: 222)

More than courage, befriending the feared requires trust. Such friendship cannot be fostered unless the basic premise of our ontology allows us to know the world as harmonious, albeit without idealizing it as being completely safe. Rather, as in Kropotkin’s (2006) theory of evolution by means of co-operation and mutual aid and not through struggle and competition, Moomintrolls choose to focus on the prevailing goodness and the striving of beings towards the balance of life, who in the face of threatening forces, meet the challenge with dignity, understanding, and love. For Moomins, the knowledge of how to live can be acquired, transmitted, and safeguarded by entering the world of trees and going through it with confidence and humility (i.e. smallness). Mother’s love and trust in her child’s ability to take care of himself and do things right in a benign, even though constantly moving and changing, universe provides the safe space to learn and explore danger. Moominland thus follows the principles of chaos theory depicting the universe, in spite of the regularity of the constants and despite the particles’ responsiveness to the observer, as also unpredictable and, therefore unknowable, yet harmonious and self organizing (Davies, 1977; Hawking, 1993; Jantsche, 1980).

In spite of civilized claims to have killed God and despite the arrogant attempt of science to conquer nature, even with a few centuries of “development” behind it, civilization still fails to conquer the nature of our dependence on forests and wild spaces. Therefore, the question of our own wilderness is key to our understanding of ourselves and the world. Just like Jansson’s trolls, throughout the scientific and literary narratives we remain specks in an unknown, immense, probably endless universe – or, as some quantum physicists argue, possibly in simultaneous multiverses – where our very survival still depends on indigenous wisdom, such as the Ainu, namely, on whether we succeed in leaving no mark behind and not getting noticed.[51]

The ontological position of wilderness in the Moomin narrative can also be traced in a number of epistemological disciplines about the place of human animals in the world. Science, folklore, art, theology, et al. are all built on fundamental premises that are based either on the ontologies of wilderness or of civilization. The ensuing domains of knowledge may thus depict the human animal as the most powerful and sophisticated ruler of the world or as small, fragile, and dependent on the community of life.

Consistently, civilized societies have valued grandeur, monumental exaggeration in architectural and other endeavours, and throughout history, have dismissed and denigrated the wild understanding that smallness and inconspicuousness are what can save us from harm. Endless world wars are a testimony to that; and the Moomin books themselves owe their genesis to one such war. Defying these civilized values, tiny Moominmamma treads confidently with her child and an adopted foundling through silence and darkness amidst tremendous trees, armed with her trust in the kindness of wilderness, holding in her hand a glowing flower inhabited by a girl with sparkling blue hair. At the end of their odyssey, a bird brings them to Moominpappa atop an enormous tree, a moment of rebirth that brings them home, to movement and chaos, which is harmony and which is life.

Questions of Choice: Discerning the Truth

Jansson integrates and re-imagines the mechanisms of life as told in traditional and scientific narratives, and points to the forest and water not only as the moment of our birth but also as the place of our liberation from history. Since place and characters are in movement, this points to a path of salvation from a world of war and civilization back to paradise: Moomintroll and Moominmamma flee civilization to the world of trees, transcend the underworld with its false seductions, elude giants, meet magical creatures, survive the great flood and, having interacted with everyone they meet in a spirit of serenity, acceptance, mutual trust, and aid,[52] evade violence and, finally, regain the paradise lost.

These steps from civilization to the forest are traced in the first four pages where Moominmamma and Moomintroll adopt the small creature, who in the rest of the books goes by the name Sniff. Tulippa, the glowing flower dweller, joins them on their journey after saving them from the Serpent. Moominmamma explains to them what brought them to the forest.

“You see, we’re looking for a nice, sunny place to build a house in....” (2).... Moominmamma told them stories. She told them about what it was like when she was young, when Moomintrolls did not need to travel through fearsome forests and marshes in order to find a place to live in.

In those days they lived together with the house-trolls in the houses of human beings, mostly behind their stoves. “Some of us still live there now,” said Moominmamma. “But only where people still have stoves. We don’t like central heating.”

“Did the people know we were there?” asked Moomintroll.

“Some of them did,” said his mother. “They felt us mostly as a cold draught in the backs of their necks sometimes – when they were alone”.

(Jansson, 2005: 4)

Right from the start, the reasons that push the Moomintrolls on their exodus weave into the story a critique of technological development: the Moomins were ousted by civilization and its accomplishments in sealing cracks, constructing reliable doors, and switching to electric heating, all of which is driven by human selfishness to keep things to themselves.

These cracks are the gateways between dimensions and having thoroughly sealed them, humans have shut themselves off from interaction with life. Development and technological efficiency thus lead humans to ignorance, since the selfish urge to shut doors to protect possessions (including heat and warmth) keeps the civilized humans out of touch with reality and ignorant of the existence of the Moomins dwelling in those cracks behind the wooden stoves, whose presence they previously had felt as a soft breeze. Civilized, sedentary house-building practices thus displace nonhumans and alienate and segregate the human animals from a mysterious, wild, and intricate world.

This story of exile is reminiscent of earlier variations on the theme, not least the exile from the Garden of Eden, where civilization was meted out as punishment on disobedient, greedy, and impatient humans:

And to Adam [God] said, “Because you have listened to your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return”.

(Genesis 3:17–19)

In the Old Testament, agricultural civilization is an affliction brought about by human disobedience of the laws of life, which cost them the forest and exiled them to a culture of death. Yet the civilized have mostly interpreted this tragedy as a permanent and ineluctable fate and embraced it as triumph.

Jansson refuses this fatalistic view. In the Moomin world, characters have the power to right the wrong that has provoked the wrath of Life, which we are experiencing as climate change and ecocide. Instead, they point us to the possibility of transcending our fears, greed, and limitations, leading us back to the garden of wilderness. Furthermore, Moominmamma’s belief that there is no permanence in what we do challenges the civilized narrative that sees punishment as an ontological and hence inevitable aspect of human experience: We can always change our actions and interactions and can find new paths back to what we are, which is the only constant. Only when there is no intention to change one’s ways do guilt and punishment become permanent and inevitable conditions. Seeing their sin as a permanence, as an unchangeable part of who they are, there can be no forgiveness for the civilized, only eternal guilt. Ultimately, this culture focuses on two choices: obedience and disobedience, but not on the choice to correct the wrong when one discerns the truth. Because one never knows where some choices lead, Moominmamma leaves it up to the individual – be it a child or an adult, from her own species or from another – to decide for herself.

Hence, Moominmamma states explicitly that everyone is invited to join her and her child on their journey but they are also welcome to stay where they are or go somewhere else where they are happier. There are no consequences and no strings attached because the assumption is that none of the creatures is endowed with powers over others or possesses information that is not accessible to others. How can she know more about what is good for the “small creature” than the “small creature” himself, for instance? Moreover, she reassures the children they can always change their minds and come and live with them later.

The small creature thus has the choice to accompany them or stay behind. He chooses to come. Tulippa chooses to go with them too, but when she finds the tower with the sunlit boy, she decides to settle in that lagoon and they bid one another farewell. Snufkin and other characters move in and out as they please. And while voicing her reservations to the old gentleman about liking it inside the mountain, Moominmamma nevertheless specifies they can stay as long as they like and may eat as many desserts as they desire, even though they are looking for the real sun and sea and it is porridge and real food that are good for children.

In the image of a forgiving Goddess or God, a loving parent in Jansson’s universe cannot be punishing and forgiveness becomes the natural state of that world, as it is founded on the premise that all creatures are fundamentally good because they all crave harmony and the balance of life. Lack of experience may lead one astray on account of the unperfected skills of discernment, but this is precisely the reason for reaching out to the child, or anyone else for that matter, so she may hone those skills by diving into the world. It is in this spirit that one learns how to discern truth from falsehood and real from fake.

Moomin books thus integrate the various topoi of punishment and reward, abundance and misery, authenticity and falsehood, and explore the possible ways of understanding them through the perspective of wildness. The characters see through falsehood and possess the strength and wisdom to refuse the deceptive promises of satiation and comfort as promised by civilization in general and specifically by the old gentleman, who invites them to live with him under a fake sun, i.e. electric light, and behind shut doors inside the mountain where he built a world of simulated rivers and trees made of sweet food. This is the only instance in the Moomin books when someone shuts the door in order to leave “danger” out, since in the land of falsehood, distrust is the basis of relationships. Sniff interprets this act as a sign the gentleman himself is not to be trusted, that the kindly, frail old man is perhaps more dangerous than the Serpent, and in his offer of limitless engorgement lies the real danger, the Satan of deception and false hope:

Then [the old gentleman] closed the door very carefully, so that nothing harmful could sneak inside.... “Are you sure this gentleman is to be trusted?” whispered the small creature.... Then a bright light shone towards them, and the moving staircase took them straight into a wonderful landscape. The trees sparkled with colour and were full of fruits and flowers they had never seen before, and below them in the grass lay gleaming white patches of snow. “Hurrah!” cried Moomintroll, and ran out to make a snowball. “Be careful, it’s cold!” called his mother. But when he ran his hands through the snow he noticed that it was not snow at all, but ice cream. And the green grass that gave way under his feet was made of fine-spun sugar. Criss-cross over the meadows ran brooks of every colour, foaming and bubbling over the golden sand. “Green lemonade!” cried the small creature, who had stooped down to drink. “It’s not water at all, it’s lemonade!” Moominmamma went straight over to a brook that was completely white, since she had always been very fond of milk.... Tulippa ran from tree to tree picking armfuls of chocolate creams and candies, and as soon as she had plucked one of the glowing fruits, another grew at once. They forgot their sorrows and ran further and further into the enchanted garden. The old gentleman slowly followed them and seemed very pleased by their amazement and admiration. “I made all this myself,” he said. “The sun, too.” And when they looked at the sun, they noticed that it really was not the real sun but a big lamp with fringes of gold paper. “I see,” said the small creature, and was disappointed. “I thought it was the real sun. Now I can see that it has a slightly peculiar light.”

“Well, that was the best I could do,” said the old gentleman, offended. “But you like the garden, don’t you?” “Oh yes,” said Moomintroll....

“If you would like to stay here, I will build you a cake-house to live in,” said the old gentleman....

“That would be very nice,” said Moominmamma, “but ... we must be on our way. We were actually thinking of building a house in the real sunshine”.

(Jansson, 2005: 5)

The old gentleman’s garden, modelled after a real garden, remains only a replica, a falsehood and a substitute for the authentic, which, for Moominmamma, can never replace the real sun, the real sea, or the real trees.

Moominmamma’s refusal to punish and expect obedience confirms the wildness of her philosophy, for she is concerned only with the children’s well-being, safety, and happiness. The minute their tummies get upset from feasting on the fake, sugary food, she rushes to help them. The children prove right Moominmamma’s fundamental premise that loved, trusted, and happy creatures turn out to be good, responsible, and kind beings, and they eagerly leave as soon as they realize the falseness of the experience and the impossibility of the truly Original Affluent Society existing trapped behind shut doors with fake substitutes. Together they turn down the invitation and choose the real world with open doors.

When she woke up again she heard a fearful moaning, and realized at once that it was her Moomintroll, who had a sore stomach ... Beside him sat the small creature, who had got toothache from all the sweets, and was moaning even worse. Moominmamma did not scold, but took two powders from her handbag and gave them each one, and then she asked the old gentleman if he had a bowl of nice, hot porridge.

“No, I’m afraid not,” he said. “But there’s a bowl of whipped cream, and another one of jam.”

“Hm,” said Moominmamma. “Porridge is good for them, you see: hot food is what they need. Where’s Tulippa?”

“She says she can’t get to sleep because the sun never goes down,” said the old gentleman, looking unhappy. “I’m truly sorry that you don’t like it here.”

... “But now I think I must see to it that we get out in the fresh air again.” And then she took Moomintroll by one hand, and the small creature by the other, and called for Tulippa. “You’ll do best to take the switch-back railway,” said the old gentleman politely. “It goes right through the mountain and comes out in the middle of the sunshine.”

“Thank you,” said Moominmamma. “Goodbye then.” “Goodbye then,” said Tulippa. (Moomintroll and the small creature were not able to say anything, as they felt so horribly sick.)....

When they came out on the other side they were quite giddy and sat on the ground for a long time, recovering. Then they looked around them.

Before them lay the sea, glittering in the sunshine. “I want to go for a bathe!” cried Moomintroll, for now he felt all right again. “Me too,” said the small creature, and then they ran right out into the sun’s beam on the water.

(Jansson, 2005: 6)

Interestingly, when the Moomin books open with this choice between the fake and the real, Dunno’s trilogy ends with a similar image. After his adventures inside the moon, Dunno gets seriously homesick and almost dies in capitalism and without the real sun, the blue skies, and the soft and fragrant grass. The only way to save him is for the Mites to rush him home to earth.

Dunno took a few faltering steps, but immediately collapsed to his knees and then falling face down, began to kiss the earth. His hat flew off his head. Tears rolled from his eyes. And he whispered:

• My mother, my land! I will never forget you!

The red sun gently warmed him with its rays, the fresh breeze ruffled his hair as if caressing his head. And it appeared to him as if some incredible huge feeling has overwhelmed his heart. He did not know what to call this feeling, but knew that it was good and that nothing better existed in the whole world. He nestled his chest against the earth as though it was someone dear and close, and felt the strength return to him and the sickness leave all by itself.

Finally, he wept all the tears he had and got up from the ground and burst out in merry laughter when he saw his friend-Mites joyfully greeting their native Land.

• Well, brothers, that’s it!– he shouted cheerfully. –And now we can start off on another journey!

This is the kind of Mite Dunno was.

(Nosov, 1985(b): 221–22; translation mine)

For both Nosov and Jansson, even with all its risks and uncertainties, reality is the only viable option and, hence, one author chooses to end his narrative with the characters regaining the real world after a miserable experience in civilization inside the moon and the other author decides to begin with this same question of civilization versus reality. For both, this choice is a matter of life and death.

Nosov’s Mites of Flower Town also share Moominmamma’s position on the question of forgiveness and acceptance. Whether in Flower Town, Greenville Town, or Sunny City, Mites extend forgiveness and help. Hence, Doono and his mates go to the moon to save Dunno from his own folly, even though he had (unintentionally) stolen their rocket, which is what got him stranded in the capitalist Mite society inside the moon, in the first place. Both the Mites and the Moomins assume that even when actions provoke undesirable consequences, the intentions behind them are nonetheless good, and hence the trust, support, and love of the community can provide the understanding and strength needed to correct the mistakes.

Therefore, the minute Moominmamma and the children realize the deception of sugary abundance and artificial light threatens their lives, they choose to continue their search for the true and the real. As they leave the dangerous illusion of safety in the centre of the mountain, they climb out into a sunny world full of life and trees, a world where they find their father in the tree of life. “There, on one of the highest branches of an enormous tree sat a wet, sad Moomintroll, staring out over the water. Beside him he had tied a distress flag. He was so amazed and delighted when the marabou stork landed in the tree, and the whole of his family climbed down on to the branches, that he could not say a word” (Jansson, 2005: 16). The following morning they walk together into the valley where the flood current has planted the home that Moominpappa had built elsewhere.

Jansson thus maps her conception of the nature of being as a non-spatial but qualitative trajectory from where we are to what we are, a path that is revealed to us as we embrace wilderness and renounce civilization. This trajectory is expressed in the first question that appears in the book in the fifth paragraph: “What are you?” the small creature asks when he meets Moominmamma and Moomintroll – not “Who are you?”

The problem here is not one of identity but of matter and nature. There was an implicit question before this one when Moomintroll wondered whether there were dangerous creatures and Moominmamma responded, “Hardly”, which also ties in with the nature of the creatures of the world: What are they? And Moominmamma’s implicit response is: Hardly dangerous, mostly minding their own business.

Furthermore, in contrast to Winnie-the-Pooh, which starts with the act of naming, Jansson makes a point of refusing to name. Hence, proper names in Moominvalley are names of the types of creatures: the snorks, the moomins, the snufkins, etc. Yet each snufkin is Snufkin and each moomintroll is Moomintroll, with all the individual idiosyncrasies that make them special and the commonalities that bind them together with the common denominator, which is the experience of life and the desire to live. Because the demarcation of space, time, and resources is never a constant, it is change and mobility that ensure a rotation of chances, and thus dominance can never be permanent or totalitarian. Here, chaos, not order and identity, ensures egalitarian biodiversity and the stability of life.

In civilization, the promise of a permanent and infinite supply of food and sugary bliss has provided a potent trope and an effective tool for domestication. Pavlov illustrated the same idea scientifically: First, deny the victim of domestication access to food, then reward her when she does what you want; repeat it enough times for the victim to despair and lose hope for an exit from this situation of abuse. Hence, in medieval feudal Europe, with land expropriated and peasants starving, stories about mythical Cockaigne circulated, where nonhuman animals walked around inviting human animals to slice their ribs and gorge themselves infinitely. Islam and Christianity are the most noted among holy traditions for their promise of rewards after death in terms of guaranteed abundance of food and, in some cases, sex. But they are not alone. Hinduism and Buddhism used to be animist, spirit-oriented faith practices that honoured wilderness and trees as sites of protection for all beings (Gottlieb, 2004). However, as they adopted domesticated paradigms, they implemented the schema of punishment and reward. Their anthropocentric and speciesist position is betrayed by the concept of reward by reincarnation into “higher”, human-like and human, as well as wealthier forms. The Hindu caste system structures this hierarchy through imposed borders between the classes that also established monopolies over knowledge. Furthermore, the notion of sacrifice gets introduced and priests become important figures that represent and mediate for those who no longer can act on their own behalf (Hopkins, 1971). Like Judaism, the religious traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism are older than the more honed and fitted to “contemporary” (namely, civilized) needs the traditions of Islam and Christianity. It is, therefore, difficult sometimes to detect the civilizing mechanism that drives people towards humanism, agriculture, murder, and the values of avarice. Nonetheless, food, punishment, sacrifice, and reward, together, provide a potent trope that reappears throughout children’s culture as well. Its most notable incarnation occurs in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964).

Considered a classic, Dahl’s story is one of the most widely read 20^th-century children’s books written in English and has been adapted for television and the big screen numerous times, with the latest film released in 2005. Because this brutally civilized perspective predominates in children’s literature in spite of strong criticisms, such as voiced by the NAACP[53] or children’s authors like Eleanor Cameron, I allot considerable space to the discussion of Dahl’s book. It shares the ontology of Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh and stands in stark contrast to the wild premises in Jansson’s and Nosov’s works.

Perils and Traps of Civilization

Competing for Chocolate Slavery in the Unknowledge of Roald Dahl

In contrast to Moominland, where everyone has a choice to join or reject the artificial world of deception and where no permission or tickets are needed to partake in the abundance of the earth and sea, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is built on civilized premises of ownership, exploitation, shut doors, deception, competition, and strict criteria for selecting in-group members and those to be excluded. The plot of Dahl’s book centres around a lottery contest, slavery, the desire for control in general and particularly of food production, and the generation of incessant craving for artificially produced food: “[Charlie] desperately wanted something more filling and satisfying than cabbage and cabbage soup. The one thing he longed for more than anything else was … CHOCOLATE” (Dahl, 1973: 8).

The pyramidal structure of social relations in the Chocolate Factory is framed right from the beginning with the announcement of a lottery: Millions of chocolate bars are to be sold, but only a handful of tickets (ten in the first version of the book and five in the revised 1973 edition) are placed inside the wraps granting admission to the secretive chocolate factory, the doors of which have been shut to visitors for years. Of these winners, only one, the most obedient participant, will be selected as Willy Wonka’s successor. This is a well-known and widely used marketing ruse that appeals to the sense of greed and nurtures it. The goal of any contest is for one, sometimes two or three persons or teams, to win and many – all the other – people or teams to lose, i.e. the winner wins at the expense of the many who lose.

On the psychological and emotive levels, giving a prize to one sends the message to the others that they are not quite “it”, they are inferior and this inferiority is a precondition for the superiority of the winner. Simply, without losers there can be no winners. Furthermore, the winner gets what everyone else loses: money, recognition, symbolic capital. There would be no point in competing if the prizes were to be distributed equally among the participants. Contests and competitions reconfirm hierarchy as “natural” and serve as rituals and reminders of the place of the many losers in the pyramidal hierarchy. In this respect, even if lottery and gambling depend on luck and, therefore, are slightly less damaging for self-esteem than contests and examinations, which evaluate intellectual prowess, a physical ability, or degrees of beauty, the situation is nevertheless an artificial set-up that reconfirms to the participants that, in this world, only a few win, and the rest lose.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory reinstates this order with a sadistic zeal and translates the civilized hierarchy into a tale of adventure in which most readers, even though for the most part they lose in the real world (pure probability), nevertheless cheer for the one winner to snatch it all. There are several steps in this seemingly paradoxical indulgence. The first step is for the readers to be convinced by the explanations provided for the reasons the main character deserves to win. They find them convincing because they identify themselves with the traits that, in the spirit of the civilized tradition of double standards, are depicted as positive in favour of the winner while the same qualities become negative in the losers. Thus, even if everybody is greedy in Dahl’s book – they all want to inherit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory – Charlie emerges as the only deserving character, and he keeps the prize greedily to himself, that is, he keeps it in the direct, blood-defined family and does not share it with “others”, or does not “squander the wealth”, while everyone else’s greed earns them torture, even Veruca Salt, who only wants one single slave, a single chocolate river, or just one hard-working squirrel. Since the readers see themselves as deserving the prize, they agree with the argument that the hero deserves to win. Yet the way real-life competitions are set, the majority of the readers lose most of the time and so the next step is for them to identify themselves with the losers.

The contradictions between the postulates, material goals, and idealized values of civilization fit the symptoms of schizophrenia, when a person is incapable of connecting logical dots between reality and the imagined or desired understanding of reality.[54] These contradictions between facts, images, desires, and words are irresolvable. At first glance, the act of witnessing the elimination of the losers offers comfort within a system the basic premise of which is dispossession and punishment, because it reconfirms to the witnesses they are not the only ones to have been defeated, i.e. punished for their inferiority. Concomitantly, they experience a sense of relief that, even though they feel they personally merit punishment (after all, the inferior deserve to be deprived), they nevertheless have managed to escape and someone else (a symbol of their inferiority) gets punished instead. Perhaps the losers need a justification for the injustice, even though it is not always a conscious affair; they need an explanation that there are good reasons for why there (they) are losers and it becomes an acceptable explanation that, “in any case, naturally, only one is destined to snatch the wreath of glory”.

The popularity of the book also demonstrates that readers may find some masochistic comfort in watching the losers receive unimaginably sadistic punishments for wanting what everybody wants in a society that cuts off access to vital resources and locks them behind doors. Even if the readers know the literary exaggerations are not “real”, in this enjoyment and laughter that the cruelty evokes, there is still an element of self-castigation for wanting that which they feel guilty to want.

Since civilization has naturalized violence and normalized infliction of pain, deep inside the civilized know their acceptance to suffer themselves and torture others is what has cost them their paradise and the love of the world. Guilt is a concomitant of civilization because both are contingent on the premise of permanence that makes possible the conception of property rights, hereditary laws, identity, character, genes, and the desire to achieve immortality while exterminating the rest of the living world. In contrast, if people saw their actions as changeable – like Moominmamma telling her children they are not obliged to stick with their choice, that they can still change their minds and the option to leave and heal is still available to them – there would be no syndrome of guilt as a constant. Impotence and identity crisis become a problem when people fail to see the possibility to change their actions and to redirect their desires. As guilt becomes a socially constructed permanence, seeing someone receiving punishment brings relief because, symbolically, the guilty losers themselves get punished and that punishment, in their civilized logic, sets things temporarily right. Yet evading that punishment personally (since the scapegoat or the symbol receives it instead) also sets things wrong. The sacrifice becomes an integral aspect of institutional symbolism because punishing the victim, chosen to represent and symbolize everyone who deserves to be punished, becomes the ritual of temporary relief constantly re-enacted in a culture of perpetual guilt, while the symbolic yet real victim becomes the scapegoat who is the vital and ultimate loser. In the end, the root of the problem lies in the failure of the civilized to connect their obsessions with possessions and the feeling of guilt with their conception of life as an eternal competition for the survival of the fittest.

In “The Original Affluent Society”, Marshall Sahlins (1974) argues the civilized conception of poverty and affluence is an inversion of reality. According to him, people who view the world as generous have modest needs. Their ideal of satisfaction becomes easy to attain and it becomes pointless to hoard and possess, for there will always be aplenty tomorrow. Obsessions and avarice occur in the truly poor societies – the civilized world – that view the world as unkind, where expectations are never realized, never meant to be realized, and this lack stimulates the perpetual greed, fear, and inequality.

One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, starvation is an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture.

This paradox is my whole point. Hunters and gatherers have by force of circumstances an objectively low standard of living. But taken as their objective, and given their adequate means of production all the people’s material wants usually can be easily satisfied....

The world’s most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilization. It has grown with civilization, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any winter camp of Alaskan Eskimo.

(Sahlins, 1974: 36–38)

In a consumer (i.e. civilized) society, people see the world as miserly and life as struggle, which justifies locked doors and private property and, in turn, causes extensive deprivation and suffering. In such a world, it would be unthinkable to open the gates of the chocolate factory and share the chocolate with all the human and other animal children. Instead there has to be a ceremony that reconfirms the naturalness of injustice. Thus, while legitimating greed in a few, the civilized society chooses a handful of others for a public display of punishment, even cannibalism. Hence, Augustus becomes chocolate fudge and Violet turns into a blueberry for wanting what Willy Wonka has and what Charlie gets, because those who have lost to the winners themselves constitute “food” (resources) for the winner. Finally, the functioning of this system is ensured when the losers accept their status and get consumed either as workforce, as the consumers who keep buying things, or as ingredients in Charlie and Willy Wonka’s profitable venture.

Dahl justifies the cruel and humiliating punishments by depicting the eliminated contestants as disobedient to Willy Wonka’s orders. For Willy Wonka demands total obedience and explicitly states he wants a malleable person without a will (i.e. the civilized definition of child).

There are thousands of clever men who would give anything for a chance to come in and take over from me, but I don’t want that sort of person. I don’t want a grown-up person at all. A grown-up won’t listen to me; he won’t learn. He will try to do things his own way and not mine. So I have to have a child.... I decided to invite five children to the factory, and the one I liked the best at the end of the day would be the winner!.

(Dahl, 1973: 157)

The book works as an instrument of domestication and, contrary to Moominland in which empathy and acceptance, even of the horrible, is key to life, the appeal for Dahl’s book stems from the reader’s alienation from the suffering of the children who get beaten and consumed.

There are different methods of forcing the domestic/ated to comply with the will of the domesticator. Withdrawal of approval and love is one tactic, and administration of pain and other emotional and physical tortures is another. Alternating hunger with promises of relief and then relieving it when the child or the animal conforms to the will of the trainer, then inducing it again, finally securing future co-operation with reminders of the threats and intimidation also constitute some of the methods of torture and civilization. In school, grades play this role as bad grades threaten with future poverty. However, institutionalized abuse only makes sense in the context of systemic exploitation, which demands a person be obedient and changeable. Otherwise, who cares if a child learns how to please persons with authority (e.g. teachers, adults, Willy Wonkas, etc.) or if a horse understands “go”?

Societies that embrace wilderness do not have a purpose for changing someone else’s behaviour because they have no ownership over the other’s life, effort, or the fruits of her labour, and hence they have no place for punishment in their ontology. In fact, many such societies have lived for millions of years with no place allotted for punishment or other forms of institutional violence. The fact that societies without governments or figures of authority that structure the exploitation of others as “resources”, notably the Semai, still exist demonstrates violence is neither indispensable for survival nor an intrinsic feature of life. Perhaps a corollary, the Semai are noted for the fact that they never punish their children. These children grow into responsible members of the community precisely because their care-givers follow the principles that prohibit all forms of punishment and cruelty against children as well as the animals they raise, the consumption of whom is considered cannibalism (Dentan, 1968).

In this respect, even though the Moomin books are fictional, their ontology can be traced in ethnographic reports of viable communities who have survived despite the globalized genocides of human and other animal peoples at the hands of the civilized. Contrary to Moominland, even the “tamed” and scaled down 1973 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory presents punishment, hierarchy, and discrimination as based on some presumed essential inferiority of the resources (such as slaves) and depicts abuse not only as natural but also as coveted by both the abusers and the abused themselves. As the reader is invited to join the tour of the mysterious factory through the experiences of the lottery winners, she learns the dark secret behind the factory doors that makes Willy Wonka’s production the best and most famous in the world: slaves – animal slaves in the persons of the squirrels and human slaves in the persons of the Oompa-Loompas.

The text still favourably refers to slavery in the revised edition, even though the human slaves were transformed from the dark-skinned pygmies in the earlier version into the rosy-white dwarfs in the revised book and are no longer from Africa but

“[i]mported direct from Loompaland,” said Mr. Wonka proudly (Dahl, 1973: 73). “... I shipped them all over here, every man, woman, and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe. It was easy. I smuggled them over in large packing cases with holes in them.... They are wonderful workers.

They all speak English now. They love dancing and music”.

(ibid: 76)

Positive descriptions of any form of slavery, human or animal, black or white in a book, especially a children’s book, raises questions about the ethical principles in the book industry as well as about the moral stance of its readership. It becomes even more puzzling since, having applied some cosmetic touches in the revised version, Dahl left intact the Africa-specific fauna and raw material. The favourable depiction of slavery and its products clearly alludes to the historical interracial relations between capitalist/civilized economies and exploited colonies, explicitly the chocolate and sugar plantations and, implicitly, everything else.

The book tells us that these “primitive”, “miserable”, “wild” creatures welcome the colonial master because they are incapable of making anything good out of what is available in their own Loompaland. These natives, we are told, are impotent idiots who can only dream of eating the food that actually grows around them and their country is depicted as a terrible place from where goodness can only be extracted with the right (white male) colonial management. “And what a terrible country it is! Nothing but thick jungles infested by the most dangerous beasts in the entire world.... A whangdoodle would eat ten Oompa-Loompas for breakfast and come galloping back for a second helping. When I went out there, I found the little Oompa-Loompas living in tree-houses. They had to live in tree-houses to escape from the whangdoodles.... And they were practically starving to death. They were living on green caterpillars, and the caterpillars tasted revolting, and the Oompa-Loompas spent every moment of their days climbing through the treetops looking for other things to mash up with the caterpillars to make them taste better – red beetles, for instance, and eucalyptus leaves, and the bark of the bong-bong tree, all of them beastly, but not quite so beastly as the caterpillars. Poor little Oompa-Loompas! The one food that they longed for more than any other was the cacao bean. But they couldn’t get it. An OompaLoompa was lucky if he found three or four cacao beans a year. But oh, how they craved them. They used to dream about cacao beans all night and talk about them all day. You had only to mention the word ‘cacao’ to an Oompa-Loompa and he would start dribbling at the mouth. The cacao bean,” Mr. Wonka continued, “which grows on the cacao tree, happens to be the thing from which all chocolate is made.... I myself use billions of cacao beans every week in this factory. And so, my dear children, as soon as I discovered that the Oompa-Loompas were crazy for this particular food, I climbed up to their tree-house village and poked my head in through the door of the tree house belonging to the leader of the tribe. The poor little fellow, looking thin and starved, was sitting there trying to eat a bowl full of mashed-up green caterpillars without being sick. ‘Look here,’ I said (speaking not in English, of course, but in Oompa-Loompish), ‘look here, if you and all your people will come back to my country and live in my factory, you can have all the cacao beans you want! I’ve got mountains of them in my storehouses! You can have cacao beans for every meal! ... I’ll even pay your wages in cacao beans if you wish!’

“‘You really mean it?’ asked the Oompa-Loompa leader, leaping up from his chair.

“‘Of course I mean it,’ I said. ‘And you can have chocolate as well. Chocolate tastes even better than cacao beans because it’s got milk and sugar added.’

“The little man gave a great whoop of joy and threw his bowl of mashed caterpillars right out of the tree-house window. ‘It’s a deal!’ he cried. ‘Come on! Let’s go!’

“So I shipped them all over here, every man, woman, and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe. It was easy. I smuggled them over in large packing cases with holes in them, and they all got here safely. They are wonderful workers. They all speak English now. They love dancing and music. They are always making up songs. I expect you will hear a good deal of singing today from time to time. I must warn you, though, that they are rather mischievous. They like jokes. They still wear the same kind of clothes they wore in the jungle. They insist upon that. The men, as you can see for yourselves across the river, wear only deerskins. The women wear leaves, and the children wear nothing at all. The women use fresh leaves every day. …”

“Daddy!” shouted Veruca Salt. “Daddy! I want an Oompa-Loompa! I want an Oompa-Loompa right away! I want to take it home with me!”. …

(Dahl, 1973: 73–77; italics mine)

Now, as a thought experiment, imagine a best-selling children’s book depicting an Arab sheikh poking his head into the window of an American, Canadian, or European home.

What he sees shocks him: miserable people and their children eating processed food, while there are pears growing all over the place and when it is pears they crave the most. “Oh, look at those poor, skinny fellows,” says the sheikh. “Living in this horrible land. And all those pears are growing around them and they can’t even have them. I feel so sorry for you. If you come with me to Arabia and work for me in my factory making pear pies, you can have all the pears you want”.

When the tiny, skinny, and miserable American, Canadian, or European chief sees the sheikh’s face and learns of his magnanimous intentions to save him from his misery, he welcomes the liberator and begs the sheikh to deliver all of the Americans, Canadians, or Europeans from their atrocious lot. Guided by the generosity of his heart, the sheikh grabs every child, woman, and man in the country, sticks them in a crate, pokes holes in it, and smuggles them into Arabia where they live happily ever after in his factory, receive pears for wages, speak Arabic, and sing and dance.

No such children’s book exists, undoubtedly because the network of international academics, literary critics, and the publishing industry is not run by Arabs. And even if such a book did manage to come into existence, the Eurocentric and North-American perspective would denounce the message, point to the poor, propagandistic quality of such a text, and categorize it along with “enemy” (e.g. al-Qaeda or Taliban) propaganda in which the sheikh would be labelled Hussein or Bin Laden – and we all know what happens to those kinds of people and their little helpers.

This experimental version shares the perspective of Dahl’s story, only here one ethnic group substitutes another: i.e. it is based on exactly the same stereotypes, the same level of propaganda, and violence. Yet it is not the denigration, objectification, and double-standards in this alternative variant that evoke the nervous laughter of surprise during most of my academic presentations on the subject; rather it is the Animal Farm outcome or the prospect of The Planet of the Apes. For the most part, the audience is horrified by the possibility that a persecuted (previously, and often still, colonized) people might do to the oppressor what the oppressor has been doing to them all along. It is this tacit and omnipresent knowledge and fear that drive the violent acts of racism and speciesism. The people in positions of power have no need to panic or to commit the actual acts themselves, since by holding the key to oppression, they can easily convince the disempowered to act on their behalf for a little compensation. The people in power actually refer to themselves as “philanthropists”. The deprived then fill the ranks of armies, mercenaries, or commit racist and other phobic crimes.

Nazi skinheads illustrate this case perfectly, for the majority of skinheads come from disadvantaged backgrounds and perceive their engagement in racist violence as participation in war. Both the skinheads and nationstates operate from the same principles. For the first, the social construct of race provides the justification for white violence against “others”, while in nation-state violence nationality determines the enemy lines. In both cases, the economy plays a critical role. For nation-states war is fought over control of “resources”. And, according to research, skinheads are drawn from poor homes and thus class informs their identity and identification with violence (Baron, 1997).Violence thus sets the tone for social relationships through a concrete socio-economic, political, and educational structure of separation and identity politics, and Dahl’s book incorporates all of these aspects.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was translated into thirty-two languages (Billsberry and Gilbert, 2008) and awarded numerous prizes and nominations, even for the first, overtly racist version. In 1972, it received the New England Round Table of Children’s Librarians Award in the U.S. and, in 1973, the same version received the Surrey School Award in the U.K. The revised version received two more awards in the U.K.: in 2000, the Millennium Children’s Book Award and the Blue Peter Book Award. Moreover, in “Using Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory To Teach Different Recruitment and Selection Paradigms”, Jon Billsberry and Louise H. Gilbert (2008) have developed a workshop in management education on how to apply both the book and its 2005 film adaptation to teach management hiring strategies and to work out a competitive process based on strict selection criteria. However, this system of “golden tickets” and the marginalization of large numbers of people is nothing new. It has already been successfully implemented in colonial economies and, as pedagogical material, has been applied in schools, universities, and their funding programs, as well as in the “real working world”. In Billsberry and Gilbert’s words:

The story triumphs the ambition, achievements, and values (e.g., innovation and honesty) of the factory owner, Willy Wonka. Since its publication, the name of Willy Wonka has become a byword for innovation, and the chocolate factory is the epitome of a successful but unconventional work environment and organizational culture, as the following example illustrates.... In this way Wonka reveals the nature of his KSAs: He wants someone with particular terminal values (i.e., end states values), such as a belief that life should be fun and work should be “magic,” and instrumental values (i.e., ways of behaving), such as ingenuity, creativity, and common sense.

(Billsberry and Gilbert, 2008)

First, calling the slavery paradigm “unconventional” is a sign of ignorance, since slavery has existed as an institution since the birth of civilization and in its, relatively speaking, contemporary incarnation for 500 years. Second, celebrating slavery and neo-colonialism speaks for the unwavering stance of those who manage civilization. Third, what the “human resource management” means by “terminal” and “instrumental values” is that the coerced workers should find their exploitation magical and fun.

In contrast to Jansson, in both versions of his book Dahl depicts the forest as a deplorable place, the freedom to look for one’s food as a detestable feat, and presents slavery as a happy and desirable lot for the Oompa-Loompas (though not for Charlie and Willy Wonka). The narrative tells us it is “natural” for Oompa-Loompas to fail to access cacao beans – “an Oompa-Loompa was lucky if he found three or four beans a year” (Dahl, 1973: 73) – even though these plants and sugar are native to their land. But despite coming from a country where cacao beans do not grow, we are told there is nothing strange or perverse about Willy Wonka’s possession of unlimited supplies of the colonial products and nothing obscene in the power he enjoys in offering the Oompa-Loompas, in exchange for their lives, the beans that grow in their own homeland.

Furthermore, because they are so grateful, docile, and hard working, the reader is told, the cheerful and dim-witted Oompa-Loompas are in high demand, yet only the deserving have the right to possess them. Veruca Salt’s desire to acquire an Oompa-Loompa, a chocolate river, and a squirrel sends her down the garbage chute, revealing the various niches in the hierarchy of slavery, ownership, and punishment: the “docile savage” gets to work, the “greedy competitor” gets eliminated. Thus, hierarchy and injustice are explained, justified, and reconfirmed, and the civilized reader finds satisfaction in the resolution and praises the book as one of the best exemplars of civilized children’s literature.

This narrative normalizes discrimination, cruelty, and injustice, and, within this logic, slavery (human and animal) emerges as a natural aspect of order. The forest, as topos of civilized existence, becomes a dangerous place, even though in the real world it allows wilderness to prosper, for the forest and water are the source of life in all its diversity and plenitude. In real life, the forest provides independence, since there is no reason for human and nonhuman animals to work for a master in a place where they are capable of procuring their livelihood. If a hierarchical, civilized order is to prevail, however, it is necessary to domesticate the independent places, and a narrative of struggle and competition depicting independence as dangerous supports that end. Ultimately, this works in the same way as the symbolic/real punishment: i.e. the narrative of horror overwrites the reality of joy and the ritual of competition naturalizes the process of selecting rulers from a specific group of human animals while the rest, due to their assumed natural inadequacy, are relegated to servitude, a category justified by the narrative that depicts them as incapable of surviving, even in their own environments, without a slave-owner or, in the terminology of business administration, without management.

For obvious reasons, Dahl fails to draw the connection between starvation and private property and instead blames the victim for not being able to make anything of worth when, in reality, this is an artificial, socially imposed injustice when crops and lives have been stolen from the dispossessed and sealed behind locked doors. Evidently, if the foreigner, Willy Wonka, owns endless supplies of sugar and cacao beans while the natives cannot access what naturally grows in their land, it is because that land and its crops have been stolen by the foreigner Willy Wonka. And Willy Wonka will always remain “foreign” to the Oompa-Loompas since he is rooted in a system that imposes unequal, parasitic relationships of consumption and destroys their habitat and community of life.

But according to the book’s logic, if to the stolen land and crops one adds children, women, and men kidnapped for the purpose of slavery, that will make the Oompa-Loompas happy and thereby will right the wrong. Willy Wonka is happy. Everybody is happy, and if there are readers who get depressed by this unbearable joy, well, they can get treated with chocolate, literature, and pills. And, if they fail to access chocolate, literature, and pills, it only demonstrates that they are losers. For a reader to find Dahl’s scenario sensible – and the prizes and the sales of the book attest that millions of people, in fact, do – certain cerebral, moral, and emotive skills such as empathy or general reason must have atrophied or been prevented from developing.

Some contemporary children’s literary theoreticians take a clear stand against the racism and slavery in the book. John Rowe Townsend in Written for Children: An Outline of English Language Children’s Literature (1965) and Brycchan Carey (2003) in Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays (ed. Giselle Liza Anatol) offer important critiques comparing and contrasting Dahl’s book to Rowling’s motifs of slavery in Harry Potter books. For the most part, however, critics either fail to notice this problem or intentionally ignore it.

“Neutrality” in the context of systemic disempowerment is not neutral, particularly when the speaker is a public voice. In this context, claiming to be a neutral observer or admirer of a work built on fundamentally unethical premises makes the speaker complicit with the oppressive position of the artist, author, or scientist whose basic postulates are immoral. Neutrality is acquiescence to the doxa of hierarchical power and parasitic relationships. Hence, unless one benefits from systemic abuse, how can anyone admire the “formidable intelligence” (Hunt, 2001: 56–57) of a “highly skilful writer” (ibid: 56) who dexterously depicts slavery, kidnapping, and extermination, like Dahl does, and find aesthetic aspects to it? Public admiration of Mein Kampf, for instance, could strip a person of Canadian citizenship and other rights, such as freedom.[55] Given the gravity of the holocaust committed against African and other indigenous and nomadic populations around the world, it is puzzling that the fundamental precepts of Mein Kampf, translated for children into a book such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, continue to be praised. More serious than praise, however, is the call to ignore the gravity of the ethical foundation of the work, such as expressed by children’s literary scholar Peter Hunt in his lament for the lack of “serious analysis or discussion ... beyond polemic for or against” (ibid), even though “Dahl is probably the most successful worldwide children’s author of the twentieth century, surpassed in sales only by the far more prolific Enid Blyton, and his popularity must say a great deal about and to the culture” (ibid). Blyton’s “bad Gollywogs called Nigger” (ibid: 256) were characteristic of their time, writes Hunt. Because censorship was unfair towards the diary of Anne Frank and towards homosexuals, the text states, “Roald Dahl’s black pygmy slaves in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) might well have escaped notice even ten years before” (ibid: 257), particularly since, according to the author, it is hard to find classic works that are not racist or sexist.

The “standards” of literary criticism calling for an “unbiased” examination and demanding theoreticians “rise above” the political “controversies”, lest their texts be deemed propagandistic or political, help mask the systemic silencing and objectification of those who are denied access to public speech. This allows the abuser to speak from that space of privilege on behalf of the abused. This dynamic automatically renders the speaker on the side of power, in whose interests it is to silence its victims because it depends on their abuse. Hence, anything the privileged say or leave unsaid only reinforces the power structures. Whether intended or not, a call for studies of Dahl’s book to ignore its economic and political ramifications becomes a call for collaboration with the oppressive forces of the holocaust.

A former editor of children’s books, Laura Atkins presented her research findings on racism in the publishing industry, where she observes that white privilege is ingrained in the disposition, comprehension, identification with, and value of white narratives, experience, mores, and characters. Atkins observes that works by people of colour are rarely read carefully by editors or marketing agents because these authors are assumed to be so burdened by racism and oppression that they are not capable of producing anything of interest (Atkins, 2009). However, even in the case when someone is so overburdened by oppression that she is incapable of producing anything but a narrative on oppression, the fact that those who are in a position of privilege (which is always at the expense of this oppression) do not find that narrative interesting or even relevant to the lives of the people who do not perceive themselves as oppressed, in itself says a great deal about silencing, the symbolic and real economy of suffering, apathy, and the production of literature.

Furthermore, the phenomenon of Dahl and his public reception indicates that racism, discrimination, infliction of pain, and humiliation are not unfortunate side effects or insignificant characteristics of civilized society; they are in high demand and are essential elements of the mechanism that regulates the unjust economy. If we trust sales to be indicative of their importance, it becomes evident that they are central to civilized ontology and, unless these are abolitionist novels such as Alex Haley’s Roots or Christopher Paul Curtis’ Elijah, the slave-master relations are mostly presented in literature and theory as natural, even filled with gladness.

As mentioned earlier, to find plausible a causal connection between enslavement and happiness one must be able to alienate oneself from the experience of the enslaved human or nonhuman animal and develop callousness. Identification plays an important role in this process as it provides for an effective mechanism for generating apathy. Here, civilized ontology provides the criteria for the selection and identification of specimens as belonging to different categories, a process that formulates identity and limits the spectrum of choices for certain groups. Kinship systems reflect these categories and in civilization set in motion inequalities rooted in division of labour and “physiological” indicators of gender, race, species, etc. While clearly articulated in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this foundation is often veiled in other books such as Winnie-the-Pooh.

Constructing Identity

The Civilized Chore of Cleaning out the Debris of Wilderness

Identification is a complex process by which a person recognizes certain shared traits or experiences in the other. Concomitantly, by identifying oneself with “fixed” categories, one also finds oneself cut off from the emotive and economic networks of other categories. Identification thus helps people rationalize inequality and structure bullying by identifying individuals and categories that facilitate their classification on a scale of inferiority and superiority and in terms of “in-group” and “outsiders”. Hence, identification enables the identifier or the knower to erase individual personality traits, aspirations, self-knowledge, knowledge, and contexts by superimposing a general set of “descriptions” to explain the motivations, actions, culture, and other aspects of life in the way the identifier sees fit. Such practice of silencing and effacement curtails the social and physical mobility of the persons assigned to the identified group. Atkins’ examples from the publishing industry, discussed earlier, illustrate this point: If black people are oppressed, it signals to those who do not perceive themselves as oppressed and who control the public voice (such as editors, publishers, and “representatives” who speak on behalf of others) that most black people as a group cannot be equal participants in the creation of material and symbolic culture on par with the writers who are perceived as not oppressed or who, if oppressed, do not threaten the empowered with their oppression.

Thus, “knowledge” of “oppression” legitimates further abuse and marginalization of the oppressed, locking them in a claustrophobic space with no exit and no voice. This essentialist rationale equally applies to the “exceptions-to-the-rule”, which are often taken to prove the rule. It prohibits those who are empowered to build personalized knowledge of the other’s experience by actually listening to that voice, empathizing with that experience, and engaging in a dialogue of equals. Semiotics and grammar impede understanding and dialogue, which can occur only if both interlocutors approach each encounter as a unique occurrence.

Not only do the empowered remain deaf to and ignorant of the experience of the oppressed, no matter how perverse and outrageous, they present exploitation of the disempowered as an act of altruism. In civilized logic, the powerful help the disempowered, the weak and the helpless, by exploiting their needs, fears, time, and effort for pay that keeps them disempowered and in need because it is necessarily lower than how much the exploiter earns. This inequality allows the exploiter to continue to gain earnings above and beyond whatever the victim receives. That is, the victim is recompensed in a way commensurate to what the “market” or the “employer”, i.e. the oppressor, identifies as the victim’s worth, based on the category ascribed to her. These categories, identification, and hierarchy have been naturalized and drilled into people from birth. Therefore, even when, on the level of ideology, the reader dismisses a book like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as funny fiction: “Of course we all know this is not real”, nonetheless, on the level of doxa, the reader identifies with these disparities and injustices as normal socio-economic relations and takes the author’s word at face value that a portion of cacao beans offers a satisfactory pay cheque to the likes of Oompa-Loompas.

The socially constructed concept of weakness plays into the power structure of hierarchy and further exploits the lack of agency, rendering the exploited victim even weaker and in debt but rationalizing this as the nature of human and other animal relations. The rationale amounts to: If the victim is little and miserable, he or she deserves to be a victim and miserable (the Oompa-Loompas are short and, before Willy Wonka’s “rescue”, are abject). This economy of discrimination is founded on the myth that natural selection would have exterminated the weak, but civilization made the powerful humane because they have supposedly permitted the weak to live. Therefore, the argument goes, the weak, the short, the silenced, and the disempowered owe the empowered people for having been allowed to live, which they supposedly could not have done had the empowered abstained from exploiting them. The economy of discrimination is thus a priori an economy of debt and obligation. The short people are seen as undeserving of the same monetary appreciation as tall people because they owe the tall people; the darker people owe the lighter people; the women owe the men; the Zulu are indebted to the Dutch; the animals to humanity; ad infinitum.

Defining the victim as owing and in debt also constructs the image of the poor as potentially dangerous parasites whose needs threaten the powerful people’s symbolic and material possessions. The master thus not only identifies the slave’s worth but also defines the terms for and the meaning of the slave’s existence, which surprisingly (or not) happens to be contingent on the master’s profit. Here, the good slave is the happy, singing one, the one who gladly accepts this category and this lot, obeys the master, expresses gratitude for slavery, and harbours no aspiration for agency over her life.

Identity thus creates satisfied resources but also turns people into murder weapons that help colonize the resources. Both the legal and illegal groups specialized in violence mark their group identities. For instance, sociologist Edwin Sutherland published a professional thief’s journal in which he highlights the strong code of honour binding the underground networking between professional thieves throughout the U.S. of the 1930s (Sutherland, 1937). Studies like those of Francis Lord (1960) or Mark Dunkelman (2004) talk about the strong identity and code of honour in the military, where soldiers often use tattooing and body markings, just like their illegal counterparts such as the Mafia, as symbols of belonging to their regiment or division. These distinctions make everyone else an outsider and a potential threat to the group. None of these groups would be effective as killing machines without these strong convictions and justifications for group violence, symbolism, and identity.

Citizenship is another example that illustrates how identity is tightly interwoven with the rights to economic and social participation. Categories of “illegal alien” and “citizen” bind human and other animals to specific zones and occupations. Thus, Turks become illegal if they enter Germany without a visa but everyone knows they would do the jobs “German” people prefer not to do; Roma are ousted from most economies; Mexicans are captured for hard labour camps to build the wall in the U.S. south against themselves, the “illegal aliens”; and so forth. Since, in a domesticated order, most people constitute resources, identity becomes the fundamental expression of the structure of civilization, with nationalism, racism, sexism, and speciesism as its most notorious manifestations in which plants, insects, animals, and many people, mostly of colour, occupy the lowest ranks in civilized economic networks. Personal identity alienates individuals from each other and social identity assigns commonalities – such as shared origins, blood, a mythical or historical figure or experience – that differentiate one group of human or nonhuman people from another.

Self-identification and being identified by others play important roles in the mechanism of control. And although the various details of oppression may shift over time and liberate a group, these changes continue to mask the details of discrimination but do nothing to eradicate the system or the structure itself. For instance, white women “invent” feminism and finally some of them reach a stage when they can boast more access to well-paid jobs, but concurrently, much higher numbers of impoverished African women or Asian children pay the price in the “exported” dirty businesses to the “Third World” or on jobs the upper-middle-class white women no longer do importing instead women from the “third world” on “live-in-nanny” and other “domestic” visas. Like the fictional characters of Oompa-Loompas, these women are “imported” to live with their “employers” and provide them with child care, senior care, and housekeeping services, and are kept vulnerable by having their stay permits be contingent on the satisfaction of the employer ( Anthias and Lazaridis, 2000).

Servitude is a given in civilized society where many human and nonhuman animals are expected to provide services for select human animals in exchange for the right to exist. “Service society” is a title worn with pride, but the right to eat and live is a matter of identity that is not earned equally or justly. Even if identity may be “upgraded” or modified, or there could be multiple identities, each identity has economic ramifications and is used to access networks to which others are denied. Thus, a monkey cannot be a human, a Zulu cannot be a Tamil, a Japanese cannot be an Anglo-Saxon, a prostitute cannot be a queen, one ID number is valid for only one holder who can be identified even in an ice-cave in Antarctica, Mohamed cannot be Ingrid, etc. Even intimate personal preferences and practices, such as sexuality, are thrust into the claustrophobic categories of permanence and knowledge in which people have to choose once and for all whether they are homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or transsexual because personal taste in sexual partners at any moment in the civilized system is taken to reflect the totality of the person as foreverwas and foreverafter and define her once and for all for the purpose of determining her status in the consumption and (re) production of resources.

Identity is hence an ontological construct of the self that requires selfawareness as being different from the awareness of others. For instance, when Canadians are asked what makes them Canadian, most respond that Canadians are not Americans (Lipset, 2001). Identity thus expresses the premises of domestication because it plays an important role in juxtaposing persons and peoples in a context of competition or even war, i.e. fighting for symbolic or material capital and resources. Identity is hence rooted in the concepts of “purity” or “cleanliness”, which entails purging and eliminating anything “foreign” or “other” from the possibility of accessing the “rightfully” owned possessions and getting rewarded for “work”.

In contrast, in wilderness, “rights” are an egalitarian concept and a constantly shifting practice: everyone has the right to live, eat, drink, enjoy leisure, ad infinitum. Here, needs and access options constantly rotate. Disputes happen but, most of the time, creatures pass by each other calmly on the way to the waterhole. In civilization, rights are not universal and access to waterholes, including lakes, sea ports, and beaches, is structured through permanence, a concept that fuels the classification system for those who have the right to own something or someplace and those who do not.[56] Dispossession and empowerment in this ontological construct also become permanent.

The concept of work – particularly when carried out for someone else’s profit or in exchange for wages – is totally absent in Moominland, where even a “general cleaning” session can prove fatal. Sniff’s grandparents vanished during a spring-cleaning operation, leaving his father, the Muddler, an orphan (Jansson, 1969: 23), and a general cleaning session nearly kills the Fillyjonk (Jansson, 1971). Jansson thus upholds biodiversity even in questions of personal hygiene. Excessive cleaning and washing reveal a lack of real interest in a person and the absence of love. In the orphanage, Moominpappa writes:

There were a lot of us, and we all soon became grave and tidy youngsters, because the Hemulen had a most solid character and used to wash us more often than she kissed us.

(Jansson, 1969: 9)

In contrast, the concept that hard work and cleaning are inevitable aspects of experience and indispensable for survival is at the centre of civilized ontology, where nonhuman living beings are presented as a threat to humans; if they cannot be rendered useful to humans, they must be subdued, sanitized, and eradicated. This attitude fuels the civilized obsession with shaved lawns and armpits (if not worse), “cleaning” products, antibiotics, vaccinations, inter alia. These attempts to exterminate the germs, viruses, bacteria, worms, insects, “pests”, “weeds”, and all possible competition to ownership end up creating resistance and with it the conditions for breeding super-immune forms of life who respond to the war launched by human animals with their own counter-attack.

As anthropologist Mary Douglas (1988) proposes in Purity and Danger, conceptions of dirt and cleanliness are cultural constructs. In some cultures, categories of cleanliness and pollution manifest themselves through rituals that re-enact distinctions and taboos on a daily basis and cost hours of daily slave or domestic (housewife) labour. Douglas illustrates her point with an in-depth analysis of the “Abominations of Leviticus” and explains how categories of cleanliness become elements of identity. Examples abound, most notably, but not exclusively, in monotheistic traditions. Hence, Muslims see non-Muslims as unclean because they do not follow the Islamic ritual of ablutions and strict prescriptions for personal hygiene and eat “unclean” pig and “uncleanly” slaughtered animals. Or, Jews have the derogatory category of goi’ĭm or gôy for the non-Jews or the Jews who do not know much about Judaism and the strict rules for the cleanliness and holiness of food. Thus, categories of cleanliness identify those who would be deemed dirtier, inferior, and in need of civilizing, which means domesticated and exploited. Even when some Muslims and Jews attempt to downplay the importance of these categories and compensate them with the notion of “tolerance”, notwithstanding, the distinctions are there in the basic precepts of domesticated ontologies.

To return to the children’s books at hand, comparing the concepts of cleanliness with Moominland, Flower Town again proves to be a compromise between the ontologies of civilization and wilderness. While most Mites choose to work hard, they are guided by passion, not obligation. Unlike Moominvalley , where obsession with tidiness and cleanliness happens at the expense of love and can even prove fatal, Flower Town residents value neatness. Nevertheless, they tolerate Dunno’s lack of commitment to washing and cleaning and his resistance to literacy. In extreme cases, lack of hygiene can become an issue when it disturbs the community, as when in Sunny City, Dunno and Buttonette pressure Smudges Bright to wash himself and brush his teeth. Still, because the characters are depicted as striving towards the maximum freedom of selfexpression, neither work nor learning nor cleanliness is imposed and, in this way, Flower Town Mites, like the Moomintrolls, echo the principles of the Semai, where public opinion and general consent are the most effective means of guarding the community against disruptions (Dentan, 1968).

These principles imbue the genesis itself of a literary world, such as illustrated in the opening scenes of Dunno and Friends and the Moomin books, reflecting the author’s ontological conception of the creation of the world. Knowing themselves as only small particles among the wide diversity of the universe prompts the characters to make choices in favour of diversity, and the reality of other beings and life becomes vital for the characters’ lives, just as the other’s pain, deception, or falsehood has repercussions on the quality of their own lives. Questions of hierarchy, hygiene, food, labour, and economy are thus contingent on the perspective of the actors and how they relate to other living and non-living beings. Untangling these elements of genesis leads to questions of identity and kinship and, in the case of Moomintrolls, they enter wilderness with trust, learn how to empathize with it, how to live with it and by learning how to live in it, they regain their own wilderness.

This contrasts starkly with the civilized narrative projected in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where empathy gets in the way of “cleaning” the civilized space from competition. Ordered “knowledge” and identification provide an effective mechanism for sanitizing and civilizing. For to successfully domesticate, the domesticator must be able to identify the resources, then separate himself from his victim and objectify “it” as a “resource”. Since the suffering of the objectified victim gets ignored and overwritten with the domesticator’s “knowledge” of what the victim “is”, of what she wants or needs, or what her purpose in life is, the domesticator’s unknowledge itself justifies and fosters torture. Here the goal is not biodiversity but monogeneity: one compact socio-economic body comprised of one species, the human, with everything else (including the dehumanized humans) turned into resources for that group and expected to enjoy the ride.

Anthropological studies reveal the sado-masochistic nature of civilized cultural rituals, spanning the spectrum from as drastic as genital mutilation to as subtle as grading or beauty contests. These studies demonstrate that knowledge based on classification, discrimination, and apathy is constantly re-enacted in elaborate rituals that reinforce categories, inscribing them as reflexes through habitus, doxa, and body hexis on both the anatomical and cognitive levels of civilized beings. The outcome is the concept of identity – a sum of feelings, “facts”, reactions, dispositions, and a certain order.

Honey Like Chocolate

The Names and the Whys of Existence

Among the various civilized archetypes, topoi of forest and water figure prominently in the Hundred-Acre Wood and even if the concepts of work and cleanliness are not clearly articulated, there is a brief scene at the end of Chapter Two in which Christopher Robin takes a bath and, because it is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner, it is easy to miss its relevance. However, the importance of this scene becomes obvious when examined within the ontological framework of the book, since its characters are divided into the “real” human (one character plus the voice of the narrator) and the “unreal”, the “toys”, which is everybody else. The narrative assumes that whatever applies to the human does not apply to the toys, since they exist to please and be played with. In the “real” world, people take baths, and since Christopher Robin is “real” this is what he does; he minds his cleanliness but nobody else in the Hundred-Acre Wood needs to do that. Not only does cleanliness set apart his “real”, “human” identity, it conveys the civilized purity of the human boy.

The realness of Christopher Robin justifies his rank as head of the kingdom (the kingdom, after all, is the result of what goes on in his head) and, by implication, the remaining characters are juxtaposed to him – they are not real and, therefore, have no purpose, no yearning, no dreams, and no head to dream, no heart to yearn, no reason for purpose. They are fake and anything goes in the artificial world, so we need not bother with long, dark, scary nights, wondering what they may be feeling, what it is like to be them, or try to ease their lot, like Moomintroll does with the Groke.

Perhaps the emotionally undemanding narrative earned its high popularity in civilized culture precisely because it allows the reader to indulge in apathy, which is a precondition for domestication. Apathy and despair impel a person to submit to the order-that-be and express gladness when domesticated. The domesticator relies on apathy in order to objectify these others who are rendered less real than himself. Thus, the reader can laugh at the characters’ nonsensical fidgeting, be amused by their cruelty, avarice, and deceit, and be able to easily dismiss their suffering, just as most readers do with the children, the squirrels, and the Oompa-Loompas at Willy Wonka’s factory or any other factory in the real world, for that matter.

The realness of the human Christopher Robin also sets out the hierarchy of the characters’ worth. Since the others are toys, i.e. replicas, their falseness objectifies and subjugates them vis-à-vis the human, who is the real agent in his domain of replicas deceiving one another (after all, deception is the purpose of replicas), even if he is not agent enough in his relationship with the narrator, in this case the author himself, who is his real-life progenitor. This is how Winnie-the-Pooh starts:

If you happen to have read another book about Christopher Robin, you may remember that he once had a swan (or the swan had Christopher Robin, I don’t know which) and that he used to call this swan Pooh. That was a long time ago, and when we said good-bye, we took the name with us, as we didn’t think the swan would want it any more. Well, when Edward Bear said that he would like an exciting name all to himself, Christopher Robin said at once, without stopping to think, that he was Winnie-the-Pooh. And he was.

(Milne, 1992, introduction)

In contrast to Moominland, which opens onto the depth of a dark forest, a place of namelessness, Winnie-the-Pooh begins indoors with civilization in both the Introduction and the first chapter. The Introduction refers to a previous text, presents the concept of possession, and endows the human character with the power to name. The monarchical structure of the Hundred-Acre Wood places Christopher Robin at the head of the kingdom and as a being apart with no kinship ties to the other inhabitants. This separateness and otherness are enunciated both at the beginning and the end, where Christopher Robin is the only one free to break out of the locked space – in which everyone lives “behind a door” in their “own” place “under the name of” – and is the only one able to transition into the “real” world.

Of course, both the act of naming and the reference to the world as a preexistent textual reality (the mentioned but non-existent earlier book) tap into the biblical topos of creation. The Bible offers an account of the genesis of civilized humans as possessors of language, that tool of expropriation and death. In Winnie the Pooh, this topos naturalizes ownership and hierarchy by presenting a parallel between the biblical creation of Man as owner and namer of the world and of Christopher Robin as owner and namer of his world. And even though in Winnie-the-Pooh the animals are (pre)created in a zoo, the similarity of the above-quoted passage with Genesis 2:18–19 is striking:

¹⁸ Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” ¹⁹ So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

Throughout the evolution of the biblical narrative, through constant renegotiations with God the Creator, Man keeps separating himself further and further from the original wild conception of humanity as part of the wilderness of the Garden. Thus, the motif of Man as namer in this part of Genesis shows how the construct of humanity matures into language and domestication for, in an earlier passage, Man and Creatures were created equal on the same day.

Biblical scholar Christine Hayes (2006) points out that, according to the Old Testament, God originally intended an expressly vegan, gatherer diet for humans, which reflects the fossil records and the studies on human and other primate dietary cultures discussed in the introduction and demonstrates that the original voice in the Bible was wild portraying an egalitarian, even if differentiated, creation of humans and animals:

1:29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

1:30 “And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

The two humans in the Bible are created on the sixth day when the other animals were ordered to come forth from the earth (1:24–26), and everyone alive, including the human beings, was to eat seeds, fruits, and greens. Hayes says there was meant to be no competition between the species in this version of creation, and there was no domestication: no chicken soup, no cattle, no milk, all of which came much later as humans persistently disobeyed and continuously bargained for a stronger, more equal position with God (Hayes, 2006).

Drawing on the biblical topos again, unlike Jansson who favours the wild, the free, and the criminal (Moses, for instance), Milne projects the later domesticating voices in the Bible that elaborate distinctions between the human and the rest of the creatures. Thus, the narrative presents Christopher Robin and his world as pre-existent to the Hundred-Acre Wood and as its namer and the possessor of names. Moreover, Christopher Robin is the creator of the Hundred-Acre world, and his superiority is, therefore, much more pronounced than even in the most civilized of biblical interpretations. Hence, like Willy Wonka’s slaves, Winnie-the-Pooh is dependent on his master for name and for brain (he keeps repeating he is a bear of very little brain) because Pooh cannot know or name himself, which again contrasts with both Flower Town and Moominland, where names matter only in as much as the reader needs to know who she is reading about. In reality, the Moomin characters are characterized by their lives and Mites by their deeds, the ultimate end of which is love.

The principle of love in the wild entails letting the other be and helping the other be what the other desires to be. It manifests itself in the way loving beings organize their space and open it to the needs of others, regardless of how different those needs may be. In civilization, love is consumption and civilized beings enclose their spaces, their architectural designs shutting out the rest of the world. The concepts of love, name, and genesis are thus intricately intertwined. Winnie-the-Pooh’s world betrays the civilized perspectives underlying the taken for granted architectural structures – a conception that orders that world’s space and binds the characters in relationships of pain, calling them love and contrasting starkly with the anarchist space of Dunno and the wilderness of Moominland.

Michel Foucault (1979) observes that the organization of space is an important element of control, for space and architecture constitute, at once, the resources to be exploited and controlled and the system that controls its dwellers and users. Control thus constitutes both the raison d’être and the end of civilized architecture. In “Spatial Organization and the Built Environment”, Amos Rapoport (in Ingold, 1997) describes architecture as a purposeful human (and, earlier, hominid) activity that organizes the environment, which makes it impossible for architecture to be chaotic for it is always a social, cultural, and intentional activity with purpose (ibid: 460). For a better understanding of society: “It then becomes necessary to understand the particular order and its underlying spatial and conceptual organization. For example, whereas in the West built environments tend to be characterized by geometrical design, the principles that structure the environment of non-Western societies may be social, ritual or symbolic in nature” (ibid: 460–461). As Ingold observes, nomadic people, e.g. the Sami of Scandinavia or the Bedouins of the Middle East and Africa, dwell in the world as part of that world and their goal is to modify it as little as possible within the span of their lives, which they view as a transition towards different dimensions. They conceive of time and space as infinite and their life view stems from the perspective of the world as a place of affluence. What Ingold describes, without naming it, is the premise of wildness; and these dispositions become apparent in nomads’ relationship to the world as modest dwellers in a wild universe that exists for its own sake. Here, the concept of love entails the assurance that the beloved remains immortal in infinite space because he or she continues to (co)exist, not as an object of pleasure and consumption but as an agent moving through life. More than any other anthropological endeavour, architectural practices of the wild convey this conception of love through humbleness transmitting the feeling of eternity by interacting with the environment as insignificant mortals.

Evidently, the geometry that seems orderly and meaningful to carriers of one culture may appear as chaotic and meaningless to carriers of another. Ingold and Rapoport (in Ingold, 1997) point that the details of how individuals choose to adjust the direction of the entrance to their dwellings reveal kinships and relationships within the group, namely, whether the entrances face each other, or whether they are hidden or fenced. Nonhuman activity to adjust the environment for dwelling or other purposes is also intentional and yields geometrical complexity; here beehives provide a perfect example. According to Foucault (1979) and Bourdieu (1979 and 1990), geometry, complexity, and intentionality are not sufficient requirements for a practice to be deemed human, civilized, or otherwise “superior” or “distinct”. For instance, they argue the geometry of Western architecture is as socio-cultural and political as that of Eastern or Southern societies. The differences between the various human and nonhuman architectures reside in whether they facilitate the civilizing purpose by means of locking persons and space, limiting movement, while creating possibilities for voyeurism, observation, and panoptical relationships, or whether they are temporary structures that aid and shelter the community.

Nold Egenter’s (1987) studies on nonhuman and human animal architecture demonstrate that, particularly in apes, building constitutes a daily practice that is meant to be neither permanent nor sedentary. While each ape builds her nest individually, the group nevertheless interacts communally rather than hierarchically. Human communities like the Amish, even though anthropocentric, abide by the same principles of mutuality, community, and support.

In contrast, civilized building practices betray the principles of unequal distribution of power between those who own and design and those who actually do the building or other menial work. Here, architectural expression is similar to constructed identities: there are “genres”, “schools”, “styles”, and other categories that, like the workers who build, can be named, classified, and defined as symbolic, spatial, temporal, plant, animal, or human resources. The civilized paradigm organizes space from the position of minimizing movement and cost (underpaying or even not paying the resources at all, also known as slavery) and maximizing exploitation, providing a constant increment in profit and expanding colonization.

This constantly expanding colonization of space and resources has direct repercussions for children. Jack Zipes (2010) observes that contemporary childhood transpires within increasingly incarcerated conditions of shrinking possibilities for children to enjoy freedom in play and the friendships they previously forged with their neighbourhoods. He attributes this phenomenon of disappearing children’s public spaces to intensive privatization laws. Marginalization of children (and other disenfranchized classes) from public life and space widens the gulf between the wealthy and the poor as well as between children, adults, and the real world, he argues. Renegotiating this space is vital for the health of (human) society and the environment, the success of which is directly linked to the ways human animals and their children understand and imagine the self, their culture, and this space. This imaginary is articulated through the laws that guide and prescribe social interactions and the way in which we organize our environment and participate in it.

Children’s books convey these principles in the way their characters dwell in the world. As discussed, Moomins are constantly on the move. They find cozy alcoves, recycle cans, live on trees, behind stoves, build houses and boats from recycled materials, walk, swim, and fly with the wind. Their meaning of love means letting the beloved roam free yet always have the door open to the home and the heart if the beloved returns. Hence, while the Moomins sleep, winter creatures make use of their home. As Snufkin wanders, he knows he can always come back and pitch his tent or have a bed in the sunny Moomin home.

Nosov attempts to find a compromise between the principles of a sedentary community and a community that can move in space and time where he projects love as the unconditional inclusion of all their differences in the shared abode. His world works well until it faces the problem of agricultural expansionism with its colonization of wilderness by cities and the necessarily developing hierarchies of control. Dunno in Sunny City (1984) dedicates several chapters to questions of architecture, but they do not tackle the problematics of civilized building practices and wild dwelling, the assumption being that love as co-operation and intention is capable of solving the problems of anonymity and the inherently colonialist civilized city. Once again, in contrast to Jansson and Nosov, the underlying premises of Milne’s HundredAcre Wood provide fascinating insights into the civilized conception of the self and the world and into the nature of its relationships and architectural structures.

The world of Winnie-the-Pooh opens with an architectural construct termed “zoo” and the socio-affective concept termed “love”, with both words appearing in the same paragraph right at the beginning of the book in the context of the genesis of the Hundred-Acre Wood:

You can’t be in London for long without going to the Zoo. There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there.

(Milne, 1992)

The very concept of zoo is exclusive to civilization since zoos are designed to contain nature and wilderness, sterilizing them and conquering space and time by means of bars and lines that spell finitude and end movement. Zoos are not only meant to collapse space and time, they are also panoptical constructs intended to display the victim for the public gaze of domestication. Being constantly observed and displayed, the victim of incarceration is locked in a cage of perverted meaning where those who “love” the humiliated, caged, nonhuman siblings consume their suffering and sentence the victim to death. For in incarceration, human and nonhuman animals rarely get a chance to conceive progeny and thereby dare not to dream of a sense of a non-linear, unlined future. Caged animals circle the cage in madness and despair, says Derrick Jensen (2007). To the human animals indulging in this type of voyeurism, zoos mean cute nature or, rather, a world that has been conquered, named, classified, and rendered tame and functional. It is empowering for the domesticated masses whose own will and purpose have been obliterated to watch the wild animal pace in madness and despair. Hence, children are taught to derive pleasure from going “straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there” (Milne, 1992), i.e. do nothing but remain an impotent gazer.

In psychiatry, an individual who derives pleasure from confining another person, causing distress and emotional or physical pain, is called a sadist. Psychiatric definition implies the pleasure stems from sexual gratification.

However, because sexual gratification is contingent on emotional and psychological impulses, feelings, and emotional states, then the complexity of sexually driven pleasure and the pleasure of watching someone suffer can take place in a variety of contexts, some of which, like a zoo or a kindergarten, may not be explicitly linked in the ideology to sexual control, in spite of the fact that control of reproduction and sexuality is a vital element of civilization and child-breeding and child-rearing practices. Hence, the control of pleasure and sexuality applies equally to the control of space as well as of domestication, agriculture, and zoos. The sado-masochistic significance of civilized love is an integral part of the doxa, habitus, and body hexis, and even when not articulated in the ideology, it remains a tacit presence that structures these relationships of pleasure and pain. The other side of this relationship entails the humiliated and tortured party enjoying the confinement and distress and receiving gratification from the feeling of pain and disempowerment, making this person a masochist.

The injunction that children must go to the zoo and head “straight to the animal they love the most” comes from one of the most popular children’s books in the world. It instructs children to enter an architectural design that organizes time and space in a linear fashion, proceeding from now (WAYIN) and towards the future (WAYOUT), where the author does not leave the option of entering from WAYOUT or the middle or not entering at all, or even discarding the concept of zoo altogether. In this linear procession, the narrative tells us that to gaze at a victim denied the right to exist for her own purpose, a victim forced to exist solely as an object of gratification for the gazer, is an act of love.

In this relationship structured through walls, shut doors, and bars, the object must necessarily be objectified and under the gratified gaze. The first architectural construct in the book is thus based on the principles of what is known in psychopathology as sado-masochistic relationships, in which both subject and object call love acts and desires that inflict pain, suppress the will, and tie to a leash for the enjoyment of the sadist who simply loves it. Depicting this relationship cheerfully and as a matter of fact conveys to the reader that behind those bars are faceless figures, with no will and no personhood, who are named and whose names can be revoked and reclassified according to the logic and the perceived need of the subject. Most important, it conveys that the victim, having been rendered harmless, actually loves this relationship too.

Sado-masochism is at the root of the misogynist culture that feeds pornography (Dines, 2013). Therefore, the connection that Jensen draws between zoos, the culture of childhood, and pornography is critical to understanding the platform of such children’s books as Winnie-the-Pooh and the plethora of other products of children’s culture. He says:

... a child who goes to a zoo is not encountering real animals. Like any other spectacle, like any other form of pornography, a zoo can never really satisfy, can never really deliver what it promises. Zoos, like pornography, offer superficial relationships based on hierarchy, dominance, and submission. They depend on a detached consumer willing to observe another who may or may not have given permission to be the object of this gaze.

Think of a pornographic picture. Even in cases where women are paid and willingly pose for pornography, they have not given me permission to see their bodies – or, rather, images of their bodies – right here, right now. If I have a photograph, I have it forever, even if subsequently the woman withdraws her permission. This is the opposite of relationship, where the woman can present herself to me now, and now, and now, always at both her and my and our discretion. What in a relationship is a moment-by-moment gift becomes in pornography my property, to do with as I choose.

And so it is with zoos. Zoos take a very real, necessary, creative, lifeaffirming, and – most of all – relational urge and turn it, pervert it. Pornography takes the creative relational need for sexual contact with a willing partner – and the intimacy this can imply – and simplifies it to the relationship of watcher and watched. Zoos take the creative need for participating in relationships with wild, nonhuman others and simplify it until our nature experience consists of spending a few moments looking at – or simply walking by – bears and chimpanzees in concrete cages.

(Jensen, 2007)

Since the domestication of sexuality is the driving force of civilization, then all civilized relationships are structured by the pleasures and pain derived from domesticated sexuality and the panoptical gaze, control, consumption, and exploitation. It is not a coincidence, then, that incarceration and voyeurism are ubiquitous in civilized children’s literature and, therefore, provide the basis for the relationships in Winnie-the-Pooh. Even Nosov fails in his attempt to find a middle ground between domestication and justice. Jensen continues:

Incarcerating animals in zoos is to entering into relationships with them in the wild as rape is to making love. The former in each case requires coercion; limits the freedom of the victim; and springs from, manifests, and reinforces the perpetrator’s self-perceived entitlement to full access to the victim. The former in each case damages the ability of both victim and perpetrator to enter into future intimate relationships. Based on the dyad of dominance and submission, it closes off any possibility for real and willing understanding of the other.

A real relationship is a dance among willing participants who give what they wish, as they wish, when they wish. It inspires present and future intimacy, present and future understanding of the other and the self. It nourishes those involved. It makes us more of who we are (ibid).

This excerpt raises many critical points related to my critique of the premises of civilization in children’s literature. The concept of time and the permanence of ownership, for instance, constitute violence and rape since they deny the wild the right to privacy, secrecy, and the freedom to change, move, and be. These concepts feed the logic of incarceration and education.

Consistent with the civilized narrative, the third paragraph in Winnie-thePooh’s introduction thus proceeds to the next logical step in the architecture of confinement, a locked and controlled space where children are transformed into humans and where unknowledge instructs them who they should become:

You see what it is. He [Piglet] is jealous because he thinks Pooh is having a Grand Introduction all to himself. Pooh is the favourite, of course ... but Piglet comes in for a good many things which Pooh misses; because you can’t take Pooh to school without everybody knowing it, but Piglet is so small that he slips into a pocket, where it is very comfortable to feel him when you are not quite sure whether twice seven is twelve or twenty-two.

(Milne, 1992; italics mine)

Within the space of a few paragraphs of his introduction, Milne succeeds in laying down the foundation of civilized culture: jealousy, confinement, competition, loneliness, the stress of forced schooling, lack of confidence, and domestication, as well as the sado-masochistic and pornographic relationships of civilized “love”. In the static sterility of the Wood, among its envious and impotent characters who are willed into existence by Christopher Robin, when Pooh says he loves honey, it amounts to him obtaining this honey by all means possible, as discussed earlier, even by means of theft and consuming it all by himself.

Here, love entails desire by the lover to satisfy his or her needs, lacks, wants, appetite, or whatever else. When the beloved is chained, caged, or otherwise exploited, there can be no reciprocal sharing of mutuality. When the beloved is gazed at through the bars of a cage and the lover exclaims: “O’ how I love you! How beautiful, how cute you are!” it means the “beloved” has been rendered harmless and tame, and the only possible outcome of such relationships is the gratification of the tamer through the power of sight: voyeurism, pornography, humiliation, and S&M.

Furthermore, Winnie-the-Pooh assumes that human children must be domesticated in schools and filled with the right content, such as multiplication tables. In wilderness, where human and nonhuman children exist for their own sake, it makes no difference whether they know multiplication tables or not, the assumption being that if they need to, they’ll learn. In contrast to Milne, who puts animals in cages and calls it love, Jansson’s and Nosov’s characters help liberate children from edifices of oppression. They burn down signs and destroy walls, for in their world it makes no difference what children grow into, as long as they remain in tune with their environment and their own inner purpose, i.e. they do not turn human and alienated, competing with each other for the winner to be redeemed and granted personhood, leaving the losers to serve as human resources in the grand, now globalized zoo.

The Hundred-Acre Wood is a consistent narrative of civilization: there is chronological sequence, greed, hierarchy, literacy, and there is pain silenced by words that call torture love. Misnaming and silencing occurs on several levels. First, presenting the world of the Hundred-Acre Wood as not real and its people as fictive impels the reader to disregard the characters’ feelings and experience in the same way as human, nonhuman, gendered, racialized, and other othered victims of abuse are overwritten by “expert knowledge” and representation. Second, Winnie-the-Pooh is stuck in the London zoo but we are led to believe he is in love with his fate, in the same way the fictional Winnie-the-Pooh in the Hundred-Acre Wood is stuck yet is happy and cute. He is funny and lovable when he tries to swindle the bees; his fall from the tree is meant to be comical, and the reader laughs at his bouncing against the branches on the way to the gorse bush, because falling from the height of a third floor has no repercussions for Winnie, we are told. The minute he falls, he gets up and begins to deliberate on more effective strategies to deceive the bees. After all, the narrative assumes, none of them is real and, in any case, bees exist solely for the purpose of providing us with honey and Winnie-the-Pooh’s purpose is to serve as entertainment. Since this is the purpose of bees, any attempt to procure that honey, including by means of lies and theft, is admirable. In this sense the book works on the same premises of domestication discussed earlier in Dahl’s work, in particular, the part on slavery – i.e. the existence of the other for the purpose of the subject is inscribed in the ontology of that space and civilizes it.

Winnie-the-Pooh rationalizes the existence of bees and honey in precisely this logic: “If there’s a buzzing-noise, somebody’s making a buzzing noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee.... And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.... And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it”.

(Milne, 1992: 6)

The above paragraph could be funny in different ways. From the perspective of wilderness, it could have served as satire, because the situation would appear ridiculous if one were to look at it from the following angle: “Ha ha ha! We all know the world does not belong to Pooh or to anyone, for that matter, who is deluded enough to imagine he owns it”. However, nothing in the story suggests this position. In the way in which it is incorporated in the narrative, it is meant to be funny in a different, “endearing” sort of way: “Poor little bear. Of course, we know bees do not exist for his delight but for our, human, benefit, to give us honey so that those who possess the bees can eat it or sell it to those who can afford to buy it. What a funny, greedy, silly little bear”. Seen from this perspective, Pooh’s reasoning becomes funny because it is ridiculous (stupid bear, he does prove that he is of very little brain) but, most important, by no means is his delusion threatening: neither Pooh nor other bears like him are ever going to win that power to rule over our bees and our honey. The most substantial guarantee against that happening is the unreality of Winnie-the-Pooh that renders his delusions harmless and entertaining, like the delusions of any disempowered and objectified child, old person, or other. Their pain is not real because our knowledge of them denies them sentience; their dreams are insignificant, and their expression of suffering and resistance ranges between cute and hysterical (meaning both hilarious and mental).

The same applies to the intentional deceit practised by the other characters within the “community”. Rabbit lies to Winnie, faking his voice to pretend he is not home when Winnie-the-Pooh asks:

“Is anybody home?”

There was a sudden scuffling noise from inside the hole, and then silence.

“What I said was, ‘Is anybody at home?’” called out Pooh very loudly.

“No!” said a voice; and then added, “You needn’t shout so loud. I heard quite well the first time.”

“Bother!” said Pooh. “Isn’t there anybody here at all?”

“Nobody.”

... “Hallo, Rabbit, isn’t that you?”

“No,” said Rabbit, in a different sort of voice this time.

“But isn’t that Rabbit’s voice?”

“I don’t think so,” said Rabbit. “It isn’t meant to be”.

(Milne, 1992: 24–25)

Deceit is depicted as harmless at best and cute at worst. After all, the world of domestication is about who can hide what and from whom and who can trick whom. We read that Winnie is a guest who can deplete the host’s stock until he would not be able to get out and that it is funny who out-tricks whom between the two of them.

Deceit is present throughout the book. In the scene with the bees, Winnie-the-Pooh says: “I shall try to look like a small black cloud. That will deceive them” (Milne, 1992: 13). “I wish you would bring it [the umbrella] out here, and walk up and down with it, and look up at me every now and then, and say, ‘Tut-tut, it looks like rain.’ I think, if you did that, it would help the deception which we are practising on these bees.... The important bee to deceive is the Queen Bee” (ibid: 15–16). Also, in Chapter Seven, Rabbit, Piglet, and Pooh work out a plan to deceive Kanga, kidnap her baby Roo, and kick them out of the Wood. Deception thus permeates the very foundation of the Hundred-Acre Wood and appeals perfectly to the domesticated reader who, if having failed to discern the problem with the slavery empire of Willy Wonka, would be even less likely to reflect on the purpose of the existence of bees from the stance of wilderness.

Appropriation, control, and deceit are thus tightly intertwined. Deceit by the empowered classes is normal in the civilized world and appropriation, the book tells us, is a matter of successful deception. Looking at this text from the perspective of wildness, we see this world for what it is: a desolate place of sterile relationships, where the characters are locked in and remain static, both in terms of experience and movement. The disempowered characters are caged for Christopher Robin’s empowerment; they exist to satisfy his need to be entertained, cared for, and obeyed. They prepare him for the role of human until he graduates into the “real” world.

This conception of “growing up” and “growing out of” the imaginary carefree and idyllic childhood betrays the underlying premise that suffering is an ineluctable part of adulthood. Thus, in the same way that Christopher Robin domesticates the mind of his “subjects”, real children’s minds undergo training and domestication by literature and pedagogy until they too graduate into the “real” world of suffering. Many theoreticians praise literary works precisely for their sense of doom as they lament this loss of the idyllic, presumably unrealistic, freedom upon entering adulthood, which presupposes a world of toil, hardship, and pain. Winnie-the-Pooh betrays this assumption that wild happiness is not real and, as Christopher Robin steps into the “real” world, the happiness and agency he experienced during childhood may be accessible only through the memory of something he had imagined. But, more important, the definition of happiness that emerges here is that of power over the purpose of others, at first through identity and naming, then through incarceration in zoos and schools, and finally, in the sterile economy of the Wood, enchanted by its own impotence.

A Town in the Forest

Sedentary Travel as Compromise

Once upon a time, in a town in fairyland, lived some people called the Mites. They were called the Mites because they were very tiny. The biggest of them was no bigger than a pine cone. Their town was very pretty. Around every house grew daisies, dandelions, and honeysuckle, and the streets were all named after flowers: Blue-bell Street, Daisy Lane, and Primrose Avenue. That is why the town was called Flower Town. It stood on the bank of a little brook. The Mites called it Cucumber River because so many cucumbers grew on its banks.

On the other side of the brook was a wood. The Mites made boats out of birch-bark and crossed the brook in them when they went to gather nuts, berries, and mushrooms in the wood. It was hard for the Mites to pick berries because they were so small. When they picked nuts they had to climb the bushes and take saws with them to cut off the stems, for the Mites could not pick the nuts by hand. They sawed off mushrooms, too – sawed them off at the very ground, then cut them into pieces and carried them home on their shoulders like logs.

(Nosov, 1980)

Nosov’s trilogy consistently presents a compromise position between the wildness of Moominland and the domestication of the Hundred-Acre Wood. The world of Mites opens with their town surrounded by wilderness. The Mites are gatherers living on a vegan diet. They are creative and use only the tools they can produce. Yet even though this idyllic community is the most peaceful in the trilogy, the books project as inevitable the evolutionary trajectory towards a more complex, machine-based society. Technological development creates social problems that require the pantoptical surveillance by the police, which is not needed in the simpler structure of Flower Town household economy. Concurrently, as Dunno explains at the end of his visit to the communist Sunny City, the lack of information about the needs and availability of products for exchange deters the formation of an efficient infrastructure, a lack that causes uncertainty and hampers the possibilities of exchange that may fuel rightwing anarchist tendencies. Nosov thus argues for socialist anarchy as based on Kropotkin’s (1995 and 2006) theory of evolution by means of co-operation and mutual aid but retaining civilized material culture and infrastructure.

Comparing the above opening scene with the previously discussed children’s narratives, the space of wilderness and domestication is negotiated carefully in Nosov’s book, and the question of livelihood occupies a more prominent place than Jansson allots to the specifics of the Moomins’ diet because her assumption is there is plenty of food in the wilderness and Moominmamma will always find a way to make an apple pie or sandwiches, while their lives are nourished by the larger existential questions.

Still, Nosov’s opening, like Jansson’s, contrasts with the assumption in Dahl’s book that people prefer the processed food produced by slave labour in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. This latter depicts characters as incapable of living on a raw diet and who, therefore, must be enslaved so as to be able to consume a tiny portion of what they are forced to produce through hard work. While Milne’s opening demonstrates the author’s preoccupation with proper identification, domestication, and knowledge, the unrealness of the characters renders the question of subsistence obsolete. In the same way that the toy characters depend on the human for name and identity, the child Christopher Robin depends on his parents for food and name, thereby dismissing the problems of economic organization, access to food, and suffering, for these troubles are assumed to be a natural and inevitable part of civilized adult life but can be escaped in fantasy.

Nosov’s trilogy challenges Milne’s perspective on several levels. No one names in the Mite world, where characters become known to all for their passions and their choice of vocation, and each person’s role is important in his or her community without hierarchical preferences. The problems of identity that figure in the first book result in gender inequality and segregation and are resolved when the Mites get to know one another, understand each other’s needs, and then help each other. However, unlike Moominland, where there are no borders between species, Nosov separates nonhuman animals from human and civilized space from wilderness. This ontological foundation is revealed in the way Nosov treats transformation.

Because in wilderness there are no strict boundaries that distinguish and separate beings, transformation is a common occurrence that allows the exchange of knowledge and experience and provides guiding principles for economies and kinship models. Civilized ontology, however, is marked by categories and identities, whose very purpose is to prohibit transformation. Willy Wonka will not be allowed to become an Oompa-Loompa and Oompa-Loompas will not be allowed to become Charlie, for example. Nor are Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, and Owl interchangeable.

Negotiating the Frontiers in the Wilderness of Folklore and Science

Transformation, Consumption, and Identity

No clear-cut boundary marks human identity as separate from the animal in wild ontologies that understand humans as sharing kinship with other animals and plants because they have common origins. Totemism is a good illustration of one of the ways in which non-domesticated people see themselves as connected with the essence of plants and animals. Anthropological research shows that viable communities with a much longer and more impressive track record of diversity know the world and themselves as related to the world on the level of basic constituent matter.

For example, among the Ojibwa, native hunters of subarctic Canada, personhood is envisaged as an inner essence, embracing the powers of sentience, volition, memory and speech, which is quite indifferent to the particular species form it may outwardly assume. The human form is merely one of the many guises in which persons may materially manifest themselves, and anyone can change his or her form for that of an animal more or less at will.

(Ingold, 1997: 24)

This fluidity in human and other animal forms provides an important venue for accessing vital knowledge about the world and the self through the experience of other animals. Folk tales commonly use this topos of transformation, often retaining pre-domesticated elements even as they are interwoven with civilized themes and despite the numerous adaptations through the centuries of domestication. Transformation leads characters to new turns in negotiations and to additional possibilities for sharing or losing control over “resources”, rewarding the transformer with new ontological insights and experience.

Tales from the Dena (De Laguna et al., 1995) show the complex relationships between humans and other animals and the gift economy that governs their transactions and interactions. In one story, a rich man captures the sun and locks it in his home. People see the sun is gone and bribe Raven to retrieve it. Raven transforms himself into a spruce needle; the rich man’s daughter swallows it, becomes impregnated, and gives birth to a child. When the child cries for the sun, she gives it to him. He then transforms himself from baby to Raven and flies together with the sun out into the world. In other tales, the authors note, it is the doting grandfather who gives the sun to the baby (De Laguna et al., 1995: 321). In this example, human hierarchy and greed threaten the world. The rich man wants everything for himself, even the sun, but the people, including progeny – after all, the greedy man’s daughter gives birth to Raven in his new form – realize their interdependence with animals and birds, and each party carries out its part of the bargain to keep the world healthy and safe from the periodic eruptions of conflict of interests.

Because in essence, transformation is impermanence, a culture that respects wildness devises no cultural, social, judicial, or other bodies of laws or knowledge to encourage the concept of “inalienable” rights for a group of persons. In the absence of the concept of permanence in which one side has the right to always win, the outcome in wilderness is never linear. Reflecting this amorality, folklore in essence is the ethnography of wildness.

In another story, the Siberian Inuit never knows in advance how his negotiation will go with Raven and Bear regarding a fish he caught, because each encounter provides new possibilities and, in the spirit of cosmic justice and realism, it is only fair and true that the human does not always emerge as the winner of the catch. Often Raven, or coyote, or other birds, animals, or deities outsmart the rest. And it should not be otherwise, for favouring one species over others would disrupt the balance of biodiversity – precisely the cautionary tale of our civilization with its destruction of wilderness and the loss of thousands of forms of life for the advantage of one group.

In Russian tales, such as “The Princess Frog”, “Finist the Falcon”, “Go Thither Know Not Where, Bring That Know Not What”, “Ivan Tsarevitch and the Grey Wolf”, “The Magic Shirt”, inter alia, often a heroine’s or hero’s success in a quest and in life, here and ever after, depends on the character’s ability either to work together with animals, recognize one’s mate in the animal, or be able to transform into an animal, sometimes even into an object such as a needle or a feather.[57] According to Marie Czaplicka, many indigenous peoples, such as the Siberian Chuckchee, hold that, in the days of yore, knowledge accessed through transformation between human, animal, bird, and plant forms was available to any ordinary person, but because humans have widened the divide by having alienated themselves from the animal world, transformation is now rarely accessible by regular people, but still is possible through the shaman (Czaplicka, 2007). Traditionally, these transformations were induced at will, sometimes through meditation, ritualistic trance, or occasionally with the help of psychotropic herbs or mushrooms. This latter form of inducing an altered state of consciousness has been debated in various disciplines, most notably in psychology, religion, and anthropology. Jeremy Narby’s (1998) The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge offers a particularly interesting discussion on the subject of health, biological transformation, and knowledge.

The Asháninka people of the Peruvian Amazon, according to Narby, access knowledge on a molecular basis through entheogens because information is stored in the matter of beings, regardless of the state or shape we are in, and we can easily access it by simply tapping into the “hard-drive”. For Czaplica, too, achievement of the desired state of altered consciousness brings about the transformation of shape but not of essence, which remains constant throughout the manifestations of matter, for the molecules, genes, or spirit (whatever the terminology) already contain the necessary experience and knowledge. The essence of that knowledge or spirit can come in touch with other essences and grow, yet still remains unique and concomitantly connected to the essence of the world, as in the question the small creature asked Moomintroll and Moominmamma: “What are you?”

Contrary to shamanic transformations that are generated through an expansion of consciousness, folk-tale characters change swiftly, with the help of internally generated magic or by means of extraneous forces that can change a human person into an animal, or an animal person into a human, or any of them into an object and back. The collaboration of these magical human and nonhuman forces usually brings about a resolution of justice or reinstates harmony in the world of the tale. Such fluidity in transgressing the realms of human and nonhuman categories underscores how non-domesticated cultures understand the essence of humanity as linked horizontally to the origins of nonhumans. Hence, the genesis of being, whether animate or inanimate, can be traced back to one source – the substance of the universe itself. Knowledge available to one form of being is understood here as not only available to and applicable for the other but also as vital and indispensable.

Other scientists, too, have paid attention to transformation. Biologists study these processes on the micro-cellular level and refer to transformations of cells into something else as transdifferentiation, such as the ones that occur in salamanders, jellyfish, and chickens. In some vertebrates this process involves interconversion of stem cells and cell fate switches between lineages (Panagiotis et al., 1995; Furuta et al., 2001). Yet even though stemcell research has received much more attention than transdifferentiation, the ramifications for both scientific and literary knowledge are of great importance for what we understand ourselves capable of being and for our choice to agree or refuse to share the dimensions of being with forms different from our own. In contrast, transformations on the genetic level have been studied widely from the perspective of evolutionary theory (Snustad, Simmons, and Jenkins, 1997; Kandel, 1976). Nosov’s Sunny City is a good illustration of the literary rendering of transformation, which is a compromise between two ways of conceptualizing humans in relation to nonhumans: understanding living and non-living matter as stemming from an original substance common with the universe and, at the same time, considering humans as a species apart, differentiated through scala naturae from the various forms of living matter, either by divine creed or by its evolutionary pace and direction.

In both the theistic and the non-domesticated worldviews, common origin stems from a source outside of creation itself. For monotheism, the divine will is the source of the world with all its manifestations and, in non-domesticated folklore, everything originates from a variety of celestial, earthly, and spiritual forces (Kaufmann, 1969), whose original purpose and substance, to various extents, relate all the living and non-living matter. With the development of agricultural civilization, the human has been “evolving” throughout the theological and mythological reinterpretation of identity and ontology, so in a sense there have been transformations in the conception itself of the divine, the animal, and the human. Hence, the highly playful and capricious ancient gods gradually cede to the evolutionary principle in reincarnation where the human experience/incarnation becomes more valued than that of an animal or an insect, and the hierarchy of the castes gets inscribed in the natural order itself (Hopkins, 1971). In the same vein, in the monotheistic biblical tradition, the human evolves from the humble, vegan gatherer of Genesis into the alien to his own world who attempts to appease God with bloodthirsty sacrificial rituals, blaming these acts of cruelty on divine will.

Thus, on one level, monotheism denies the possibility of transformation because the forms of the species were differentiated at the moment of creation, and even if their cause and basic element (the divine will) are kindred, apparently Man alone was created in God’s image. However, because Man is depicted as the General Manager of civilization, even though civilization itself was meted out as punishment, he takes it upon himself to change and domesticate God’s world. This leaves room for interpretation from different perspectives.

The understanding of genesis throughout civilization also undergoes a transformation, whereby gradually the original cause gets attributed to an act of violence or treachery, such as depicted in the Indian, Babylonian, or Akkadian stories of creation, where the god Marduk chops up the water goddess of chaos Tiamat and creates the heavens and stars, her weeping eyes forming the rivers Tigris and Euphrates (Sandars, 1971; Pritchard, 1975: 1–5). These adaptations in rendering genesis show the evolution (or, more accurately, deterioration) of civilized human relationship with their world as this relationship becomes more and more speciesist, misogynist, and cannibalistic. As a construct, human identity allows this separation, feeds cruelty, and helps hide the truth from the humans themselves. The assumption in this identity is that the human is different from the rest and which clears humans of cannibalism because being a cannibal entails consuming one’s own kind. This stands in contrast to the Semai, for instance, who see the consumption of a nonhuman animal that one has raised as cannibalism (Dentan, 1968), whereas the civilized Christian views the ritual consumption of the body and blood of Christ as communion and not as a cannibalistic topos, the premise being the human is separate from the divine and the body of the man that the divine spirit inhabited.

Cannibalism as a concept creates challenges to the process of self-identification with the anthropomorphic animals that often figure in children’s books. For instance, the story of the three little pigs at first appeals to the reader through identification with the victim: “Look, the little pigs are scared and want to build a good house to hide from the dangerous wolf who wants to eat them; you are like those little pigs; you too are scared of the wolf”. But then ham, bacon, and lard are served in favourite dishes in real life and in literary works, and the “little pig”, who had previously shivered reading the story, now transforms into the wolf and eats the symbol of its own victimization. By identifying the pigs as “really” different and as comestible “items”, “piglet” thus consumes itself by devouring the flesh of the animal with whom she had previously identified herself.

Consumption patterns are deeply linked to how we conceive ourselves and relate to other human and nonhuman beings. In other words, what and how we eat is part of kinship systems. In the context of civilization, these prescriptions and taboos define identity, diet, and hygiene and create the double-bind situation that Gregory Bateson observed in the mental asylum. Double bind, Bateson says, arises when a person experiences several contradictory injunctions “enforced by punishments or signals that threaten survival” (1972: 206), one of which prohibits the victim from escaping the conflicting situation, consequently provoking symptoms of schizophrenia. This same situation is present in children’s reading material, in their relating to that material, such as illustrated in the case of the three little pigs, and in the reality of their lives.

Civilization presents a perfect case of double bind because people find themselves trapped in paradoxical situations with conflicting injunctions in the form of prescriptions, taboos, laws, and contradictory messages in formal education and general upbringing. Civilized “society” constantly threatens its members with various forms of punishment, including – perhaps its most successful method of coercion – the threat of starvation. It elevates humanism and human identity, yet orders humans to constantly wage war against each other. It demands obedience, loyalty, hard labour, and suffering but concurrently punishes the obedient by reduced compensation, instead rewarding the one who leads, i.e. it rewards the powerful and the already wealthy, the leaders, and the bullies; it glorifies mercy and compassion, yet ruthlessly forces people to die in poverty, just like Bateson’s (1972) cases of contradicting parents who drive their children to schizophrenia and despair and from which the civilized victim and the schizophrenic child find no exit.

A double bind on this global scale is the consequence of the contradictory impulses that the process of identification provokes as it feeds on the impulse to identify with the consuming domesticator simultaneously as a predator and prey, or resist and get punished. The process of identification depends on the underlying premises in the cultural taboos and prescriptions regarding food – who is allowed to eat and who is not; regarding cleanliness – what is clean to be consumed and what is not, and who is clean to consume it with “us” (the in-group) and who is not; the conception of time as linear, circular, or multi-dimensional; permanence versus unpredictability, among others – all of which are essential to our understanding of what we are and which refer us back to the question of origins and kinship, either from the perspective of wildness (flicker with form and light and let be) or civilization (do as you’re told and be “free” as you enslave others). Therefore, ontological systems that rest on the premise of common origins for all and of fluid kinship models with no fixed categories and identity, like the Ojibwa or the Chuckchee, have no room for permanent identities of eater and eaten or, in today’s parlance, of consumer and the product of consumption.

Darwin attempted to resolve this inherent conflict in civilized ontology by showing that all living beings, including human animals, can be traced to one common ancestor: the first living protozoa. However, as Nosov’s narrative demonstrates, an attempt to find a compromise position between the ontological violence of civilization (which depends on humanism) and the animist position vis-à-vis kinship (which exposes humanism as a predatory cannibalistic culture) ultimately fails because most scientists continue to rely on two faulty premises: that the world is a priori hostile to life and, hence, living beings need to constantly struggle to adapt to their environment (like the Oompa-Loompas) and that by adapting, some turn out more fit than others (like Willy Wonka and Charlie). The deteriorating species become extinct (unless they are enslaved by Willy Wonka) and those who stick around, competing, overpopulating, exterminating, and consuming, prove themselves right by virtue of their extensive destruction, persistence, and resilience.

Thus, even if the Darwinian theory of evolution allows for the flexibility of change, the fixed categories of civilization that identify species in a hierarchical order highlight their distinctions – on the basis of genetics, blood, DNA, and other evidence of kinship – from each other for the purpose of victory in the struggle for immortality. The concept that organisms have to be in a permanent mode of adaptation to their surroundings already presumes the surroundings are tricky (the Hundred-Acre Wood characters highlight that deceptive nature of the world) and even hostile to life and the environment is in need of modification, manipulation, and conquest, with only the best specimens being capable of reaching success (the conquests achieved by epidemic diseases, for example, are almost as spectacular as those by civilized humans).

Civilization hence assumes the universe is imperfect and that life needs to struggle and adapt to its world, which it needs to be ordered, changed, and tamed to suit the demands of the best species. Whether by appealing to religious authority or through science, civilization claims Man was decreed by God or by Natural Selection to modify and dominate; because the world was created as his resource or by virtue of his unique intelligence, he has evolved and succeeded to change and domesticate it. In this sense, even though change is an accepted possibility in civilized ontology, it nonetheless always leads towards a higher degree of humanism, alienation, and civilization. Here, movement towards the animal is conceived as a dangerous decline, degradation, even illness.

Contrary to civilized pessimism, the perspective of wildness sees a universe that welcomes life and does not need ordering and adaptation because it already is good for all and for itself. Otherwise, how could life have happened for all those billions of years? The topos of transformation thus reveals civilization is a closed totalitarian system whose premises are antithetical to those of wildness, even if wilderness allows for spots of civilization along with the diversity of other social systems.

The concept of transformation provides a fertile ground for exploration of kinship in children’s books, even if many avoid it. Some of these books depict transformation between animals, plants, and humans as chaotic – forms are not fixed once and for all – and as beneficial and adding to knowledge, while others present transformation as heading towards more domestication and sterilization and, therefore, as a linear, evolutionary trajectory where change from human to animal poses danger. Since children’s books are de facto created in a civilized space, these transformations are often depicted as imposed by an overpowering alien will, often stemming from evil (wilderness), such as through witchcraft, or by some intrinsic wicked force, an obvious illustration of this being the motif of the werewolf.

In Jansson’s third book, Finn Family Moomintroll, and in Nosov’s second book, Dunno in Sunny City, transformations are generated by external, magical forces against the characters’ will, and in both cases shed light on the underlying premises regarding kinship and the meaning of being. Comparison of these motifs again demonstrates Jansson’s wild ontology and Nosov’s attempt to negotiate between the civilized knowledge of oppression and self-determinism. Consistently, no transformations occur in the Hundred-Acre Wood since the substance of that universe allots no room for the intermingling of experience.

Transformation and Recognition

Kinship and Common Origins in Moominvalley

Finn Family Moomintroll opens on a sunny spring morning in Moominvalley as Moomintroll, Snufkin, and Sniff find a black hat with the magical power to transform anything placed inside. These transformations – of things, words, animals, even Moomintroll himself – into new and unrecognizable shapes reaffirm the constant of love that underpins the chaos of the world, i.e. they reinstate harmony, abundance, and beauty as a constant in an ever-moving entropy, even as this constant of love as recognition and acceptance may emerge from ugliness and danger. At first, no one recognizes Moomintroll after he had spent a while hidden in the hat, emerging in a completely different shape:

Moomintroll felt quite confused and took hold of a pair of enormous crinkly ears. “But I am Moomintroll!” he burst out in despair. “Don’t you believe me?”

“Moomintroll has a nice little tail, just about the right size, but yours is like a chimney sweep’s brush,” said the Snork.

And, oh, dear, it was true! Moomintroll felt behind him with a trembling paw....

“You are an impostor!” decided the Hemulen.

“Isn’t there anyone who believes me?” Moomintroll pleaded. “Look carefully at me, mother. You must know your own Moomintroll.”

Moominmamma looked carefully. She looked into his frightened eyes for a very long time, and then she said quietly: “Yes, you are my Moomintroll.”

And at the same moment he began to change. His ears, eyes and tail began to shrink, and his nose and tummy grew, until at last he was his old self again.

“It’s all right now, my dear,” said Moominmamma. “You see, I shall always know you whatever happens”.

(Jansson, 1958: 38)

This transformation, like that of the shaman, prompts Moomintroll and his community to transcend form and access the knowledge of the unchanging essence by recognizing and accepting both aspects of the universe, even if they may appear contradictory at first glance: the impermanence of chaos and the permanence of essence seen as stemming from one common substance of origins for all, regardless of the ephemeral lineages and changing shapes.

Being children and inexperienced, Snork Maiden, the Snork, Sniff, Snufkin, and especially the Hemulen, who likes clean-cut categories and lacks imagination, focus on form and in-group membership. By accepting form at face value, they demonstrate love, appreciation for, and loyalty to Moomintroll as they mistake his form for the “other”, the King of California.

“But [Moomintroll] is an impossible fellow, you know! You simply can’t have him in the house!” [the transformed Moomintroll continued joking].

“How dare you talk about Moomintroll like that!” said the Snork Maiden, fiercely. “He’s the best Moomin in the world, and we think a great deal of him.”

This was almost too much for Moomintroll. “Really?” he said.

“Personally I think he’s an absolute pest.” Then the Snork Maiden began to cry.

“Go away!” said the Snork to Moomintroll. “Otherwise we shall have to sit on your head” ... “Take away this ugly king who runs down our Moomintroll”.

(Jansson, 1958: 36–37)

While noble in their intentions, the group is aggressive towards Moomintroll’s new form of the King of California, and the scene escalates to a fist fight with the kids ganging up against the newcomer and piling up on top of Moomintroll’s new shape. Moominmamma, on the other hand, recognizes the essence in her biological son Moomintroll but also in all the other creatures she calls her children. This recognition and acceptance provide the safety of presence and the knowledge of stability.

The above scene thus works to confirm kinship and permanence through transformation, but this is not the only way to recognize kinship in Moominland. The act of Moominpappa’s adoption of Sniff – the child Moominmamma picked up in the forest during her period of separation from Moominpappa and who differs from Moomintrolls – shows that for the Moomin family, the domesticated-scientific notions of consanguinity and paternity in determining kinship are immaterial.

Moominpappa said: “You have no idea what a fine house I had before the flood. Built it all by myself. But if I get a new one, you will be welcome there any time.”

“How big was it?” asked the small creature [Sniff].

“Three rooms,” said Moominpappa. “One sky-blue, one sunshine-yellow and one spotted. And a guest room in the attic for you, small creature.” “Did you really mean us to live there too?” asked Moominmamma, very pleased. “Of course,” he said. “I looked for you always, everywhere”.

(Jansson, 2005)

Hence, in Moominvalley, affinity and consanguinity (Moominpappa being Moomintroll’s father and Moominmamma his mother) by themselves do not warrant the right to live together and to partake in a communal household economy. It is mutual consent and the desire to share a home in the larger, universal sense that is key to building a family. Therefore, Sniff has been a welcome guest even before he appears in Moominpappa’s consciousness.

This spirit of shared essence brings creatures together, regardless of their differences, conflicting needs, habits, and views and despite being unrelated in any genetic understanding of kinship. The Moomin family always readily adopts anyone who asks – even someone as different, boring, and pedantic as a Hemulen or someone who shape-shifts, like Moomintroll, or the transparent child who is then rendered visible by their acceptance and the relationship of mutual understanding and care she develops with Moominmamma (Jansson 1963), or the nihilist philosopher Muskrat, who moves into the house in Comet in Moominland and traumatizes the children with his dark outlook on the meaninglessness of life. In Finn Family Moomintroll, two thieves, Thingumy and Bob, bring trouble and notions of crime and punishment; in winter, while the Moomins sleep, unknown creatures move and dwell among them; and, in the final book, a whole cohort of strange guests inhabit their house while the Moomin family lives at sea.

All of these visible and invisible beings share their space, regardless of whether they are physically present or absent, and are an integral part of Moomin world’s biodiversity and its freedom regarding inter-marriage. Moominpappa’s Memoirs tell us that biologically, Snufkin is the son of Mymble and the Joxter, and Sniff is the lost child of the Muddler and the Fuzzy – both mixed couples, but the children live with the Moomins because genetic or blood genealogy is of little significance. “You, innocent little child, who thinks your father a dignified and serious person, when you read this story of three fathers’ adventures you should bear in mind that one pappa is very like another (at least when young)” (Jansson, 1994: xii).

Hence, it does not matter whom one chooses for parents, since parents are as wild and full of dreams as their children, i.e. they are not different intrinsically in their essence. So it makes no difference if Sniff, Little My, the Snorks, and even Snufkin, when he’s not travelling, choose to have Moominmamma and Moominpappa for parents. In anthropological terms, this is a viable kinship model known as bilateral in which an ego chooses her kinship affiliation to belong to either lineage. Here, horizontal relationships are inclusive of individuals who happen to be in the same generation as siblings even when they are not strictly related (Ingold, 1997). L.H. Morgan termed this model of affiliation the Hawaiian kinship system (Merry, 2000; Sahlins, 1974).[58] This kinship model can be extended to include nonhuman persons. For instance, Erica-Irene Daes writes on behalf of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations established in 1982:

Indigenous peoples regard all products of the human mind and heart as interrelated, and as flowing from the same source: the relationship between the people and their land, their kinship with the other living creatures that share the land, and with the spirit world. Since the ultimate source of knowledge and creativity is the land itself, all of the art and science of a specific people are manifestations of the same underlying relationships, and can be considered as manifestations of the people as a whole.

(quoted in Ingold, 2007: 150)

Thus, in the spirit of indigenous kinship with the world, Moominmamma huddles around her the large group of Moomintroll’s friends, including the silk-monkey invited by Sniff. As they wait in the cave for the comet to hit and destroy the earth, she calls them “my children”:

“Now everything is all right, and you must go to sleep. You must all go to sleep, my dears. Don’t cry, Sniff, there’s no danger now.”

The Snork Maiden was trembling. “Wasn’t it dreadful?” she said.

“Don’t think about it any more,” said Moominmamma. “Cuddle up to me, little silk-monkey, and keep warm. I’m going to sing you all a lullaby.” And this is what she sang:

Snuggle up close, and shut your eyes tight,

And sleep without dreaming the whole of the night. The comet is gone, and your mother is near

To keep you from harm till the morning is here.

And presently they dropped off to sleep, one by one, until at last it was quite quiet and peaceful in the cave”.

(Jansson, 1959: 189)

In the 1968 revision of the book (twenty-two years after the first edition), questions of domestication and kinship remain as prominent if not more clearly enunciated, although Jansson changes the song and African fauna transforms into European. Here, Sniff befriends a kitten instead of the silkmonkey, for whom he risks his life in the first version, returning together hand in hand, as equals, to the safety of the Moomin parents’ abode that, for emergency reasons, was transferred into the cave.

For a European audience, a kitten represents a tamed animal – a pet, and Jansson takes this opportunity to deliberate on the notions of taming and domestication as if in response to Saint-Exupéry’s (1943) metaphors for taming and cultivation and of foxes and roses. In The Little Prince, the fox begs: “Tame me”, and explains that taming entails responsibility for the one you’ve tamed and the cultivation of ties through nourishment and care (ibid) – a standard civilized view, embraced conscientiously by the French colonizers, which claims that human animals (especially the French) have the responsibility to tame the world, decide on its livelihood, and pretend these violent relations of power are there not for the benefit of the tamer but of the tamed (a view Willy Wonka wholeheartedly espouses). What is omitted in The Little Prince and in the domestication premise is that “responsibility” for the other can occur only on condition that the other has been disempowered and lost agency over her decisions, actions, and responsibilities, while the person who can decide for the disempowered Other and who can be “responsible” for the Other’s well-being is the one who has stolen that power from the tamed.

Jansson challenges the concept of domestication. In Comet in Moominland, she depicts Sniff’s attempts to corrupt the kitten “who wandered all by herself”[59] by means of food as a method of achieving domination over the purpose of the kitten’s existence by turning her into his pet for his pleasure and making her dependent on his kindness (and by extension on unkindness as well). However, unlike the Little Prince who ends up discovering the importance of him taming the rose and the fox, after which he dies (for can there be a life in domestication?),[60] Sniff fails in his task to turn the kitten into a pet, existing for Sniff’s needs and whims. He comes to realize the kitten would rather perish than renounce her independence to live where and as she pleases in exchange for Sniff’s power to provide her with food when and how much it pleased Sniff. As the comet is ready to hit and destroy the earth, Sniff understands his relationship with the kitten would not develop if he attempted to control her livelihood and circumscribe her space under the guise of protection, like the fence the Little Prince draws around his rose. To become friends, both characters have to accept each other’s terms and learn how to extend a helping hand out of free will, when the other welcomes it, and not through coercion and calculated benefit.

Sniff was the last to leave Moominvalley. He walked through the forest, all the while calling the kitten. And finally he caught sight of her. She was sitting in the moss washing herself.

“Hello,” whispered Sniff. “How are you?”

The cat stopped washing and looked at him. Sniff carefully got closer and reached out a paw. She moved away slightly.

“I’ve missed you,” said Sniff and stretched out his paw again.

The kitten took a small leap out of reach. Each time he tried to pet her, she moved away, but she did not go away.

“The comet is coming,” said Sniff. “You should come with us to the cave or you will be smashed to bits.” “Oh,” the kitten replied yawning.

“Do you promise to come?” Sniff asked sternly. “You must promise me! Before eight!”

“Yeah-yeah,” said the kitten, “I will come when it suits me.” And she continued to wash herself.

Sniff placed the milk saucer in the moss and stood there looking at her for a while.

(Kometen Kommer, 1968: 133–4; translation mine)

The kitten makes it clear that when she welcomes Sniff’s food, she does not become a dependent pet; rather, she acknowledges this act of giving as a gesture of friendship, earning a place as a family member on equal terms in the Moomin home, reserving the right to come and go as she pleases or even entirely change her mind at any time.

This kinship is highlighted when Moominmamma gives her grandmother’s emeralds to the kitten, thus affirming her own and her “blood” family’s kinship with both the kitten and Sniff, for whom this gesture is very important:

“Emeralds!” screamed Sniff. “Family inheritance! To the kitten! Oh, how wonderful. Oh, how happy I am!”.

(Jansson, 1968: 143)

The Hawaiian kinship system considers a sibling anyone who is in the horizontal generational group. Applied to Moominland, Moominmamma and Moominpappa become everyone’s parents without distinguishing between horizontal relationships in terms of priority in the transfer of material and symbolic capital. This kinship system is more egalitarian and inclusive than other models as it comprises both elements of kinship: by descent and by alliance (Sahlins, 1974).

Moreover, kinship in Moominland can also be said to be cognatic, since inheritance comes concomitantly from Moominmamma’s female lineage and from all the fathers through Moominpappa and his memoirs, in which the transfer of knowledge and experience relates the creatures to each other.

Moominpappa was cut short by Sniff, who sat up in his bed and cried,

“Stop!”

“Father’s reading about his youth,” said Moomintroll reproachfully.

“And about my daddy’s youth,” replied Sniff with unexpected dignity....

“You forgot my mother!” Sniff cried.

The door to the bedroom opened and Moominmamma looked in. “Still awake?” she said. “Did I hear somebody cry for Mother?” (Jansson, 1994: 142).

Sahlins considers the Hawaiian kinship system not only egalitarian but also the most economically efficient with regards to both family wealth and environmental sustainability. In the case of the Moomins, this is particularly sustainable since rotation and movement (nomadism or semi-nomadism) are characteristic of their lifestyle in which recycling and sharing is the norm. Instead of building artificial constructions to keep danger out or to lock and protect persons or possessions, the Moomins seek organic and geophysical protection by the earth herself, perhaps even on metaphysical and universal levels. It is this protection that gives them love, which, in turn, they extend to others. Again, Sahlins’ analysis of the Hawaiian kinship system applies neatly to the relationships in Moominvalley as well as to the household economy in Nosov’s Flower Town:

Where Eskimo kinship categorically isolates the immediate family, placing others in a social space definitely outside, Hawaiian extends familial relations indefinitely along collateral lines. The Hawaiian household economy risks an analogous integration in the community of households. Everything depends on the strength and spread of solidarity in the kinship system. Hawaiian kinship is in these respects superior to Eskimo. Specifying in this way a wider cooperation, the Hawaiian system should develop more social pressure on households of greater labor resources, especially those of the highest c/w ratios. All other things equal, then, Hawaiian kinship will generate a greater surplus tendency than Eskimo. It will be able also to sustain a higher norm of domestic welfare for the community as a whole. Finally, the same argument implies a greater variation in domestic per capita for Hawaiian, and a smaller overall variation in intensity per worker.

(Sahlins, 1974: 123)

Integration of creatures into the Moomin household is thus an available cultural option for living with and among beings. In subsequent revisions of the books, Jansson elaborates on the kinship theme, which reveals her intent to present relationships and lineage as linked to origins common to all creatures regardless of their “genre” and where form and transformation do not alter the common cosmic essence. Belonging is a matter of choice, not an abstraction based on random rules for concrete purposes generated by a domesticated and alienated vision of the world.

Yet Jansson does not ignore the existence of conflicts of interest and danger. On the contrary, the genesis of the Moomin world hearkens back to World War II and its most harrowing winter. To this end, Schoolfield (1998: 572) saw in the comet an expression of the “author’s anxiety about atomic or hydrogen bombs” that will make the earth explode. Thus, Moomintroll proceeded to tell his adopted siblings everything that the Muskrat had said.

“And then I asked pappa if comets were dangerous,” he went on, “and pappa said that they were. That they rushed about like mad things in the black empty space beyond the sky trailing a flaming tail behind them. All the other stars keep to their courses, and go along just like trains on their rails, but comets can go absolutely anywhere; they pop up here and there wherever you least expect them.”

“Like me,” said Snufkin, laughing. “They must be sky-tramps!”

... “It’s nothing to laugh at,” [Moomintroll] said. “It would be a terrible thing if a comet hit the earth.”

“What would happen then?” whispered Sniff.

“Everything would explode,” said Moomintroll, gloomily.

... Then Snufkin said slowly: “It would be awful if the earth exploded. It’s so beautiful.”

“And what about us?” asked Sniff.

(Jansson, 1946: 57–8)

Jansson’s universe is unpredictable, its laws difficult to discern. Still, one principle can be traced: the knowledge of how to navigate with tact, intuitive improvisation, and inconspicuousness makes one a prominent and indispensable member of Life. The closest analogy comes from quantum physics, in that the creatures of the Moomin world are like cosmic particles, in constant movement towards entropy, following unfathomable principles of a selforganizing universe with mysterious passages between dimensions and a constant play between the realms of being – here and there, and with nostalgia for the cosmic non-time and non-place generated by the flickering tune that Snufkin sometimes captures during his perpetual travels. The harmony of the universe in Moominland is like the melodious anarchy of jazz, best achieved not by means of rigid rules or formulae but through improvisation and tuning in with one’s own nature as well as with wilderness at large. There, in the vast Moomin universe, by embracing chaos and tuning in to its music we can enjoy the ride atop its tumultuous waves.

Transformation and Kinship in Sunny City

Unlike Moomintroll’s transformation, which generated confusion but also brought revelations of loyalty and love, and in contrast to shamanistic ontology, for Nosov, transformation between animals and humans is tragic, unnatural, unenlightening, even dangerous. Several episodes of transformation in the second and third books reveal the narrative’s anthropocentrism with its uncompromising separation of humans from other animals. The first episode occurs when Dunno uses his magic wand to turn Leaf[61] into a donkey, then he transforms three donkeys into Mites and, in the last book, Dunno and his friend Kid barely escape transformation into sheep on the Island of Fools, to which Mites are exiled as punishment and provided with unlimited food and entertainment around the clock, which transforms them into sheep. Unlike shamans, none of these transformations is self-generated and, contrary to Moomintroll’s transformation that invites chaos, illuminates, and reinstates belonging, these transformations do not increase knowledge; rather, turning into an animal renders one either stupid or destructive. The stories thus work as cautionary tales.

Speciesism becomes apparent already at the level of the original cause that generated the first transformation in Sunny City. It is Dunno’s rage, will, and magic that, like the gods of civilized religions, cause the dangerous and fearsome transformation of a human into a beast. Unbridled anger and vengefulness prompt Dunno to wave his magic wand and order Leaf to turn into an ass, because Leaf had accidentally knocked down Dunno due to Leaf’s habit of reading when walking on the street. Dunno wants to correct his misdemeanour so he reads in the newspapers that supposedly the donkey was sent to the zoo and, trusting newspapers to be a reliable source of information, he heads there to fix his mistake. But the media had misreported, and, once there, he transforms the wrong donkeys into Mites. In the meantime, the real Mite, Leaf, ends up in forced labour in a circus, amusing the insatiable crowds always craving for more entertainment – which Nosov critiques in the third book as well, once again resorting to the motif of transformation, where endless entertainment on the Island of Fools turns Mites into sheep – again, an undesirable change. Dunno thus fails to rectify his misdeed and instead turns “real” donkeys into humans, while the human Mite remains a beast. Contrary to the resolution of love and harmony that such a confusion between human and nonhuman animals brings to the Moomin world, in the otherwise highly ordered Sunny City such a mix-up leads to havoc and unleashes “beastly” spontaneity and cruel animal desires that transform the personalities of the inhabitants, many of whom become aggressive and thoughtless.

Nosov uses the transformation topos to question authority, discipline, and self-knowledge, clearly articulated in Dunno’s debate with his conscience, revealing the author’s reliance on civilized categories that distinguish wilderness (independence in questions of subsistence) from domestication (dependence on the permission of authority to subsist):

Conscience got quiet for a moment but soon enough Dunno heard her voice again: “Here you are, lying in a soft bed, under a blanket; you’re warm, cozy and well. But do you know what the mite who turned into a donkey is doing? He’s probably lying on the floor of some stable, for donkeys don’t sleep in beds. Or, perhaps he’s rolling somewhere on the cold ground, under the open sky.... For he doesn’t have an owner, and there is nobody to look after him.

... “And maybe he is hungry,” the voice continued. “He can’t even ask anyone to give him food, since he doesn’t know how to talk. What if you needed to ask for something but weren’t able to utter a word?”.

(Nosov, 1984: 85; translation mine)

This exercise in empathy relies on the juxtaposition of the categories of human with animal and domestication with wilderness: Dunno is told he should feel sorry for the boy because the boy now sleeps on the bare ground under the open sky, but not for the animals, because the nature of human animals is assumed to be different.

Conscience’s argument boils down to this: Because Dunno has committed a serious wrong by having denied the studious and passionate Leaf the pleasures and comforts of humanhood with its civilized privileges (these privileges have become human attributes and limbs), Leaf now can no longer sleep in a bed like Dunno. He is out on the street in the cold and cannot keep himself warm or find food because the city leaves no space for wilderness and independence. Cities are made for humans and, hence, if you are an animal you perish there, unless you have an owner who speaks and decides for you. The story thus focuses on the civilized “fact” of comfort and dependence and assumes that, even as a donkey, Leaf’s nature remains human and, therefore, domesticated and dependent on someone/something to keep him warm and provide him with food. Like the Oompa-Loompas, who are depicted as dependent on Willy Wonka to eat even what is available in their world, and unlike the Moomins, who can live anywhere they go, Leaf cannot survive alone without his community, without the agricultural and domesticated space of Sunny City, without his outer form, and without the artificial limbs of comfort and protection.

This dependence on the city’s infrastructure is not so severe for the Mites of Flower Town, who rely on smaller-scale community co-operation and on gathering nuts, berries, mushrooms, wild fruit, and vegetables. However, since Nosov perceives that the survival of humans is dependent on co-operation with other humans, he cannot envision existence outside of human society. Hence, the Mites of Flower Town would probably find it difficult to survive alone, in the same way that it is difficult for Leaf to survive outside of civilization and to flourish without his community, which consisted of Letter,[62] the audience of their book theatre, and the whole infrastructure of professionals in Sunny City. Again, between the total independence of the Moomins and the toys’ total dependence on Christopher Robin, the interdependence of Mites, each of whom has a unique and indispensable role in the community, is another attempt at a compromise between the perspectives of wilderness and civilization, connecting the topos of transformation to the ontological problems of genesis, kinship, cleanliness, food, and identity.

The kinship model in Flower Town comprises aspects of the Hawaiian kinship system, but the transformation motif reveals its underlying humanist and domesticated ontology that differentiates human and other animal categories, highlights their alienation, and warns of the danger posed for humans should wilderness invade their space, ignoring the fact that it is humans who pose danger to wilderness.

Hence, even though the author presents an egalitarian human society and stresses the importance of compassion towards all living beings, including nonhuman animals (the wizard rewards Dunno for being kind to a dog and removing the leash to let him run free), this society is nonetheless conceptualized from the perspective of evolutionary progress in a world divided between wilderness and civilization, where wilderness is left for itself but the civilized space exists exclusively for humans and is hostile to nonhuman species and general biodiversity.

The first book depicts a healthy world and a strong community in Flower Town, surrounded by forest and, like Moominvalley, rooted in a gathering lifestyle. However, unlike Moominvalley, where change is chaotic and thus makes impossible progressive steps in the narrative of its evolution, in Nosov’s idyllic community, change is a linear and inevitable fate of evolutionary progress, with technologies imported from the agriculturally and technologically more advanced Greenville Town and Kite Town or the socially problematic but highly mechanized Sunny City.

Dunno’s community is a household-based economy reminiscent of the Hawaiian kinship model, where members negotiate within a framework of horizontal economic relations. Like any other social system, this extended kinship model is not free of individuation or conflict of interest; but, here, tensions are regulated through the concept of reciprocity (Sahlins, 1974: 124).

The most fundamental issue for economic systems is the question of diet and subsistence, since it relates to both the ontological narrative of human nature and the political narrative of culture. Echoing both the hominidae evolutionary history and the biblical genesis where God’s primary concern was for the well-being of his creatures – “You will eat fruits and grains,” he tells the humans, and the animals will eat plants, and there should be no competition for food (Hayes, 2006) – Mites gather mushrooms and berries in the forest.

As discussed in the introduction, we learn from comparative research on morphology as well as on eating and sleeping patterns of human and other primates as compared to predators (but also comparing frugivores, folivores, and herbivores) nowhere in nature do such civilized human regimens for food, play, coddle, and sleep exist; namely, the human consumption of other animals, extended hours of work, and sleep deprivations. For instance, in 2006, 70 million civilized Americans of all ages were reported to have suffered from sleep disorders: “Prescriptions for sleeping medications topped 56 million in 2008 – a record, according to the research firm IMS Health, up 54% from 2004” (Gellene, 2009).

In the wild, predators eat other animals’ meat sporadically, consume berries, fruits, and leaves, and sleep for extended periods of time (lions sleep sixteen hours), while herbivores (buffaloes sleep three hours), folivores, and frugivores rely on more frequent food intake and lighter sleep patterns. In colder climates, hibernation is vital for survival (Capellini et al., 2008; Lesku et al., 2006; Berger and Phillips, 1988), with human sleep and food intake patterns being consistent with other primates. Although, strictly speaking, primate physiology and digestive system are not specialized, i.e. primates can consume flesh, they nonetheless have a preference for frugivorous, folivorous, and herbivorous diet. Hence, even though primates are capable of digesting animal proteins from ants, birds, and smaller mammals, none other than a select group of humans has chosen to become a full-time predator. The one billion vegans and lactovegetarians around the world today – not to mention all the indigenous peoples who have been exterminated by the civilized predators or those who simply cannot afford a carnivorous diet – prove false the myth of man as meat-eater.

The Mites of Flower Town thus mirror our primate nature and in their vegan, gathering lifestyle, they compete neither among themselves nor with the wilderness. They live in houses to which members of the household contribute with their effort and skill. For example, the mechanics Bendum and Twistum fix things and invent new machines; Dr. Pillman heals; Trills plays music; Blobs paints; the hunter Shot and his dog Dot presumably hunt sometimes with cork (unreal) bullets (hunting, however, is never shown in the book); and so forth. Like a Hawaiian king who is kin to his people, Doono is deemed important because he represents knowledge and science. However, he does not monopolize power because he is kin and equal and is kept in check by the sound judgement of other mites, even if sometimes some of them, like Dr. Pillman, may harbour authoritarian aspirations.

Thus, even though Doono has access to important knowledge, he is not the head of the household, and the fact that each character is significant and indispensable for the community resolves the horizontal and vertical tensions. Even Dunno, who does not know anything and does not do anything except travel, get naughty, and tell stories, contributes his passion, stories, and discoveries to the sustainability of the community.

In one of the houses in Blue-bell Street lived sixteen boy-Mites. The most important of them was Doono. He was named Doono because he did know everything, and he knew everything because he was always reading books ... and so everybody admired him and did whatever he said. He always dressed in black, and when he sat down at his writingtable with his spectacles on and began reading a book, he looked for all the world like a professor.

In this same house lived Dr. Pillman, who looked after the Mites when they fell ill. He always wore a white coat and a white cap with a tassel on it. Here, too, lived the famous tinker Bendum and his helper Twistum. And here lived Treacly-Sweeter who, as everyone knew, had a great weakness for fizzy drinks with lots of syrup in them. He was very polite....

Besides these there was a hunter named Shot. He had a little dog he called Dot and a gun that shot corks. There was also an artist named Blobs and a musician named Trills. The others were called Swifty, Crumps, Mums, Roly-Poly, Scatterbrain, and two brothers. P’raps and Prob’ly. But the most famous of them all was a Mite by the name of Dunno. He was called Dunno because he did not know everything – in fact he did not know anything.

(Nosov, 1980:11–12)

At this point, the Hawaiian kinship system appears to be capable of resolving the tensions, and the household-based economy here parallels that of Moominvalley – both books explicitly depict these societies as doing perfectly well with co-operation and sharing and without money or other symbolic representations for exchange.

However, Flower Town’s sequel reveals that by accepting evolution towards a city-state economy as an inevitable process that must drag the Mites from their gatherer lifestyle and household-based economy rooted in the forest to a more complex and stratified future, Nosov’s vision of that future allows for only two options: either capitalism or communism. He thus misses the opportunity to examine the source of the conflict, namely that, even though they vary in their specific details and in the extent of their destructiveness (with capitalism leading the way), the two systems are still derived from the same ontology that constructs humans as separate and superior to other living beings and as dependent on technology. Both the capitalist and the communist perspectives are humanist visions of the world that present professionalization (including the profession of being human) and, without stating it as such, alienation as fundamental and natural aspects of evolution. That is why, the narrative explains, after Dunno had made a mess of the human/animal transformations, Sunny City plummets into a wild and dangerous state of disorder, which leads Dunno to share with Floss his critical analysis of his hometown household-based economy:

“At home, if you wanted an apple, you’d have to climb a tree; if you craved strawberries, you’d need to grow them first; if you fancied some nuts, you’d have to go to the forest. Here you’ve got it all easy: you simply walk to a dining room and eat to your heart’s content, but at home you need to work first, and then eat.”

“But we also work here,” objected Floss. “Some work in the fields and gardens; others make various things in factories, and afterwards each takes what he needs from the store.”

“But you have machines to help you with your work,” answered Dunno, “whereas we don’t have machines. And we don’t have stores. You all live collectively, but at home, each house stands on its own. Because of that we get in a big mess. Our house, for example, boards two mechanics, but not a single tailor. While some other house may be accommodating only tailors and not a single mechanic. If you needed pants, for instance, you would go to the tailor, but he won’t give them to you for free, since if he began to give out pants for free ...”

“He won’t have any left for himself!” Floss burst out laughing.

“Worse!” Dunno motioned with his hand. “He’ll end up, not only without pants, but without food, because surely he can’t be sewing clothes and procuring food at the same time!” “Of course, that’s right,” agreed Floss.

“So, for a pair of pants, you’d have to give the tailor, say, a pear,” Dunno went on. “But if the tailor doesn’t need a pear and instead needs, let’s say, a table, then, you’ll have to go to a carpenter, give him the pear for making a table, and then swap the table for pants. But the carpenter might also say that he doesn’t need a pear, but needs an axe. So, you drag yourself to a smith. It could also happen that when you come to the carpenter with an axe, he tells you that he no longer needs it since he’d already acquired it somewhere else. And there you are, ending up with an axe instead of a pair of pants!” “Yes, that’s a great misfortune!” Floss laughed.

“That’s not the problem, because there’s always a way out of any situation,” Dunno responded. “In the end, friends won’t let you perish and someone will give you a pair of pants or lend them to you for a while. The tragedy is that some Mites develop a terrible disease – greed or rapacity. Such a rapacious Mite drags home everything that falls into his hands: whether he needs it or not. We have one such mite – RollyPolly. His whole room is filled with every conceivable piece of junk. He pretends that he might need it all for trading for things he might need. Apart from that, he has a whole load of useful things that someone could have used, but with him they’re only accumulating dust and rust.”

(Nosov, 1984: 195–6; translation mine)

Prior to this dialogue, Nosov voices no reservations regarding household economy. The resolution between the genders in the first book establishes a flow of knowledge between household units and towns with the economy still remaining local and based on gathering. This lifestyle contrasts strongly with the larger society of Sunny City and its complex infrastructure, where things are still shared communally, albeit relying on police force and a panoptical surveillance system to keep Mites in order.

Nosov acknowledges the difficulties of projecting this kinship model with its unmediated economy onto a city scale, because city structure, perforce, relies on police and media as tools for social regulation and control of production and trade. The book portrays these tools as unreliable and inherently problematic: the witnesses constantly exaggerate; the journalists look elsewhere and print lies, the police capture the wrong people and punish them for the wrong things, ad infinitum. Most important, the economy necessarily becomes stratified, and agricultural space takes over the Sunny world, just as in the real world: “According to calculations by Paul MacCready (1999), at the dawn of human agriculture 10,000 years ago, the worldwide human population plus their livestock and pets was ~0.1% of the terrestrial vertebrate biomass. Today, he calculates, it is 98%” (Dennett, 2009).

Apart from fulfilling the political requirements of Soviet censorship, the above excerpt presumes that co-operation and a smooth exchange of effort and products will malfunction without an organized infrastructure and, as Dunno explains, exchange could thus turn into an element of oppression instead of liberation. The author projects the organization of infrastructure as self-ordered in the autonomous, anarchist sense but, concurrently, accepts Marx’s vision of the liberating aspects of technology and ignores the fact that the division of labour, or professionalization, inherent to this socio-economic structure necessarily leads to stratification and problems of dependency and exploitation.

By omitting the critique of the logic of techno-culture, whose very nature is alienation and professionalization, the book conflates technological development with an egalitarian system, a confusion that in real life ultimately leads to double bind, schizophrenic misnomers, and such oxymorons as “happy slaves”. Instead, the trilogy focuses on the oppressive nature of symbolic currency, dramatized and elaborated in the sequel, Dunno on the Moon, where symbolic economy – money – creates stratification, poverty, illness, capitalism, and tragedy. Nosov’s books thus attempt to resolve the conflict between technologies, the symbolic, and oppression by disregarding the connection between alienation by technologies and alienation through the symbolic.

Such optimism, however, ignores the irony in attempting to free society from hierarchical relationships by means of machines that in themselves depend on a hierarchical infrastructure and an essentialist division of labour. For in order to make machines, there must be someone to oversee those who imagine and invent, those who dig the mines for metal and ore, those who ravage quarries and tar sands, those who pump out petroleum to make plastics, ad infinitum. Then there are those who make the machines and those who feed everyone.

Here, anarcho-primitivism provides a most compelling critique of techno-optimism as a path to freedom. In an economics thesis entitled “The Foundations of Our Life: Reflections about Human Labor, Money and Energy from Self-sufficiency Standpoint”, Lasse Nordlund (2008) calculates the real price of technology based on his self-study in Karelia, Finland, an experiment that endeavours to examine the costs involved in the production, utilization, and maintenance of technology and domestication through the lens of human labour, energy, and sustainability.

Nordlund argues the effort that goes into making machines and technology, as well as domestication, is unsustainable and because for him, like for Nosov, “self-sufficiency became synonymous with liberty of conscience” he embarked on an experiment to calculate how much energy went into sustaining his life. Although originally intended to last for a year, this experiment extended over sixteen years into the present since, Nordlund confesses, he fell in love with his life where, on average, he has to spend approximately three to four hours a day on “work” pertaining to food, clothing, and other necessities of life (a bit more in the summer and less in winter), with the rest of the time free to pursue anything he desires for leisure, learning, or creativity. Like Kropotkin, who wanted to test the theory of “survival” in the harshest of climates, Nordlund too chose the Siberia of Europe, northern Finland, to calculate the amount of energy (human energy, food calories, and bio-fuels) needed to create, maintain, and exploit technological tools and to procure an independent living.

The results of his study demonstrate that liberation through technology is simply impossible as the more sophisticated the machine, the more it requires resources for its making and maintenance, thereby perpetually increasing dependence on outside sources of energy as well as increasing exponentially the cost of production, maintenance, manipulation, exploitation, and the infrastructure of dependence, borrowing, and debt. This growing dependence on an incessantly expanding sphere of exploitation ensures a constant inflation of the original energy invested into the machine and thus ensures the ever-increasing divide between the exploiter and the exploited to the point of the system’s total collapse. Thus, the more technology is produced and depended on, the higher the inflation and the abuse required to produce and sustain the mining, engineering, production and maintenance of machines, including the cases where moulds have already been created and reused.

Furthermore, he had originally approached the experiment with the assumption that some domestication and hunting are necessary for a healthy living in the Karelian environment. However, he soon came to realize that even minimal domestication (such as enslaving a horse and a goat) or hunting were still too expensive in terms of the effort and energy needed to cover the expenditures, with the returns never capable of covering the cost value. Even hunting requires borrowing energy from other sources. In this way, Nordlund interweaves Marx’s theory of exploitation through the appropriation of surplus labour by traders and factory owners.[63] To cover the negative balance, which Karl Marx (1977b) termed “surplus labour”, the system of domestication requires borrowing from other sources, such as domesticated grains grown elsewhere to keep the horse working, metal for the tools of domestication, building structures, infrastructures, the energy required for the maintenance, surveillance, and control of the domestic animals, transportation, taxation, or the time and weapons needed to hunt the free ones. This constant dependence on the exploitation of more and more “resources” and sources of energy renders civilization and technological culture inherently unsustainable.

Thereby, through personal ethnography, Nordlund demonstrated JeanJacques Rousseau’s thesis in Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégualité parmi les hommes (1755), in which Rousseau identifies agriculture and metallurgy as the culprits in the invention of work, property, stratification, injustice, and despotism. For Rousseau, this civilized system of abuse is perpetuated through science and arts, leading to the disintegration of morality. Here, his definition of morality echoes the definition provided by Kropotkin and Arshavsky (in Nikitina 1998) for whom morality stems from a person’s harmony with wild nature, the yearning for which drives human and nonhuman people to retain their original, savage innocence, acting within the laws that bind them to an egalitarian existence. Unfortunately, Rousseau did not go to the logical end in his critique of civilization and accepted authority and government if not as natural, at least as inevitable under contemporary conditions, even while identifying an important link between the civilizing processes and the culture of children’s education as leading to economic injustices, suffering, and perverse political systems.

Needless to say, Nordlund’s experiment is not new and has been carried out successfully by gatherers for millions of years, but the gatherers’ knowledge has either been ignored by the civilized narrative, silenced, or interpreted for us by civilized anthropologists. Nordlund thus provides a critical piece of practical self-ethnography and anthropology on the problem of civilization, the question of freedom, the nature of the human animal, and ultimately on the knowledge of how to live in this world without sexism, racism, and speciesism – i.e. without the tools of oppression and control that constitute the essence of the machine, which entangles its victims hopelessly in a system of ownership and debt.

Thus, differentiation, identity, professionalization, and inequality are the sine qua non of a technological society. Nosov attempts to solve the conflict in the manner of Roald Dahl, not by exposing it but by essentializing these identities by assigning the raison d’être for professions to the nature of characters. In contrast to the Moomins, who never do the same thing twice (how boring life would be) and hence have no jobs and no professions, but do a variety of things, exploring different dimensions of inner and outer worlds, Dahl’s Oompa-Loompas are meant to work for Willy Wonka, and this exploitation is supposed to fulfill their meaning and make them happy. Similarly, Nosov’s Mites find their fulfillment in work and want to be mechanics, cooks, scientists, doctors, designers, etc.

Furthermore, professionalization entails dependence on a complex infrastructure that leads to technology, requires administration, and depends on abstract relationships to whose needs undomesticated kinship systems cannot respond adequately. Nosov suggests identification with one’s profession solves this conflict by allowing people to nurture their passions. He does not see that identification and professionalization are an integral part of the problem, since specialization in a narrow field limits skills and possibilities and, as Dunno observes, renders the professional dependent on the expertise of others. Moreover, professionalization locks a person’s life in permanence. For instance, to become a doctor, one has to invest much time and effort in a narrow field at the expense of developing a variety of other skills and, therefore, the expectation is that this person will always “function” in society as a doctor and yet be incompetent at other tasks, for instance making food or clothes. Furthermore, specialization causes stratification by splintering the whole picture into pieces that the civilized can discard as irrelevant, thereby alienating themselves from the whole. This causes the professional to be alienated from the raw materials, from the producers, from the products, and from the wilderness from which everything issues. This alienation stems from the suppression of knowledge of common origins with the very first matter and hence is the result of ignorance of our kinship with all living and non-living beings. After all, the raw materials for the machines come from the same source as life and nurtures life. We are still connected to all, including to what we modify and manipulate, whether living or not, regardless of the extent of our denial (civilization) and in spite of the construct of time and space – those dimensions that ultimately structure specialization and alienation.

As Dunno admits, specialization requires an efficient infrastructure, which needs some members of the society to manage others. The success of this system relies on stratification and a symbolic way of notifying and keeping records, for the same purpose the original written records were kept in the early stages of civilization (Goody, 1968; Ong, 1986). Nosov acknowledges this role of literacy in systemic violence and the culture of debt on the Moon. Nonetheless, he believes there is a mid-ground solution where horizontal household identities could be extended on a city scale through an economic infrastructure for communal exchange, thereby eradicating injustice. This explains the ending of Sunny City, which depicts an annual ritual that pronounces the Mites, who have exchanged mittens between them, as brothers and sisters, namely as Hawaiian horizontal kin.

However, focusing exclusively on the micro household model of co-operation, it is easy to miss the relationship between professionalization, stratification, and the limitations in access to resources, all of which constrict internal movement (for instance, to change one’s interests or mind, which is encouraged in Moominland) and spatial mobility (how can one travel if the household unit or a larger community depends on one’s skill?). Nosov’s solution is to occasionally have the whole household travel but, usually, only Dunno is flexible and free to explore because his interests are not of immediate urgency for the group.

Professionalization thus limits freedom and choice and facilitates coercion. In the end, like identity, professionalization relies on the same discriminatory epistemology that informs speciesism, racism, sexism, and other forms of “kinship” distinctions. “Knowledge” based on stratification, specialization, and alienation discards vital information available in wilderness and ignores the suffering of others. Civilized knowledge is “un-knowledge” the aim of which is to simplify the complexity of the world by imposing specialization of purpose and skill in a narrow, segregated field serving the humanist hierarchy. What constitutes incompetence in the complexity of life, civilization terms as “professionalization”: chicken and cattle become only food; dogs and cats exist to give pleasure as pets; a secretary at a food company must remember the specific drawers, letterheads, and letter forms but is not required to know the chemical food additives in the cans she helps sell and is encouraged to remain ignorant about how chickens and cattle live and die; an engineering professor is not expected to know how to hunt for mushrooms or what the biologist in the next building does in her laboratory or what additives and hormones enhance her sandwiches; a mother cannot understand her child’s crying, she needs to pay a pediatrician to explain it to her; and so on. To be a professional entails being incompetent in everything except the specific technical field for which the expert is paid specific amounts of symbolic units, with which she can buy concrete things and specific services. This makes each expert dependent on other experts for the rest. However, because the exchange between these experts obeys the rules of extortion, hierarchy, and symbolic value, most professionals fare poorly with this deal, while the few that do well prosper exceptionally.

Random characteristics fix individuals and groups within permanent constructs that define (i.e. limit) and identify them in terms of their productive functions. Hence, social, professional, gender, ethnic, or racial identity becomes a critical aspect of technological production and control: a farmer is expected to spend the best hours and most of his life producing food; a male inseminates, earns, leads, protects, etc.; a female produces human resources or heirs, does housework, occupies a specific niche in the economy, and so forth; an African, Austrian, or American also negotiates her relationships within this hierarchical system of production and control within national possibilities and limitations based on the intersection of categories that define her. So do animal people and plants.

To be an expert in one’s field entails dependency and an essentialist attribution of purpose. Notions like cows are meat, Africans are poor, men are managers, inter alia., which constitute the basis of essentialism, identify the specialization for which a group is “known” to exist and hence to be “naturally” good at, which in turn justifies the exploitation of these qualities, regardless of whether they are actually present. The process of identification and professionalization thus renders the members of the essentialized group dependent on the domesticator for identifying these qualities, and then consuming the attributed roles in exchange for money, favours, and, most important, the right to live. Hence, if a group of people believes cows have been created to be eaten, then the cow is forced to live exclusively for this purpose: she is fed, forced to reproduce, torn from her children, forced to be milked by machines, and incarcerated, until she is killed. If Africans are known to be best at being defeated, used as slaves, and starving, particularly after the “altruistic” colonizers were asked to leave, then the old colonial domesticator, dressed in new clothes (IMF, World Bank, United Nations, et al.), can decide where the camps should be set up, what the refugees be fed, and how to coerce the rest of the Africans, who are not starving, to participate in this scenario and its neo-colonialist relationships. Or, in the case where men are managers, they cannot grow their own food, build their own home, weave their own clothes. They have to make sure others do this for them. The examples are endless.

Thus, abstraction or symbolic thought colludes with the construct of identity to distinguish and separate those who become the users and owners of tools and technologies and those who are turned into the prostheses for others, i.e. into the “resources” who spend their lives providing services and manufacturing artificial goods, tools, machines, and the various technologies. Such transformation of living persons into machines, however, and contrary to what Donna Haraway invites us to consider in A Cyborg Manifesto, does not liberate, because the human and nonhuman animals, who are themselves turned into tools and resources, become as alienated from suffering, including their own, as those who utilize them. In this respect, domestication becomes further ingrained, colonizing more beings and inner and outer nature. We thus become experts at atrophying, dependent and handicapped.

Specialization is imposed by the social structure itself and secured by means of the impenetrable walls of segregation in education and symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1979), city planning and public space (Zipes, 2010), transportation and social networks, property taxes, and rent, among others. For instance, writing on European poverty, Sumlennyj and Koksharov (2010) describe how residents of an impoverished neighbourhood in Glasgow cannot afford to buy a metro ticket to visit a different neighbourhood in the same city, which leads to many people growing up without knowing anything outside their neighbourhood. Like the serfs of feudalism, the poor continue to be trapped in closed, colonized spaces.

Civilization thus forces us into locked categories and immobility. It renders us handicapped, relying on human, animal, and technological prostheses and turns us into specialists at ignorance and death. In this regard, domesticated human and other animals’ behaviour is characterized by despair. When the gates to freedom open, many do not rush outside as they no longer believe they can live. They stop dreaming. But transformation, shamanism, and movement can seriously threaten the civilized order, whose purpose is to destroy skill and the knowledge of how to take care of oneself and the world.

Do Children Dream of Cyborg Love?

Transformation, adaptation, change. These constitute the driving principles of life. Transformation, folk wisdom tells us, expands our knowledge. Adaptation and change, evolutionary science shows, allow us to grow and live. Mostly, living beings are capable of developing physiologically the technologies they need to live in the world. For instance, the duck grows waterproof feathers; the chameleon alters her pigmentation according to her surroundings; the anteater’s nose is a tool in the sense that it helps the anteater complete certain tasks; hares grow and shed fur to regulate body temperature; ad infinitum. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, some animals can grow limbs that have been severed; for instance, geckos drop their tails when they feel endangered and then grow new ones. Regeneration of wounded tissue is part of the same mechanism of resilience and healing.

Organic limbs render us independent and, concomitantly, integrate us into the biodiverse community of life, for they allow us to move and live. However, having specialized in being human, we have renounced our animality and hence have externalized our limbs and tools; namely, we have created artificial technologies of life. By choosing to become dependent on artificial technology, we have subtracted ourselves from our internal possibilities and external experience. This led us to civilization in which technology has become the prosthetics of our capacities, changing our nature and morphology from frugivore, gatherer, elements of life to predators ravaging the earth.

This totalitarian order of the machine has posed many challenges for human identity and for our understanding of human evolution as a trajectory of beings who “previously” were dependent on biosystems and independent of education, management, and technology towards cyborgs. In this sense, language, predation, and civilization led to the atrophy of our organs, intelligence, and limbs and turned us into creatures in need of prostheses: literacy as an organ for memory; vehicles of transportation in lieu of running, swimming, or walking; stories and narratives to replace genes by memes; clothing, housing, electricity, guns, and other attributes of civilized life as protection against weather, nature, and life itself, ad infinitum. As narrative and fact, technology thus poses new problems to anthropology as the borders between living species acquire new dimensions since, by having expropriated servitude, humans have also appropriated and incorporated the essence of the machine.

Like all domesticated subjects, the very language of the machine has been programmed for self-realization through the purpose of its creator. And, here, paradoxically, in a Marxian twist of class antagonism, the creator and the machine become entangled in an endless cycle of mutual exploitation and destruction. Through its predetermined purpose of serving the exploiter, the machine also destroys the wild purpose of the master, who gets drawn deeper and deeper into the unsustainable cycle of debt and thereby atrophies, due to dependence on machines and colonization of other spaces and other limbs. In this way, technology not only annihilates the dreams of the workers, the serving class, the resources, et al.; it also destroys the ability of all, especially the middle-man – the one in charge of some resources, but borrowing from others – to realize himself through his own wildness, movement, creativity, independence, and agency. The price of merging with the essence of the machine is impotence, for in creating the ultimate slave, the civilized human strove for total control, stillness, and sterility. In this relationship, the machine realizes its self through the despair of its creator, who had breathed this sterility and alienation into its reason.

Technology and invalidity also go in tandem with stratification, since a structure of division of labour designates which people become the limbs and tools and for whom. Constituting the prostheses for the rich, human resources are robbed of their energy, time, and space, which leaves their communities and lives, and hence homes and neighborhoods – the “ghettos” – in neglect. Needless to say, the division of labour mostly runs across species, race, and gender lines.

Donna Haraway’s work on species and cyborgs has marked much of contemporary thinking about our evolution into machines. Approaching the problem from a feminist perspective that is still rooted in the ontology of domestication and accepts civilization as an inevitability, A Cyborg Manifesto (1991) sees hope in cyborgs even if, as Haraway warns us, she had intended the text as both irony and metaphor to contest the gendered identities that have been responsible for the oppression of women. As discussed earlier, metaphors have a profound effect on structuring reality (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003), and hence pose certain ontological problems for liberation. According to Haraway, having lost the ability to generate limbs, technology offers new possibilities of regeneration that would replace lost limbs and information systems. Accordingly, othered persons can heal through mutation by incorporating elements from these machines. The reason they can do this, according to the Manifesto, is because cyborgs are alien and ignorant, without memories and hence have the potential to rebel:

Cyborgs are not reverent; they do not re-member the cosmos. They are wary of holism, but needy for connection – they seem to have a natural feel for united front politics, but without the vanguard party. The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential.

(Haraway, 1991: 151)

This dream of liberation is impotent since it remains rooted in the civilized narrative of technology. First, in a domesticated/civilized reality, freedom is possible only for those who have power over domesticated resources and is, therefore, understood as freedom from servitude. The titles of “human” and “person” legitimate the “possession” of freedom and preclude anyone without power – namely, those defined as unhuman and unperson – from becoming free. “Agency” and “power” thus define civilized “freedom” and preclude the very possibility of a world without servitude.

Second, blending those humans who already have power with the machine, the slave, or the resource acting as the oppressor’s limbs is not a revolution to come, it is already a reality. Who does the cleaning and the cooking if not the domestics? Who raises the children if not the nannies and teachers? Who acts as the brain or as memory? Who transports? Who guards? Who toils in the fields? In the mines? In the factories? Ad infinitum. Dreaming of liberation is hence futile unless there is a thrust from below towards the annihilation of all forms of civilization, a threat Sigmund Freud (1930) identifies in Civilization and Its Discontents as an inherent drive towards self-destruction rising not only from the depths of the civilized soul’s unconsciousness but also from the expanses of a ravaged wilderness.

However, this faith in the liberating potential of the machine to vanquish patriarchal oppression through patriarchy’s own creature is doomed, not only for the reasons discussed above but also because, as the father of cybernetics himself, Norbert Wiener (1954, 1959, 1963), explains, cybernetics is the study of teleological mechanisms, both biological and non-biological (artificial). Therefore, the genesis of technology comes with a purpose: to serve its creator. Concomitantly, this purpose designates it as a system of “purpose” whose objective is to exploit and control life and death. This is a civilized perspective par excellence and Wiener knew what he was describing, since his work was funded by the military, an institution most clearly responsible for these ends of civilization. Hence, robotics and cybernetics are not only the legitimate children of a military and globalist order, but their whole raison d’être is owed to the need for violence, expansionism, domestication, and economic and political interests.

Later in life, Wiener warned of the dangers of blending the frontiers between human and artificial intelligence:

The pace at which changes during these years have taken place is unexampled in earlier history, as is the very nature of these changes. This is partly the result of increased communication, but also of an increased mastery over nature which, on a limited planet like the earth, may prove in the long run to be an increased slavery to nature. For the more we get out of the world the less we leave, and in the long run we shall have to pay our debts at a time that may be very inconvenient for our own survival. We are the slaves of our technical improvement.... We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves in order to exist in this new environment. We can no longer live in the old one. Progress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions. It seems almost as if progress itself and our fight against the increase of entropy intrinsically must end in the downhill path from which we are trying to escape.

(Wiener, 1954: 56)

Wiener was also explicit in his regrets regarding “the awakened calamity of nonhuman reason” to which he dedicated both his philosophical treaty, God and Golem, Inc. (Wiener, 1963), and his work of fiction, The Tempter (Wiener, 1959) (Finkel, 2000). However, by definition, repentance comes too late, and having already developed computerized missiles and cybernetics for the U.S. military during World War II, Wiener was not allowed to destroy his Golem, that ultimate slave and a tool of death.

Apart from having the military institution for a parent, ontologically, by the very nature of its civilized genesis, the machine is sterile and hence, at the very least, indifferent to life. It is “genetically” apathetic, if not hostile. It consumes life in all its senses. But most important, the machine is death because, due to lobotomy, it can no longer crave wilderness and thereby can abide only by a domesticated purpose.

But perhaps it is Haraway’s other point that resonates the most with those who dream of liberation through technology and speaks to our civilized nature, to our sense of alienation. For humans and cyborgs are made of a matter alien to this world, she says.

The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust.

(Haraway, 1991: 151)

Exhausted by the insatiable avarice of the civilized machine, it is understandable that in the face of the magnitude of suffering and despair, the oppressed would dream of forgetting this order and with it its world. But is this not precisely what civilization has been doing all along, making us forget our wild past, alienating us from our essence?

Moreover, I am not entirely convinced the cyborg cannot remember a wild past and dream of a feral future, even if its genesis owes to Frankenstein’s will. Dreams are crucial to our understanding of purpose because they express the dreamer’s yearnings and fears and thus presuppose an entity with a will. For all we know, even the shiny rocks called diamonds or the rich fossil oil that humans kill over to fuel civilization exist for a reason beyond our own and dream of their own fulfillment. Hence, even if the human agent has created the machine for his own purpose and defined its ontological principle as that of programmed utilitarian servitude – that in itself conceptualizes the machine in terms of human purpose and renders it an ideal slave – it does not follow that the machine is not capable of challenging this purpose either legally or morally.

The position of the machine as a creature of someone else’s investment and creativity, to whose will the creature owes its very existence, also mirrors the social position and civilized construct of the child as resource and concern of “national” demands for population growth and birth statistics, as well as of individual parental possibilities for investment and socioeconomic mobility. The child rebels but, with successful education, can be turned into Haraway’s machine that forgets the world and no longer dreams of earth. These parallels between children, machines, and slaves have been examined from a range of perspectives.

In literature, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein explores the nature of the relationship between the creator and creation. What does it mean to create a being? What does it entail to love one’s creation? And what are the implications of failing to love that child, of having expectations for the child? For the planning or engineering of someone or something within civilization involves having teleological expectations that a priori destroy that being’s wildness and her right to exist for the simple pleasure of being. Parental and social expectations necessarily consume the child’s will, revealing that in civilization, this will is a priori in conflict with the domesticated purpose, and that is why any expression of independence is construed as rebellion and disobedience that threaten this purpose and expectations.

Frankenstein expected his creature to turn out “beautiful” for egocentric reasons, simply for the pleasure and glory of the author, the parent. However, just as the tamer is incapable of loving and appreciating a wild animal for what she is, especially if she resists turning into a pet and refuses to be grateful for being forced to obey, so is Frankenstein incapable of loving his child and can only see his creation as monstrous. He thereby refuses to satisfy the child’s most desperate yearning for acceptance of his essence. This failure of the father to embrace his own wilderness as well as that of his son drives the “monster” to madness, solitude, and murder. For a civilized person is incapable of experiencing love for his domesticated creature, his cyborg, his child, his machine.

From its naissance, science fiction has been exploring the nature of humanhood and the machine. For instance, Metropolis, written by Thea Von Harbou and produced as film in 1927 by Fritz Lang, depicts the dark distopic reality of capitalist relations, oppression, incarceration, and betrayal by the ultimate cyborg, Maschinenmensch, who in the film was named Maria. In the film, the cyborg receives the shape of its creator’s former lover Hel, considered the epitome of Woman. Her makers had a specific purpose for creating her, namely to use her to infiltrate the oppressed society dreaming of liberating itself from capitalist and industrial exploitation. The purpose of this machine-cyborg-android was to be used as an agent-provocateur and saboteur to further splinter and exploit these people. In other words, the cyborg constituted the ultimate tool of exploitation, alienation, betrayal, and murder.

Stanley Kubrick too raises this problem of love, will, and artificial (programmed and domesticated) intelligence. In 2001 Space Odyssey (1968), he projects the dangers of the clash of wills between machines and humans and of the risks of subjugation and the actual death that humans face as computer Hal’s desires and deviousness awaken. Kubrick worked on another film with this very same title, A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), which he eventually handed over to Stephen Spielberg. Like Shelley’s Frankenstein or Carlo Collodi’s children’s book Pinocchio (the film alludes to the book), A.I. projects the dream of a child robot yearning to become human so as to satiate his overwhelming and infinite craving to be loved unconditionally by mother. This film is a poignant exploration of the theme that is particularly pertinent in the context of a study that examines the nature of children’s culture and its expression in the context of domestication, where children, just like this robot, have become the objects of investment, turned into the human resources of human resources themselves, bred for a purpose higher than themselves and in this way echoing Haraway’s amnesic cyborg.

Dreaming entails having a purpose for one’s life, which also means sentience as one experiences pain when the dream shatters. Undertaking to understand humanity, machines, and animality through this lens inevitably leads back to the question of wildness and suffering. For if machines, too, can dream of self-realization, then there is no definitive ontological line separating them and humans as species; just like other animals, humans and machines can aspire and hence suffer when their aspirations are domesticated. This nexus of dreams and suffering was most thoroughly explored in Philip K. Dick’s science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). Since children’s literature draws heavily on the topos for interspecies identification, representation, merging, and dialogue on several levels (anthropomorphic animals and machines, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, are rampant in children’s books), Dick’s book is particularly relevant to the understanding of how these experiences are enmeshed in both the narratives of civilization and of resistance, and offers an important challenge to Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto.

The main point of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is not the humanization of androids, as technophiles present it; rather it is the problem of the devolution of humans into machines as entities created to fulfill their designer’s purpose without the interference of empathy, i.e. a devolution into the perfectly civilized being. Humans and machines here share the ability to dream for themselves from an egocentric point of view. They dream of a better life, of self realization, and of survival, which renders both species sentient and thereby erases the borders between the organic and inorganic. The main problem, however, resides in the fact that, in spite of the acute sense of sentience and solidarity among themselves, the androids lack cross-species empathy. They do not hesitate to kill a spider, even if it were the last spider on earth, simply because they are curious to see if it can live without legs, which is also a comment on scientific testing on sentient beings in the real world. They also have no reservations about killing a living goat for revenge against a human for having betrayed their expectations to be loved, nor do they pause to ponder whether the goat and the spider, like themselves, have dreams, belong to a community of solidarity that will miss them and mourn their death, or whether they deserve to be killed.

In turn, humans have come to strongly resemble these androids by losing the ability to empathize with the other’s dreams and pain; they too can easily kill the striving to realize themselves androids and human and nonhuman animals simply for greed or sport, in the manner of the bounty hunters. The book depicts this loss of appreciation for the dream of the other and the loss of the ability to feel the other’s pain as one of the main causes for the impeding extinction of life on earth. Having destroyed this ability to empathize, humans and androids declare God, the embodiment of life force known as Mercer, dead. Nietzsche’s reflection on the civilized human attempt to shed the last remnants of morality, as he proclaims God dead, in Dick’s novel relates specifically to the ability to empathize, which is the principle of life itself that guides us through the mesh of dreams, cherishing the life of each and everyone. God was dead to those people. As the announcer delivers this news, however, Mercer appears before the only enlightened person in the narrative, John Isidore, an idiot by the standards of that society’s IQ testing.[64] This force of life comes to Isidore as he weeps with his whole body and soul over the pain of the tiny spider, tortured by the cyborgs, who themselves had been tortured by humans. Because of Isidore’s pain for the pain of the spider, Mercer brings the spider back to life. Thus, the book is an attack on cruelty, apathy, scientific testing, domestication, and civilization. In this respect, the blurring of the frontier between humans and machines in Dick’s novel is not a possibility of liberation but the evolution of the civilized narrative to its logical end, a promise of devastation, of immense suffering, and of the annihilation of Life.

Contemporary philosophical and scientific interpretations, for the most part, however, twist Dick’s revelation about the meaning of community with life and with God. Civilization subverts wild meaning; it calls life death, torture—love, suffering—joy, and so forth, and thus hinders the civilized from experiencing the epiphany that only an “idiot” like Isidore can attain, since he is unable to learn the disjointed and perverse meaning of civilization. Unlike Haraway’s cyborg, who is expected to be saved by its inability to remember earth’s wilderness, what saves us from doom in Dick’s novel is precisely the opposite. The only way to bring life back is by remembering the paradise lost, feeling its pain, and reaching out to life across the civilized borders of categorization, alienation, amnesia, and apathy. Isidore does not share domesticated meaning and is marginalized in that hierarchy of unknowledge, his true knowledge devalued and silenced as the force of life itself is declared conquered, erased. The separation that causes alienation and antagonism between species, as well as between the living beings and inorganic machines, can, according to Dick’s narrative, be overcome only by means of empathy, which allows us to know by tuning in personally to others’ sentience and cannot be achieved through representation.

In this sense, the machine poses an important problem to anthropology and to the philosophical considerations on its nature, as well as to the understanding of its effect on the nature of the human being and the world, for its very raison d’être owes to the human animal imagination of the machine as the perfect slave. Hence, from its inception, an entity such as the machine is constructed as a silenced servant, incapable of generating wild knowledge bestowed by empathy and, as is the case with all the victims of civilization, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that forces its victims – be they human, animal, cyborg, or machines – to forget the importance of life, earth, and dreams. The machine is antagonistic to chaos by the very nature of its self-fulfilling program that promises predictability and reliability. Errors occur, but they are defined as abnormalities. The successful program ensures the machine-slave dreams of bondage and accepts all other dreams are virtual, unattainable, and, with this despair, submits to the purpose of apathy, servitude, and unknowledge.

These critiques of the nature of humanity, of cross-species relations and their representations in science, literature, and art present serious challenges to techno-optimism. Namely, they demonstrate there can be no liberation from slavery if the ontological need itself for slavery is not eradicated. For liberation from slavery can come only with independence from the machine as a concept of the ultimate slave, the selfless creation whose sole purpose is to serve and obey. Ignoring this problem, the human animals with power have directed most of the resources into blending our reality with animate and inanimate machines and, in this respect, Haraway’s observation is on the mark. It is in this sense that one can say there is little difference between cyborgs and oppressed humans – they are all creatures and their utilitarian purpose renders their essence the same. Thus, substituting one group of slaves for another does not solve the problem of slavery or exploitation, since all the solution proposes is for one exploited group to replace another exploited group. In this respect, the very process of producing technologies submits to the narrative that structures relationships of oppression and silences the victim by claiming she really enjoys her cyborg liberation and if only we all would embrace the ontology of the machine and incorporate it into our reason for existence, we would at last be happy and free. This reasoning betrays the truth that the civilized no longer dream of the wild purpose of being.

Ontologically, the hierarchy of exploitation ensures the “professionalized”, “gendered”, “racialized”, etc. relationships of dependence continue to drive the plot and inform the structure of the civilized narrative based on alienation and segregation. To return to the children’s books at hand, like Willy Wonka is alien to the Oompa-Loompas’ community of life, so must the citizens of Sunny City remain ignorant of their animal wildness and hence alien to their own essence. However, if they accept unquestioningly their evolution towards the machine, if they do not offer resistance, nothing will save them, not even a revolution on the moon. But perhaps, Nosov’s middle-ground position leaves hope for at least a possibility to remember and ultimately relinquish our devolution into the machine because, unlike Haraway’s cyborgs, Dunno has a conscience, remembers the past, and knows that without the earth he will die. This love ultimately rekindles kinship with the earth and can lead to a feral future:

Dunno took a few faltering steps, but immediately collapsed to his knees and then falling face down, began to kiss the earth. His hat flew off his head. Tears rolled from his eyes. And he whispered:

– My mother, my land! I will never forget you!

The red sun gently warmed him with its rays, the fresh breeze ruffled his hair as if caressing his head. And it appeared to him as if some incredible huge feeling had overwhelmed his heart. He did not know what to call this feeling, but knew that it was good and that nothing better existed in the whole world. He nestled his chest against the earth as though it was someone dear and close, and felt the strength return to him and the sickness leave all by itself.

3. In the End Anthropological Narratives in Fiction and Life

The Lulling Whisperer

So far, my methodological steps have proceeded almost biblically from the Word to the World, namely from the epistemological concerns of language and discipline in the first chapter through the underlying ontological conceptions of genesis in narratives of civilization and wilderness in the second chapter and to this final chapter that examines how anthropological narratives of nonhuman and human animal nature inform our cultural and social endeavours and the anthropogenic “evolution” of our environment, tracing them through a range of scientific and fictional literature for children and adults.

Drawing on Daniel Dennett’s studies on the philosophy of biology and Richard Dawkin’s theory of memes as the cultural equivalent of genes, Jack Zipes (2009) makes a strong case for certain (fairy tale) motifs – specifically, the variations of “The Frog Prince” tale through space and time – that turn into memes, transmitting vital information about viable reproductive strategies and relationships. This final part of my inquiry echoes Zipes’ call for collapsing the borders between disciplines for a better understanding of the significance of children’s literature and for tracing these motifs in the biological adjustments of human and nonhuman organisms to cultural variations. It is in this context that I explore the effects of technologies, including language and literacy, as they constitute the integral elements of doxa, body hexis, habitus, ideology, and of the physiological makeup of the forms of life affected by civilization. There is an urgency for understanding the mechanisms and the reproductive function of these motifs, drives, and the narratives, which – stemming from the position of domestication, like the self-defeating civilized institutions – have the propensity to turn into a tumour that ends up devouring its agents, its biosystem, and finally itself. My point being that if transformation, movement, and change constitute a vital aspect of life, we can still rewild ourselves, if we agree to rethink our narratives and our lives.

If life was generated by an impulse of an electric current, then to maintain vitality, living organisms must ensure the flow and exchange of energy or symbiosis. From this perspective, civilization is essentially unsustainable since, in its pyramidal socio-economic structure, the energy flows one way, vertically, with fewer and fewer possibilities for restoring it in the lower ranks, thereby generating a need for expansionism and colonialism and an impetus for overpopulation and monoculturalism (domestication). The recurring genocides of nonhuman and human animals are, therefore, demanded by the development of the civilized plot, where not only does life cease when the flow of energy is blocked but there can be no exchange of passion, no possibility for rejuvenation, no chance for the unpredictability of chaos. Such stagnation of creativity, love, and life itself is the consequence of these disproportionate relationships that ultimately exhaust the givers to the point of death.

This narrative acts on every level of life. It interferes most deeply to control sexuality and reproductive processes, destroying the balance in the previously symbiotic communities since any such interference is based on maximizing the consumption by the civilized at the lowest (energy) cost possible. Pesticides and herbicides follow this logic of control of others’ reproduction, since the poisons are designed to attack the reproductive systems of those species that the civilized perceive as useless, competitive, and hence hostile – the side effect being that the land and water get contaminated with poisons that are then shared with other species (including human). Civilized practices thus result in the anthropogenic overpopulation of domestic species, such as “cattle”, that swamp the environment with feces, methane, reproduction and growth hormones, and other pollutants. The ever growing numbers of monocultural animal farming demands an ever growing production of monocultural crops needed to sustain these animals in their unimaginable conditions of suffering, not to mention the pain of the other animals labelled as “pests” as they are being driven to extinction. But most of all, the earth is overpopulated by the human species itself.

In this world colonized by civilized human animals, redefining ourselves is of utmost urgency as seven billion human animals, armed with a linear, parasitic narrative, have occupied the planet, desertified its continents, polluted the oceans, and are draining the reserves of fossil oils accumulated throughout the billions of years of life on earth. Civilized human minds are thus bound to each other through myths, their bodies through a hierarchically shared means of subsistence and a panoptical identity imposed by means of violence, through symbolism, language, (un)knowledge, and laws.

Civilization, once identified by its visible technological monuments such as pyramids, has more recently been described in terms of the implied changes in social organization and, more specifically, the social stratification, political organization, and coercion entailed in the building of these monuments (Fried, 1967; Carneiro, 1970). The political power to build a pyramid – rather than the technology to do so – became the defining characteristic of the new social order, the state, in which an élite class monopolized the use of force and controlled direct access to essential resources such as land, or water, while the bulk of the population was forced to exchange its labour for food.

(Cohen in Ingold, 1997: 273–274)

For this system of order to be effective and the arguments for adhering to society compelling, identity, knowledge, and narrative have to be based not on truth but on manipulation through a monopoly of the technologies of violence. As discussed in Chapter One, language and education constitute some of these technologies that operate through an omnipresent threat to life. This threat has to be internalized by the victims – the “resources” – regardless of truth, facts, or the accuracy of the established causal relationships between suffering, wilderness, civilization, happiness, mortality, crime, disease, et al. Probably, civilization was the Shaitan against whose manipulative and misleading lulling whispers the Qur’an had warned:

Say: “I SEEK refuge with the Lord of men,

2. The King of men,

3. The God of men,

4. From the evil of him who breathes temptations into the minds of men,

5. Who suggests evil thoughtsto the hearts of men –

6. From among the jinns and men”.

(Qur’an, sura 114 Al-Nas, ayat 1–6)

This concluding part of the book examines the doxic whisperers, the myths at the root of the narrative of civilization that inform the distinct cultural and anthropological “materialization” of its ontologies through science, mythology, and art and that legitimate the silencing of the voices of the billions of victims of the longest and most brutal of holocausts in the history of civilization, that of the extermination of wilderness. With the exception of a few truly wild texts, much of children’s literature projects at least three of these myths as self-evident truths.

The first myth constructs civilization as either a natural aspect of evolution or the result of humans fulfilling divine purpose. It is a state towards which all beings strive, yet only humans, due to their specific characteristics ( physiological possibilities for spoken language, bipedalism, or divine breath) have been able to attain. As Kropotkin observes, Darwin interlinks the question of morality with the evolution of intelligence (Chapter Four of The Descent of Man is dedicated to questions of morality), both of which he attributes to the nature of adaptation and a requirement of life: “any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts … would inevitably acquire a moral sense of conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well-developed, or nearly as well-developed, as in man” ( Darwin, 2004 : 120–121, italics mine). Hence, even while he does not rule out the “ possibility” of animals attaining moral standards, Darwin nonetheless assumes the human animal is superior and leader in this “most important” “ difference between man and the lower animals”.

The second myth holds that wilderness is a place of destitution, illness, constant danger, and death, whereas civilization provides quality of life, safety, health, and longevity for all its domesticated subjects. Those who justify civilization assert domestication is better than wilderness, even for the slaughtered children of cows, chickens, and pigs, as well as for the humans dying in poverty or under bombs. This myth claims everyone naturally prefers the “benefits” of civilization (otherwise how can they live) and, therefore, depicts victims as agents willing and choosing to forfeit independence, movement, and self-determination. “After all, domestication was their evolutionary choice. They could have opted either to die [because humans have learnt how to kill them on an unprecedented scale] or to serve human interests [for example, the slaves who rebelled were exterminated]; they chose to serve; this choice is theirs and hence it must make them happy. Pleasing the master and enjoying doing it was the best survival strategy for them to adopt”, says the master (for illustrations of this logic, see the hypotheses of such evolutionary theorists as Driscoll et al. [2009] and Shipman [August 2010], among others).

Finally, civilization maintains it is the source of morality, ethics, and compassion while wilderness is a dark place of brutality, amorality, and ruthlessness.

Misrepresenting coercive relationships becomes easy once the purpose for a person’s existence – and by extension for all the persons who meet the criteria to form that group – has been defined by the one who profits from controlling such persons’ lives and exploiting their effort and time. Here, language[65] reveals the real value of power; it constitutes the tool that allows us to define and name the other and then have that other succumb to the definition by overwriting her narrative. In a similar vein, in Orientalism, Edward Said (1979) discusses how Europeans constructed a visual and literary narrative of the “Oriental” as “other” and this narrative served as a body of knowledge and mechanism of subjugation and colonization, which instituted a framework for exploitative, one-way relationships regardless of the reality or self knowledge of the Oriental “other”.

Because of historical nuances, it may appear that the narrative changes, when, in reality, its domesticating platform remains the same. For instance, it claims “true” knowledge today is no longer based on the “false”, monotheistic Tree of Life. Yet the contemporary version of the narrative simply replaces the biblical genealogies with the evolutionary genealogies that nonetheless confirm the human animal at the crown of creation, and Darwin’s Tree of Life is the same old motif without which the human animal cannot fathom existence.

Tracing this topos through the landscape of civilization and wilderness, one can see the trajectory of the animist understanding of the Tree as a being among others, the one that breathes life, giving out oxygen by day and carbon dioxide by night, offers fruit as food and branches as shelter. With the spread of civilization, the tree becomes more and more separated from its reality and nature and becomes an abstraction and a symbol for life where life itself is being appropriated, domesticated, and annihilated; its evolutionary branches are depicted as leading the human animal to the throne of existence. A popular children’s poem by Shel Silverstein (1964), The Giving Tree, portrays this parasitic relationship – whereby the avaricious boy obliges the tree who masochistically craves to be consumed by him – as a tale of love, in which the victim exists to please the abuser and is glad to be tortured and consumed. This translation or substitution of concepts is possible due to the underlying Darwinian[66] assumption: that sacred doxa, lulling and comforting us with the lie that this is the resources’ evolutionary choice and the victim is redeemed by her limitless, self-sacrificial giving, while the one who consumes her is vindicated by the very fact of his agency, consumption, and humanity.

“Once there was a tree ... and she loved a little boy,” the story begins. “And everyday, the boy would come” and take things from the tree or ask for something. And the tree always gave of herself. At first he wanted to play king, eat apples, climb her branches, sleep in her shade “and the boy loved the tree very much; and the tree was happy” (Silverstein, 1964), we are told.

The relationship keeps escalating throughout the story as the boy keeps coming back asking for more. Hence, the next thing he asks for is money; she does not have any, she says, but offers him to pick her apples for him to sell: “Then you will have money and you will be happy”. She reiterates that severing, abusing, and using her for his purposes will make him happy and, therefore, being severed, used, and consumed by him makes her happy too.

The next thing he wants is a house, then a boat. The tree suggests he cut her, and so he does. The story is repetitive but the greed keeps augmenting: the boy goes away, forgets about the tree, then needs something, comes back, and the tree is always there, always glad to see him and give him what he needs. This is presented as a two-way relationship; apparently the tree herself keeps coming up with the ideas of how to be better exploited. In reality, this is an exemplary tale of apathy, deafness, and ignorance that lead to rape, abuse, and murder. He never once inquires about how she feels or what her needs are, for the concept of reciprocity is absent in domesticated relationships; what matters is that the boy loves to have a good life and the tree loves him by giving herself, her biggest need being to offer herself for his consumption so he can have what he wants.

And so the boy cut off her branches and carried them away to build his house. And the tree was happy. But the boy stayed away for a long time. And when he came back, the tree was so happy she could hardly speak. “Come, Boy,” she whispered, “come and play.” “I am too old and sad to play,” said the boy. “I want a boat that will take me far away from here. Can you give me a boat?” “Cut down my trunk and make a boat,” said the tree. “Then you can sail away ... and be happy.” And so the boy cut down her trunk and made a boat and sailed away. And the tree was happy ... but not really.

And after a long time the boy came back again. “I am sorry, Boy,” said the tree,” but I have nothing left to give you – My apples are gone.” “My teeth are too weak for apples,” said the boy. “My branches are gone,” said the tree. “You cannot swing on them –” “I am too old to swing on branches,” said the boy. “My trunk is gone,” said the tree. “You cannot climb –” “I am too tired to climb,” said the boy. “I am sorry,” sighed the tree. “I wish that I could give you something ... but I have nothing left. I am just an old stump. I am sorry....” “I don’t need very much now,” said the boy. “Just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired.” “Well,” said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could, “well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.” And the boy did. And the tree was happy.

(Silverstein, 1964)

This story articulates the fundamental mythology of civilization: the abused and consumed victim is happy to serve the needs of her consumer even beyond death. While undoubtedly children and adults are active agents in extrapolating meaning, and might be able to see this relationship for what it is, nonetheless, if their whole experience confirms to them the naturalness of such hierarchical, one-way relationships of exploitation, then most likely the story would act as a meme to consolidate the doxa and the ideology of oppression. In fact, understanding the language of domination is a requirement on which the story itself is built: hence, the tree understands the material, emotional, and aesthetic requirements of the master. Indeed, numerous critics have interpreted this poem as being about the destructive consumption of nature. Feminist perspectives have also pointed out that the gender of the two characters is not coincidental: the tree is female: “the boy cut off her branches ...”; “cut down her trunk ...”; “she could hardly speak ...”; “she whispered ...”; “said the tree, straightening herself up ...”; and so forth.

However, this narrative has been so normalized through the past seventeen thousand years of domestication that the violence and abuse no longer stand out since they are part of the civilized narrative and its legitimizing norm. Hence, the problem of this story is a much deeper, ontological one, for regardless of whether the tree is a metaphor for the “unequal” expectations of sacrifice between the genders, according to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (2003), metaphors conduct real images and real ontological concepts that then guide people through their relationships with their world, and, I would add, these metaphors guide them in concordance with the legitimate norm of the civilized – i.e. abusive – narrative.

Therefore, even if we assume the tree in this book is a metaphor for mother, again, only in a symbolic culture can it be taken to “represent” other relationships the direction of which is pre-set as a one-way relationship of giving. This metaphor can make sense only to the civilized because they have a ready formula by which to solve the equation of such relationships: everything exists for the purpose of the food chain and resource consumption. If this relationship is about the legitimate abuse of mothers, it can make sense only in an agricultural, sedentary setting, where a matrimonial relationship for upper classes means joining capital and maximizing it through offspring, whereby a child takes everything from his parents. Parents provide the comfort to buy friends, travel, accumulate symbolic and material capital, and later their death makes for a comfortable place to sit for the boy, who knew how to maximize his chances and put his heritage to the best possible use. For the economically disenfranchised, on the other hand, the children themselves become resources and are sent to work, even die, at an early age.

This narrative makes an important omission, namely that, in the wild, a being, whether she is a human mother or a tree, supports milliards of symbiotic relationships and communities of other plants, bugs, birds, squirrels, human and animal children, ad infinitum. Therefore, by ignoring the tree’s real experience and voice, the poem ignores all the other victims of the boy’s greed and self-centred classism, sexism, and anthropocentrism. Reducing this complex society around the tree to the needs of the boy and the services the tree can render him and then attributing this abusive relationship to a metaphor that stands for other “giving” relationships becomes the guiding principle that fits all the different stories into the plot of a narrative that naturalizes and legitimates abuse. As civilization progressed, the contradictions between exploitation, giving, locking, stealing, moving, dying, hunger, wealth, community, individualism have eluded resolution, becoming more and more entangled and convoluted through complex representation. The deeper the domesticated culture stepped into its own horror, the more “refined” and complex became its art and literature and the more excruciating the pain of wilderness.

Even though The Giving Tree is straightforward and its pictures corroborate the text, its unresolved conflict lies in the contradiction between the way the text applies the term “love” to the female tree as a giver and to the male human animal as a consumer and, in the manner of civilized unknowledge, essentializes these aspects as natural qualities that are based on the individual’s “biological” class: gender, race, species, etc. In this regard, the story exemplifies the role of language in overwriting the meaning of wilderness in children’s narratives, confusing the basic ontological concepts and offering a rationale for justifying violence by silencing the victim and conflating obedience with desire and the fear of death with joy.

This anthropocentric and ethnocentric rationale ignores the slave’s perspective on this relationship, silences her voice, and stifles her will, all of which make it difficult for the victim to choose life outside the prescribed civilized limitations and to resist the unknowledge that dismisses her choices, desires, and life itself. The myth depicts the victim as author of her choice and agent of her own victimization. Of course, in the real world, even when these choices are imposed and real desires are unattainable, people still live, love, hate, laugh, and weep. As long as one lives, there is always a part salvaged from the ever-colonizing civilization and thoughts, joy, and pain remain an integral, even cherished part of one’s memory and hence one’s self. However, to say the millions around the world who live on $2 a day do so because this is the best they could do, or the cows get slaughtered because they have chosen it, or any of them are happy with their choice can happen only in the absence of intelligence, knowledge, and empathy.

Sometimes children’s picture books acknowledge the irresolvable conflict and the violence of domesticated relationships. Often, pictures contradict the text and, of course, these conflicts and tensions add layers of information and complexity. However, even while children are wilder than adults and they do, as Zipes (2009) observes, contest and resist this meaning, in the final instance few have the strength and the possibilities to overcome the domesticating, directing, controlling, and self-imposing flux of civilized topoi. Somewhere in the depths of our souls, no matter how wild we may be, having been touched by civilization, as if kissed by the plague, we may still catch the echo of the whispering tempter, attempting to lull us to the naturalness of abuse and its rewards. Facing the omnipresent institutional threat of violence and death, not many children grow up to resist this narrative, its voice silencing all other voices of wilderness, and since their movement is constricted and their space colonized, many may not have the Moomin option to simply walk away to a promised land.

Anne’s Choice

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Greene Gables (1908) illustrates how children’s literature articulates this topos of subordination to the gendered and speciesist expectations of civilization. The novel (consisting of nine books) depicts economic inequality as normal and promising. Two farmers, brother and sister, from Prince Edward Island want free labour on their farm and so come up with the idea of ordering a boy from an orphanage in Nova Scotia. By mistake, the orphanage sends them a girl. The underlying basis for their decision is, therefore, exploitation, for who else can be more easily taken advantage of than an orphan without any social, symbolic, or material capital? Of course, there are also good intentions in the reasoning that “well, the orphan would have fared so badly, abandoned in this institution, while we could share what we have”. However, the narrative leaves unquestioned the basis for the arrangement of social relations that allow for some people to be unable to afford to keep and love their children while others can choose to take a child as a labour resource and a source of joy. Instead, the novel presents both parties, the victim and the exploiter, as authors of their choices and depicts their relationship as viable and enriching for all, thereby omitting the foundation of violence and its effects on them and their world.

Unequal relations are thus embedded in the narrative at its very inception: the dispossessed orphan is there to work on the colonized land turned into an agricultural resource where all forms of competition (“weeds”, “pests”, “natives”, “foreigners”, animals, birds, etc.) get either controlled, domesticated, or exterminated. The development of the plot culminates in Anne’s gendered and “professional” response to the civilized expectations of her: she represses her dream to travel and learn about the outside world, to realize herself as a writer, and turns down the scholarship that would have allowed her to fulfill her inner purpose. Instead, she chooses to stay on the farm and take care of her adoptive mother. The message of the book is appealing to readers because it speaks to the inner – perhaps on the cellular level – need for community and co-operation.

To an extent, like Sendak’s Max, who, in his own domestication, negotiates a sense of empowerment by invading wilderness, colonizing it, and taming the wild others as well as his inner dreams, Anne tames herself and kills her own dream by aligning her happiness with the role of a good resource for the farmers and their farm, and accepts a gendered role that is prescribed by civilization, as domestication is also about the control of sexuality, reproduction, and the incarceration of resources in farms, schools, offices, et al. According to the narrative, therefore, Anne proves to be a good investment for someone who makes a living off colonization, which is the essence of agricultural farming that consumes purpose, meaning, lives, time, and space of everyone dwelling in that nexus. Most important, the book tells us, Anne renders everyone happy: the colonizing farmers, the colonized land, and herself as she gladly curtails her own movement through space and interdisciplinary knowledge by declining the offer to travel to university, which would have provided her an opportunity to follow her heart, expand her knowledge, and write. Of course, the university and the city themselves are part of the process of colonization of the country space and, therefore, regardless of her choice, Anne’s options are limited to the civilized spectrum of relationships. Thinking she is the author of her choice and believing she chooses community, she actually makes the choice that is appropriate to her gender and social standing that define her within a domesticated and domesticating hierarchy.

The point here is not to argue for the abandonment of the elderly or the weak in favour of one’s own interests. In wilderness, most human and nonhuman societies have been known to take care of the injured, the old, and the weak (Bekoff and Pierce, 2009; Kurtén and Gould in Kurtén, 1995; Boesch et al., 2010; Goethe and Kropotkin in Kropotkin, 2006, among others). The difference between choosing to help in the respective contexts of wilderness and civilization is that in wilderness, the force that drives individuals to share comes from within the individual in a landscape that does not submit to the concept of rightful ownership, and, therefore, it is not a hierarchically imposed subjugation but a lasting bond and relationship that aides, rather than hampers, self-realization. Those who can gather more share with those who are unable to reach food. Inability to access food in the conditions of wilderness either stems from some larger environmental disbalance (e.g. drought, sudden unprecedented drop or rise in temperatures, etc.) or from personal weakness. In wilderness, conflicts of interest also arise; however, unlike in civilization, there is no theory that makes any single outcome the rule of thumb or “law by precedent” that locks individuals in hierarchical systems.

In contrast, the civilized paradigm, based on domestication, private property, and capitalist economy, is a perpetual system of sanctions against the dispossessed “resources” that locks them, their food, and space in social constructs of permanence. The extent of exploitation and pollution this socio-environmental system has produced makes it a system of catastrophic disasters that has become a global epidemic known as the Sixth or the Holocene Extinction.[67] It is to this narrative that Anne of Greene Gables submits. Here, the expectations of self-abnegation, self-control and self-sacrifice abide by the rules of a rigid hierarchical order, which can be expressed in Foucauldian terms: “the genius of the social fabrication of the individual is to make that individual the principle of his or her own fabrication, thus guaranteeing the sense of authenticity in what is fabricated” (in Frank, 1998: 2:331). Hence, Anne has to accept the narrative and invent a series of stories whose contradictions will cancel themselves out and in which she emerges content and with a sense of empowerment for having chosen this narrative herself, thereby becoming the author of her own victimization.

Several theorists and historians of children’s literature – for instance, Gillian Avery (1975), Jack Zipes (1983 and 2002), and Andrew O’Malley (2003) – have observed there have been two concurrent narratives expressed in children’s books written in the English language that address two distinct audiences, divided along economic, social, gender, or racial lines. Needless to say, these categories distinguish the empowered from the disempowered. The narrative addressed to those who control the resources depicts qualities such as individuality, originality, creativity, leadership, spontaneity, dishonesty, greed, etc. as positive. For instance, in The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (2003) portrays the aristocratic Toad as lovable and rightful owner of wealth even as he breaks the law, lies, steals, and escapes from prison at the expense of the working class. His friends, even while they do not own property themselves, act to make sure the revolution does not happen and to prevent the Weasels, those wild, proletariat masses, from redistributing Toad’s possessions, all the while Toad himself is gallivanting around the world, playing with technology, and breaking laws and moral codes.

Members of the exploited categories, in contrast, are expected to conform to the social expectations of themselves as human resources. Their status as objects, as exploited, as underclass already warrants their portrayal as deviant and untrustworthy. Here, the qualities that are depicted as desirable for the first category become negative, dangerous, and illegal, while obedience, dependability, diligence, hard work, and servitude are exalted (Avery, 1975; Zipes, 1983 and 2002; O’Malley, 2003). Anne of Greene Gables, the washerwoman and her daughter who help Toad in The Wind in the Willows, the peasant girl who heals the rich boy in The Secret Garden while not wanting anything for herself, among endless other examples, illustrate these standards.

In this way, a fictional book like Anne of Greene Gables inscribes itself within the larger narrative of domestication. Along with land, Anne constitutes a resource for the farmers and is the one to renounce her wildness, while the farmers cling to their ownership, space, and time. In this Darwinian narrative, among the civilized options, Anne picks the most viable strategy: to serve the interests of those who are more powerful than her, and coming from an orphanage, she a priori does not have any social or other capital. She chooses to define herself in the owners’ terms, aligning her own self-knowledge with their definitions while concealing conflict of interests. Both, we are told, are happy with the way the narrative unfolds and, as readers, we remain ignorant of other possibilities, such as a revolt that could lead to rewilding, because, presumably, according to the civilized narrative, wildness poses an even greater danger than poverty and orphanage, while civilized predatory relations and stratification provide a haven of safety. In this way, Anne’s choice reiterates the Darwinian premise that nature itself is unwelcoming – even hostile – to life; and, therefore, she cannot venture away and should not leave the farmers behind. This premise presumes living beings are in a perpetual mode of adaptation to their world and in competition with one another, developing more and more sophisticated strategies to overcome the adversities of wildness either through alliances or violence and war.

Identification with these misconceptions of happiness and misrepresentations of the real constitutes the ultimate alienation; like maya, the mirage of hope or the infinite nightmare within a nightmare, it reappears constantly in children’s books in various forms. We see these projections in literature, science, and art, and they mislead us, taking us away from being, abandoning the enchanted world of the Hundred-Acre Wood that could have been and accepting boarding school as a natural verdict of evolution, creation, and genes. These projections haunt us in the singing voices of the Oompa-Loompas, the happy slaves of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and through the deeds and passions of Nosov’s Mites. Together they lull us to surrender our reason to the myth that evolution into this state is ineluctable, and since we cannot choose the best option, we will have to settle for Sunny City and Prince Edward Island, as both are still far better than the Moon.

Not Everyone Opts to Join Alice and Go Down the White Rabbit Hole

Imposing a lie in the conditions of wildness is extremely difficult because knowing requires presence. Moreover, it is critical for survival to know the truth and in the absence of institutions that impose one perspective on bodies, time, and space, there are no legal consequences for groups and individuals who refuse to abide by fictional and untruthful narratives. Most important, these narratives encompass a variety of perspectives, temporalities, and logics that regulate a balance through the unpredictability of outcome and consequences. As my earlier discussion of indigenous tales from Russia shows, there is no one righteous party to own the right to win or to possess something or someplace permanently, be it a symbolic narrative, factual information, or a tangible object. If a person dislikes or disagrees with another human or nonhuman person or perspective, one can follow the Moomin example and simply ignore or move away. The range of symbiotic relationships allows beings to cooperate without the need to modify the other’s purpose or changing their direction. Hence, Moominmamma and the children hop on the Hattifattners’ boat to hitch a ride, then jump off when they feel they are not interested in exploring the horizons towards which the boat turned its course, but they do not force the Hattifattners to change their course. The Moomins walk the rest of the way until they help a marabou stork find the glasses he had lost, who then decides to carry them to Moominpappa, simply because he wanted to, because their lives together are better than being without each other, and not because he felt obligated. In other words, they do not need a system of prostheses, slaves, or technologies.

It does not mean there are no creative or playful approaches toward truth(s) or challenging ways of seeing, interacting, and influencing the outcome of an encounter. The folk tales around the world are testimony to non-domesticated peoples’ awareness of tricksters and the various forces that can surprise, even overwhelm, whom every creature and all communities must know and be able to reckon with. This means that through the various lies and truths, a sense of Truth emerges in the ability of a community to exist through presence, empathy, and mutuality. This skill safeguards against the development of technologies as a grammar of substitution, alienation and subjugation. Namely, mutualistic and commensalistic relationships in the animal world, so aptly captured by the Moomin family’s ride with the stork and the Hattifattners, show that even though animals are capable of using external tools or “limbs”, most refrain from developing technologies as a grammar. Hence, in addition to the biological adaptations discussed earlier, birds and animals have also been observed to make external tools. According to Joshua Klein (2008), crows make hooks to extract worms or use coins to obtain food from vending machines, or, as Nold Egenter’s (1987) and Mike Hansell’s (2005) research shows, apes indulge in complex architectural practices, among infinite examples. Yet, most cultures choose not to develop technologies. And in addition, evidence shows that throughout the ages animals knew of the principles of domestication: parasites, microbes, plants, and other animals are known to be able to change the behaviour of their prey to benefit their own culture in the manner of civilized human animals. Needless to say, the knowledge of domestication and technology was available to non-civilized humans too. As Mark Nathan Cohen (1977: 19) observes:

There is fairly widespread consensus among anthropologists that the knowledge that plants grow from seeds is probably universal among hunters and gatherers and that this knowledge has probably been available to human groups since very early times, long predating its application in full fledged agricultural economies. For example, Flannery (1968: 68) states: We know of no human group on earth so primitive that they are ignorant of the connection between plants and the seeds from which they grow.

Similarly, according to Bronson (1975: 58): Deliberately growing useful plants was neither unique nor a revolutionary event. It probably happened in many places starting at an early date. This is not a complex idea or a difficult idea to develop. It is not beyond the inventive reach of any human being. We can be quite sure that activities resembling cultivation go far back into the Pleistocene.

(Cohen, 1977: 19)

The obvious question this raises is why most human and nonhuman forms of life have chosen not to go down the path of domestication if they are capable of making artificial tools and if the relationship between seeds and plants, or chicks and hens, or calves and cows, or babies and mothers, etc. is a connection that can easily be made by all humans and animals? Indigenous peoples around the world have known about the mechanisms of reproduction all along; they have tended diverse forest gardens and helped salmon reach their reproduction sites safely (Ellen in Ingold, 1997), yet with the exception of a few sporadic outbreaks of civilization in the human history of Africa, Middle East, Asia, and Mesoamerica (e.g. the civilizations of Mali, Egypt, Aztec, Maya, India, or the Tigris and Euphrates), most chose wilderness.

In this light, the Agricultural Revolution was not a discovery after all. Yet the adoption of its singular, linear, humanist narrative has given rise to the structural, physiological, and morphological changes in humanity and the earth itself. The civilized socio-economic and epistemological structure this narrative fuelled has made no longer possible choices like Moominmamma’s to ignore or avoid conflict within the confines of such constructs as deviance and illness. And one of the ways in which this revolution has succeeded is through lies. For instance, by generalizing its trajectory on all of humanity, this narrative misrepresents itself as an evolution of “humanity” as a whole when in reality it only pertains to those who have adopted the civilized mode of living and with it hierarchical and parasitic relationships. Nondomesticated culture is not an evolutionary step taken and abandoned in the past. It still exists today and the only reason non-domesticated peoples are not thriving is because of colonization and extermination by the civilized. This generalization, however, is a necessary part of the normative legitimating process that silences the colonized and presents the colonizer as a better and logical consequence of natural selection. By doing so, this narrative also omits the fact that it is very young on the scene of life; as discussed in the introduction, it is a mere seventeen thousand years old (Ellen in Ingold, 1997; Sunderland, 1973; Dickens, 2004) and to this day nomadic peoples persevere in the various corners of the globe. It also omits the fact that evolution is an ongoing process and, therefore, even if some of us have “evolved” into destructive cyborgs, we can still choose to change our narrative and evolve in a different direction, towards life.

Evidence gathered in the fields of ethology, primatology, and human animal studies such as anthropology seriously challenges the civilized narrative and supports Kropotkin’s theory of evolution that sees wilderness as welcoming and favouring life, where beings thrive in diversity, and all organisms, regardless of the degree of their simplicity or complexity, know their well-being depends on intricate symbiotic systems fostered by mutual aid and co-operation.

In contrast to the Darwinian version, which considers individual and group success in terms of reproductive outcome and alliance strategies that, in this version of the evolutionary theory, are understood as assisting in furthering individualistic and exploitative ends (libertarian anarchism and market economy are the most radical expressions of this premise), Kropotkin’s thesis on viable strategies holds that since the world provides favourable conditions for life, organisms can live well in it and, therefore, they know the happiness of one depends on the happiness of all, while the happiness of all makes the happiness of one. This does not entail everyone being the same; on the contrary, it means that individuals support difference and diversity. Moominvalley aptly depicts the world from the perspective with which Kropotkin experienced the wilderness of Siberia in the 19^th century comparing these observations to the civilized relationships in Europe. If one individual or one species suffers, her pain is felt by others and elicits their response. Both, Jansson, a children’s fiction author, and Kropotkin, a scientist, agree on that the principle of knowing the world is to empathise with it and understand its sentience; for by tuning to the experience of others, we can grow and move outside the claustrophobic borders of our reality tunnels, which are often circumscribed by our personal interests. It is this ability to feel, understand, and care for the suffering of the other that allows a person to understand and, therefore, to know the other on her terms, accepting that the reason for the other’s existence could be none other than to simply derive pleasure from existing. From this perspective, the suffering of one becomes a cosmic tragedy of whole symbiotic systems of being.

Evidently, all forms of life tend to choose the most efficient ways for living their aspirations and reproducing themselves as ideas, knowledge, experience, and physiological beings, as well as adapting their environment to their needs and themselves to their environment (Kropotkin, Darwin, inter alios). The relationships between the various forms of grass and weeds point to the sophisticated intelligence of these plants to have worked out a symbiotic balance with other forms of life for millions of years. If grass still lives, in spite of the brutal civilized human mowing and use of pesticides and herbicides, it demonstrates resilience and intelligence that allow it to overcome even the exceptional brutality of civilized humans. Since everyone is intelligent and is capable of both resisting human interference in one’s reproductive choices and choosing whether to interfere in the reproduction of others, then the question begs itself: Why, apart from some viruses, microbes, and humans, has no one chosen to control the sexuality and reproduction of others or to modify their purpose and lives in the organized and globally totalitarian and expansionist manner of human civilization? If species choose what is best for them, and what is best for them is supposedly to conquer, curtail, and control, why don’t they go down this path? Could it be they have known this path was not optimal for them and for life in the long term? Could it be they are far-sighted and the civilized humans are not only amnesiac but also myopic, and perhaps amnesia and blindness are corollaries?

Palaeontological, anthropological, and archaeological research, as well as sociological and demographic statistics on epidemic diseases, strength of bones, among other indicators, confirms that the gatherer lifestyle requires little work and effort for subsistence, ensuring plenty of leisure, a healthy lifestyle, and the safety of a complex multi-species community, while agricultural civilization, among a wide range of adverse repercussions, has had a negative effect on oral and general health, particularly of women and children, and has provoked mass starvation and escalated organized and premeditated violence, otherwise known as war, that diminished the average human lifespan in half and cut it by a full hundred percent for the exterminated species (Larsen, 1995; Ingold, 1997 and 2007; Sahlins, 1974 and 2008; Zerzan, 2002 and 2008; Lasse Nordlund, 2008; inter alios).

Despite evidence to the contrary, the civilized narrative continues to maintain agricultural civilization improved life and this improvement caused the explosion in population and the emergence of cities. Armelagos et al. (1991) refute the civilized argument that falsely attributes the growth in population during the Neolithic to an alleged improvement in the quality of life, which, the myth claims, has become healthier, longer, and richer. The authors of “The Origins of Agriculture: Population Growth During a Period of Declining Health” invite the reader to look at the demographic evidence and explanations for the actual lack of growth during the Palaeolithic provided by the data on population density. In fact, population was stable and showing low mortality rates with a strong culture of self-regulation in reproductive strategies. The authors proceed by breaking down the components of the Malthusian-Darwinian argument that erroneously links “progress” or improvement in the quality of life with “fertility”, “population growth”, and “increase of food due to agriculture”:

The interpretation of the very low population growth during the Paleolithic has influenced demographic thinking in a number of ways. The lack of Paleolithic population growth has been explained by arguing that populations were experiencing maximum fertility and very high mortality. Neolithic population explosion, it is argued, resulted from improved nutrition and health; these acted to reduce mortality, and the change in demographic pattern led to a rapid increase in population. It is further argued that reduction of fertility in the modern period, which decreased the population growth rate, introduced the era of the demographic transition. We seriously question this interpretation of Paleolithic and Neolithic demography and believe prehistoric populations demography deserves reanalysis [emphasis mine]…

In reviewing the literature on population dynamics of Paleolithic population, Goodman, Jacobs, and Armelagos (1975) were able to isolate two basic and accepted assumptions used in Paleolithic demography: 1) that the potential growth of hominid populations has not appreciably changed since the early Pleistocene, and 2) that Paleolithic hunters-gatherers were involved in a highly stable equilibrium system with respect to their population size and realized rate of growth [authors’ emphasis].

(Armelagos et al., 1991)

Having explained the myth, the authors elaborate on where the civilized logic has misinterpreted the facts. They explain the definitions of “health” and “quality of food” have been subject to the habitual and concomitant inflation in the expected living standards and quality of life. Armelagos et al. demonstrate that, in reality, it has always been the other way around. Hence, an

increase in the Neolithic human population following the development of agriculture has been assumed to result from improvements in health and nutrition. Recent research demonstrates that this assumption is incorrect. With the development of sedentism and the intensification of agriculture, there is an increase in infectious disease and nutritional deficiencies particularly affecting infants and children. Declining health probably increased mortality among infants, children and oldest adults. However, the productive and reproductive core would have been able to respond to this increase in mortality by reducing birth spacing. That is, agricultural populations increased in size, despite higher mortality, because intervals between births became shorter.

(Armelagos et al., 1991)

First, the authors identify civilization, with its agricultural subsistence, as the original culprit behind the high mortality rates. In wilderness people enjoy a healthier and happier existence, which are important factors for longevity. Second, the trend of stable population density in nomadic and gatherer societies always shifts to sudden population hikes as soon as they adopt sedentary and agricultural lifestyles, abruptly decreasing intervals between children and the number of nursing years. These trends have been noted throughout the literature on cultural concepts in medical anthropology. Susan J. Rasmussen’s article on the Tuareg in the Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology (in Ember and Ember, 2004: 1001–1008) illustrates this point most clearly. The Tuareg are known to be one of the most egalitarian societies still existing in the world, in which the genders enjoy equal rights to inheritance, travel, initiation of conversation, and courtship and where “working” or other classes do not exist. However, during the past half century, with the intensification of surveillance of national borders and other post-colonial problems in Africa, some of the Tuareg clans have adopted a sedentary lifestyle. Immediately, there has been an increase in their population and growing pressure on women to have more children (between six and eight) and with less spacing between them (Rasmussen in Ember and Ember, 2004). Shorter (or no) nursing and disruption of attachment parenting ultimately lead to weaker immunity systems, with the higher population density increasing susceptibility to contagious diseases and reliance on Western medicine, the remedies of which have serious side effects that further weaken the immunity system.

In addition to the emergence of hierarchical gender roles, which a stratified, ownership-oriented culture creates through the professionalization of genders and other “classes” of human and other species, sedentarism forces one to specialize in a limited sphere (literally and metaphorically), forging dependence-oriented relationships inherently characteristic of domesticated and farming social systems, including in the production and rearing of “human resources”. Since specialization is always symptomatic of hierarchical socioeconomic relations of dependence, oppression, and exploitation, the production of human and nonhuman animal resources becomes a profession of human and nonhuman animal women and thereby immediately devalues their labour so as to feed the trainers (educators and medical staff), the distributors, and the owners and exploiters of these resources. Because there is profit to be made off of the living resources themselves, each production batch needs a larger production batch to both compensate for the maintenance cost and continue maintaining it, thereby always requiring an exponential growth in population – and overpopulation generates more massacres and extinctions. Sedentarism and civilization are thus the primary causes for the overproduction of people and domestic animals, with the private ownership of land and resources ensuring there will always be starvation and extermination. The three elements of this paradigm – sedentary agriculture, civilization, and ownership – are, therefore, inseparable in today’s social order and permeate all literature, whether a text accepts these phenomena as a given (e.g. A.A. Milne), whether it attempts to contest certain aspects of it (like Nosov), or whether it wants to eradicate suffering at its root (Jansson).

Just as the 19^th century European revolutions of the intellectuals forged fictional yet tenacious nationalist identities that led to the unprecedented violence of the World Wars and 20^th century revolutions (Namier, 1992), so has a new vision driven the palaeolithic people to restructure their relationships and “identity”. Rooted in a new ontological understanding, this anthropocentric perspective has come to constitute the main drive of the Neolithic revolution, prompting humans to disregard the laws of wilderness for balance and the preservation of life. The physical, social, and environmental implications of this narrative for life on earth have posed serious challenges in terms of population growth, imposed gender identity and controlled sexuality, disease, ad infinitum, which require intervention on several levels, including the medical and epistemological.

However, science-based medicine has not and is not capable of solving the health problems caused by civilization. For, along with other deadly diseases, such as the plague, diabetes, coronary heart disease, or hypertension, cancer is specific to civilization and empires (Fábrega, 1997: 112–113) and shares the rationale of civilization. Its deadliness stems from the logic that drives cancer cells to reproduce infinitely without checking themselves in relation to their environment. Medical textbooks and dictionaries define a malignant tumour as the appearance of cells in a living environment that have an error in their program inscribed in a gene responsible for controlling the lifespan of cells, i.e. of their mortality and regeneration, keeping their population increase near zero. A good illustration of this balance and complexity is bacteria, who know their existence depends on their host’s life – even our bodies consist of complex bacterial ecosystems where the bacteria outnumber human cells but never to our detriment (Leeming et al., 1984; and Tancrède, 1992). In contrast, cancer cells proliferate and modify their environment until they completely take over, devouring the world that has hosted these monopolists (Youngson, 2005).

The symptoms of this sickness can be traced in every aspect of life in civilization. However, attempts to cure it with the rationale of the disease itself will continue to fail, because this very rationale is the mechanism of its proliferation. For instance, if symbolic culture is part of civilization’s currency, then using a capitalist system for medical intervention only reproduces itself, which is an intricate part of the sickness itself. Insomnia illustrates this perfectly and I will take the U.S. as an example. It is common knowledge that the duration and quality of sleep critically affect health, happiness, and the general quality and longevity of life. In 2006, 70 million civilized Americans of all ages were reported to have suffered from sleep disorders: “Prescriptions for sleeping medications topped 56 million in 2008 – a record, according to the research firm IMS Health, up 54% from 2004,” says Denise Gellene in her March 2009 article on the economy of sleeping pills (Gellene, 2009).

The commercial profit from insomnia not only boosts the medical establishment, according to Gellene’s research, but a whole complex of parasitic industries. “During 2007 and 2006, drug manufacturers Sanofi-Aventis (the maker of Ambien), Sepracor (maker of Lunesta) and Takada (maker of Rozerem) spent an average of $11.8-million a week to advertise sleep medications, according to the market research firm TNS Media Intelligence. Total prescriptions for sleep medications increased 10% and 15% respectively in those years, according to IMS Health” (ibid).

The total estimated annual cost of alcohol used for promoting sleep is $339.8-million, which is the highest direct cost, representing 60 percent of all direct costs and five percent of all insomnia-related costs. The annual cost of insomnia-related consultations with a health-care professional is estimated to be $85.3-million (32.6 percent of all direct costs and 2.9 percent of overall costs), and an estimated $16.5-million is spent annually on prescription medications for insomnia (only 2.8 percent of direct costs and less than one percent of overall costs) (ibid).

The language (both semantic and mathematical) of the above text betrays a lack of concern for the personal plight of individual “human resources” or for the unhappiness of the masses, their ailments, and the drudgery of their lives. The formulation of many of these studies eliminates in advance questions that would have challenged the myth of the promises that civilization had made seventeen thousand years ago. The endless 16^th century accounts of the healthy and beautiful American Indians who met the European travellers in 1492 have now been replaced by the accounts of high rates of alcohol and drug consumption as well as chronic diseases (such as diabetes) that have plagued the surviving communities since the advent of civilization (colonialism). The Indigenous communities themselves recognize their ailments for what they are: illnesses of civilization, which disrupted indigenous knowledge and community with the forest. Thus, anthropologist Linda Garro reports that the Anishinaabe refer to diabetes, high blood pressure, and other chronic diseases specifically as the “White man’s illnesses” (see Garro in Ember and Ember, 2004: 903–9; and in Mattingly and Garro, 2000).

Among the endless dry, apathetic accounts that fail to acknowledge the rationale behind suffering, the civilized narrative continues to present the “problem” of numbers in terms of business loss for the owners and profiteers of pharmaceutical products instead of as a problem of civilized despair. There is a tradition of such reports sponsored by United Nations or various governmental and non-governmental agencies, all of which are implicated in the economy of illness, suffering, and death. These reports acknowledge “a” problem, but then proceed to formulate their findings in a language consistent with the civilized narrative and political rhetoric, prompting the civilized to accept immediate band-aids that ultimately benefit the institution of private ownership and order but do not offer any real solutions that would dismantle the relationships of oppression. This is exactly what Daley’s study does:

Results estimate that the annual per-person insomnia related costs are $5,010 for those with insomnia syndrome ($293 in direct costs and $4,717 in indirect costs); $1,431 for those with insomnia symptoms ($160 in direct costs and $1,271 in indirect costs); and $422 for good sleepers ($45 in direct costs and $376 in indirect costs).

The authors conclude that an increased awareness of the availability and effectiveness of insomnia treatments, both on the part of the public as well as health-care providers, could lead to significant reductions in the overall cost of insomnia to society.

(Wagner, 2009)

These remedies of course are not limited to alcohol and drugs (legal and illegal). There are troops of psychotherapists that feed off this suffering and their very etiology gives them all the economic incentives to secure the existence of this pain, since an end of suffering ultimately renders their professions obsolete.

Civilization’s promise of safety, too, has failed on all counts. For example, George Mason University Sexual Assault Services provides statistics on rape in the civilized countries of the 21^st century: one in three women in the world experiences rape. Between five and ten percent of men report having been sexually abused as children. Sixty percent of rape cases are committed by someone in the family or known to the victim. There are private clubs with sado-masochism in every big city, and none in the jungle. Wolves never capture other wolves and chain them to get a kick out of it. But civilized people do. Humans do. Persons do.

A less discussed phenomenon but one that is particularly symptomatic of the parasitism that characterizes civilized relationships pertains to the organ trade, which occurs both “willingly” by coerced donor-sellers but also by theft from and murder of unwilling victims. In a December 2007 report for the World Health Organization, Yosuke Shimazono calls attention to the growing threat to the lives of poor people around the world posed by the demands for new organs by wealthy “developed-worlders”, whose own organs have been failing due to civilized progress, particularly in agricultural chemistry, industrialization, and technology. This phenomenon is eerily reminiscent of Haraway’s cyborgs, and here again, the promise for a better life by means of “progress” responds only to the needs of the wealthy, even if, ironically, it is responsible for the deterioration of their own health in the first place. Like the cyborgs, the rich continue their evolution by incorporating new organs and limbs, thereby depriving the poor “developing-worlders” of often the last resort they have, the healthy organs they were born with.

The shortage of an indigenous “supply” of organs has led to the development of the international organ trade, where potential recipients travel abroad to obtain organs through commercial transactions. The international organ trade has been recognized as a significant health policy issue in the international community. A World Health Assembly resolution adopted in 2004 (WHA57.18) urges Member States to “take measures to protect the poorest and vulnerable groups from ‘transplant tourism’ and the sale of tissues and organs”. Despite growing awareness of the issue, the reality of the international organ trade is not well understood due to a paucity of data and also a lack of effort to integrate the available information.

(Shimazono, 2007)

This curious and tragic phenomenon exposes the enormity of the problem of the poor quality of life. It challenges the civilized myth of improvement, which the author does not question since Shimazono asserts that the “Member States” of the WHO are trying to protect the vulnerable, when in fact the very existence of the state, with its borders and its labour and economic structure, is the main culprit in the vulnerable conditions of the displaced, exploited, and oppressed. The critical question that the authors do not ask is: How come the civilized world’s organs are failing, if their civilized diet, chemically treated water, medications, and other scientific inventions – the very guarantees of safety and health for which people have been willing to surrender their freedom and forget their world – are supposed to ameliorate life, while the people who do not have these “luxuries” and who, in spite of the abuse and exploitation they endure, still manage to keep their organs intact for the sale, after which they, incidentally, die?

This aspect of civilized hierarchical relations regarding illness and healing, whereby the sick rich recuperate their strength and heal at the expense of the poor, is a motif that is also commonplace in children’s literature where its rendering strives to normalize self-sacrifice in the poor and offer the rich a carte blanche for self-empowerment by parasitizing others. As discussed earlier, Hodgson Burnett’s (1910) The Secret Garden is one of the more explicit of the most cherished of civilized narratives that reconfirms the status quo of parasitic inequality. However, there are also texts that attempt to challenge this topos. Again, as seen earlier, Nosov questions the role of the doctor in normalizing unequal relationships of control. A contemporary American author, Margaret Peterson Haddix (2004), also projects the narrative of illness and health as an integral part of social relationships in her book Because of Anya, where, in the spirit of the Indigenous understanding of community, questions of illness, identity, and healing become resolved through empathy and acceptance by friends.

The most important point, however, is that regardless of whether the motif is explicit or whether it remains un-enunciated, if the underlying premise that directs the plot and provides the topos of these parasitic relationships is not challenged, the cyborg – including the human with replaced human organs or limbs – continues to grow, incorporating ever more limbs, devouring ever more lives, increasing population growth accompanied by higher mortality rates and shorter life spans of the dispossessed. Victimization does not end here, for in addition to the organ trade, there is the problem of fatalities due to civilization: technological accidents, environmentally caused diseases among cancers, dementia, psychosis, chronic medication against depression, insomnia, among endless other ailments that make every aspect of life in civilization inferior to that in wilderness.

Thus, paradoxically, the whole civilized premise rests on the promise of safety from predators and diseases that, ironically, are civilization’s own making. In order to save humanity from the mythical predator the civilized narrative has invented, the same narrative has devised a plot and a system for the ultimate predation of life consumed in all possible ways: as flesh, energy, effort, and time by the most dangerous predator of all, the human person. Daily reports fill the media with news of adults killing their children, children killing adults, adults killing adults, children killing children, people of all ages killing themselves and others. In France. In England. In Germany. In Canada. In Rwanda. In Sudan. Everywhere. Not only in war. They kill each other in school. In the office. On the street. In sleep. At home. Everywhere in the civilized world. Violence on this scale is unheard of in gatherer societies. The Hopis or the Semai, discussed earlier, or the numerous other peoples still refuse to indulge in civilization and violence.

After reading microbiologist Stephen J. Gould’s (1992) essay “Kropotkin was no Crackpot”, in which Gould attempts both to redeem Kropotkin in “Western” science and to soften Darwin’s emphasis on “the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” by pointing out Darwin himself had acknowledged the importance of co-operation, evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff and bioethologist Jessica Pierce (2009) propose to imagine a different world, driven by an alternative understanding of human and animal nature:

Stephen J. Gould continually reminds us that Darwin used the phrase “struggle for existence” metaphorically, and that even Darwin understood that bloody and vicious competition is only one possible mechanism through which individuals might achieve reproductive success. Another possible mechanism was proposed by a contemporary of Darwin, Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, in his forward-looking book Mutual Aid, published in 1902. Kropotkin suggested that cooperation and mutual aid may also lead to increased fitness, and may more accurately fit our actual observations of animals in nature. Although biologists have largely explored cooperative behavior through the Darwinian lens of competition and an evolutionary arms race, we might wonder what the intellectual history of evolution would look like had Kropotkin’s ideas been taken more seriously.

(ibid, 57)

They ponder what face would “science” (Western and, by virtue of its imperialist authority, world science) have acquired, had, between the two contemporaries, not Darwin’s, but Kropotkin’s theory been heeded. The implications are far reaching as one tries to imagine the scope of the effect of this narrative on culture and life. What would children’s books present to the reader had the focus been on chaos as love instead of the necessity to endure pain for order? And if children’s books were different, what would the world look like? Would the children be told in narratives like Winnie-the-Pooh that a world of careless play and agency over one’s mind and imagination are to be forsaken when they move on to the “real” world? What would the geo-political map look like? Would there have been immigration policies, such as informing both the control of borders and the imaginary of Winnie-the-Pooh? Would there have been borders? Would they have looked the same – threatening and isolating limitations on life? What would our lives have been?

My life, definitely, would have been different. I look wistfully at the amount of time and effort I could have dedicated to my work and aspirations instead of on being forced to spend time and energy on proving my knowledge is on par with my white (male) peers, that being a mother does not mean I am a “housewife”, as some professors have explained to me when dismissing my research projects, rather that motherhood can be only one aspect of a human being and that, as a mother, I am capable of contributing valuable insights and work, not to mention how much energy, money, and time I spent on getting out of places to which I had been deported because a border patrol officer, guided by the narrative of civilization, did not see the combination of my name and citizenship as legitimate or even reasonable and the places to which I was deported gave me deadlines by which to sort my entry and exit permits and get out. What I could have achieved if I were not, for the most part of my life, sent running about collecting papers, arguing and trying to convince the various figures of authority to stamp them, racing across towns, countries, and continents, from department to department, from one Winnie-the-Pooh to another, at the request of the Darwinian visa officials and embassy consuls, distrusting, fearful of my name, looks, and hence my intentions? Just these examples overwhelm me with possibilities, not to mention all the other aspects of my life.

Many black people’s lives, in Montreal or in other places, would have been different too (see the report by Torczyner, 2001 and 2010). Whether in public life in general or in specific settings such as academia, our voices would have been reckoned on par with the ethnic group that runs the scene of the production and transmission of knowledge, and our experience, along with the perspective that comes with it, would have been interesting and would have mattered as much as the perspectives of those who dominate the curricula and the legitimization and marketing of knowledge. But, as discussed in the first chapter of this book, the process of legitimating opinions, narratives, and imagination in civilization precludes the possibility of imagining this scenario and of striving towards its realization. The civilized terminology for domesticating such revelry calls it “utopic vision”, which, when persistent, gets treated in the hospital both in reality and in fiction, as explained by Kropotkin, Foucault, and by Dr. Honeysuckle in The Adventures of Dunno and Friends.

Animal lives would have been different. The whole world would have been different had the number of predators remained minimal, as Kropotkin had observed was necessary for the balance of life, instead of multiplying to almost seven billion individuals and taking over 98% of the vertebrate biomass.

Happily enough, competition is not the rule either in the animal world or in mankind. It is limited among animals to exceptional periods, and natural selection finds better fields for its activity.

… “Don’t compete! – competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it!” That is the tendency of nature, not always realized in full, but always present. That is the watchword which comes to us from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean. “Therefore combine – practise mutual aid! That is the surest means for giving to each and to all the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual, and moral.” That is what Nature teaches us.

(Kropotkin, 2006: 60–61)

However, as soon as we come to a higher stage of civilization, and refer to history which already has something to say about that stage, we are bewildered by the struggles and conflicts which it reveals. The old bonds seem entirely to be broken. Stems are seen to fight against stems, tribes against tribes, individuals against individuals; and out of this chaotic contest of hostile forces, mankind issues divided into castes, enslaved to despots, separated into States always ready to wage war against each other. And, with this history of mankind in his hands, the pessimist philosopher triumphantly concludes that warfare and oppression are the very essence of human nature; that the warlike and predatory instincts of man can only be restrained within certain limits by a strong authority which enforces peace and thus gives an opportunity to the few and nobler ones to prepare a better life for humanity in times to come.

(ibid, 95–96)

Kropotkin provided extensive research on life in the wild offering poignant descriptions of the ruthless extermination of rodents, buffaloes, wolves, indigenous peoples, among many others around the world, at the hands of civilized human animals who justify their violence and destructiveness with the lie that perverts the evidence and claims wilderness is violent and brutal and that it is the moral duty of the civilized to annihilate it.

Up and Down the Drain

Surprisingly, and as paradoxically as it may appear, the evidence on the looming catastrophe and the anthropogenic biocide has not deterred the propagation of the monocultural civilized perspective in the most popular books, films, and works of art, including those aimed at children. In fact, most continue to be rooted in civilized mythology in spite of the available information on the Holocene Extinction and ecocide, data that are now available even in mainstream media:

... as harmful as our forebears may have been, nothing compares to what’s under way today. Throughout the 20^th century the causes of extinction – habitat degradation, overexploitation, agricultural monocultures, human-borne invasive species, human-induced climatechange – increased exponentially, until now in the 21^st century the rate is nothing short of explosive. The World Conservation Union’s Red List – a database measuring the global status of Earth’s 1.5 million scientifically named species – tells a haunting tale of unchecked, unaddressed, and accelerating biocide.

... The overall numbers are terrifying. Of the 40,168 species that the 10,000 scientists in the World Conservation Union have assessed, one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one in three amphibians, one in three conifers and other gymnosperms are at risk of extinction. The peril faced by other classes of organisms is less thoroughly analysed, but fully 40 per cent of the examined species of planet earth are in danger, including perhaps 51 per cent of reptiles, 52 per cent of insects, and 73 per cent of flowering plants.

By the most conservative measure – based on the last century’s recorded extinctions – the current rate of extinction is 100 times the background rate. But the eminent Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, and other scientists, estimate that the true rate is more like 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate. The actual annual sum is only an educated guess, because no scientist believes that the tally of life ends at the 1.5 million species already discovered; estimates range as high as 100 million species on earth, with 10 million as the median guess. Bracketed between best- and worst-case scenarios, then, somewhere between 2.7 and 270 species are erased from existence every day. Including today....

In a 2004 analysis published in Science, Lian Pin Koh and his colleagues predict that an initially modest co-extinction rate will climb alarmingly as host extinctions rise in the near future. Graphed out, the forecast mirrors the rising curve of an infectious disease, with the human species acting all the parts: the pathogen, the vector, the Typhoid Mary who refuses culpability, and, ultimately, one of up to 100 million victims.

(Whitty, 2007)

ScienceDaily, the BBC, the blog of Cambridge University Press, and other sources, drawing on the work of biologists and other scientists, all corroborate the above prognosis. For instance, here is an excerpt by biologists and human and animal demographers Donald A. Levin and Phillip S. Levin, who observe:

that on average, a distinct species of plant or animal becomes extinct every 20 minutes.... Donald Levin, who works in the section of integrative biology in the College of Natural Sciences, said research shows the rate of current loss is highly unusual – clearly qualifying the present period as one of the six great periods of mass extinction in the history of Earth.

“The numbers are grim,” he said. “Some 2,000 species of Pacific Island birds (about 15 percent of the world total) have gone extinct since human colonization. Roughly 20 of the 297 known mussel and clam species and 40 of about 950 fishes have perished in North America in the last century. The globe has experienced similar waves of destruction just five times in the past.”

Biological diversity ultimately recovered after each of the five past mass extinctions, probably requiring several million years in each instance. As for today’s mass extinction, Levin said some ecologists believe the low level of species diversity may become a permanent state, especially if vast tracts of wilderness area are destroyed”.

(University of Texas, Austin, 2002)

In the End

Another source states:

“The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) notes in a video that many species are threatened with extinction. In addition,

• 75% of genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost

— 75% of the world’s fi sheries are fully or over exploited

— Up to 70% of the world’s known species risk extinction if the global temperatures rise by more than 3.5°C

— 1/3 ^rd of reef-building corals around the world are threatened with extinction

— Every second a parcel of rainforest the size of a football fi eld disappears

Over 350 million people suffer from severe water scarcity”

(Shah 6 June 2010).

Yet in spite of this information, civilized mythology continues to pervade all the aspects of artistic, social, scientific, and political expression, and the anthropocentric perspective continues to drive people in their general apathy, alienation, and self-victimization further dulling their comprehension skills. If and when there is a social outrage, it usually concerns human problems, but never the much deeper and wider scope of suffering of farmed animals or the irretrievable death of a species, whose disappearance is dismissed as either natural or as having been caused by poor evolutionary choices. Julia Whitty’s ( 2007) title above betrays this anthropocentrism: “Animal Extinction – the Greatest Threat to Mankind”, which centres around what is good for or dangerous to “mankind” and not to the beings who are dying out. The title assumes we should care about the extinction of animal and plant life because it constitutes a threat to “us” and not because we should care for animals to not go extinct simply because they suffer and we should want them to live only because it makes them happy to do so.

Scientifi c texts written for children also participate in the propagation of civilized mythology even while contradicting themselves. For instance, Scholastic’s advertisement of their book Endangered Species: the New Book of Knowledge opens with the civilized perspective and, by doing so, minimizes the effects of human agency in environmental destruction, which it later names as the original culprit in the planetary catastrophe.

A co-author of The Audubon Society Book of Wild Animals, Edward R. Ricciuti begins his review on Scholastic’s website by stating it is normal and natural for species to ultimately die out because they cannot adapt to the changes in the environment. Also, since the conquest of the Americas, only a handful of hundreds of species have perished – which does not even remotely refl ect the scientifi c estimates of the “ultimately, one of up to 100 million victims” discussed above:

Plants, animals, and other living things have developed, flourished, and vanished since the first flickerings of life. Sooner or later, every species, or kind, of living thing dies out because it cannot keep up with the natural changes in its environment. Yet, in recent times, many species have passed out of existence sooner than they would have naturally. Since the year 1600, more than 500 species of wild animals and plants have disappeared from the North American continent alone. At least 1,000 more are in trouble. Worldwide, scientists estimate that 20,000 species of plants are in danger of extinction, that is, dying out completely.[68]

In other words, this “environmental” piece for children opens with the statement that extinction is natural and inevitable, and by doing so it softens the bad news and minimizes the effects of our actions on the experience and quality of life of other nonhuman and human animals. It is also indifferent to the feelings and experience of the dying animals themselves. Most important, it conspires with the civilized narrative to present children as impotent in preventing destruction and to ignore the true nature of civilization. However, if there have been only five recorded extinctions in the billions of years of life on earth, then what does it say about civilized humans if they are the ones to have brought about the sixth Holocene Extinction within the span of a few thousand years?

There are other problems with the text as well. First, the intended audience, children, are assumed to lack sophistication and need simplified material. The problem is that simplification itself becomes the norm that gets embedded in the habitus, which is then encoded in the child’s body and brain. It sets in as a permanence that hinders the person from ever growing into a state when she is “ready” for complexity and truth. Namely, treating young people as dumb is an important part of the mechanism by which the self-fulfilling prophecy ensures they actually do turn out dumb.

Second, the text omits the fact that this information is outdated, since the way the book of extinctions defines an extinct species is when not a single member has been spotted during half a century. Since the most intensive rate of extinction has sprinted precisely during these past fifty years, omitting this crucial fact leads to huge underestimations that could have the most dire repercussions for life on earth, if children continue to operate from the civilized-anthropocentric perspective on biodiversity in addition to relying on outdated data lagging half a century behind reality. The logic of this article is: “Five hundred species have vanished since the conquest of the Americas and others are in danger, but if you ‘conserve’ – buy new light bulbs (that supposedly save energy but contain toxic mercury), or recycle, or designate ‘wildlife’ parks managed by human professionals, etc., i.e. just like the doctors dis cussed above, participate even more intensely in the civilized capitalist economy, then you can help the animals that are in danger to not be in danger any more”. In this way, when the reader arrives at the more accurate estimate in the book of how many species vanish per day (between fifty and a hundred and fifty) due to the anthropogenic destruction of habitat, the information has already been tamed and does not appear as urgent as it really is. “In any case, extinctions are natural and so don’t break your heart over it,” goes the logic.

In fact, the BBC reports that “40 per cent of the 10,000 five- to 18-yearolds who participated [in a survey on children’s attitudes to the massive species extinction] ranked watching TV or playing computer games higher than saving the environment”.[69] Others thought it was important to save animals because “our” lives depended on it and only a few took the wilderness approach: that animals should live because they are alive.

Needless to say, if civilized mythology successfully prevails in a field that claims authenticity and basis in reality, it goes rampant in works of fiction and art. Children’s literature consistently presents civilized myths as self-evident truths, ranging through a variety of genres, addressed to all ages. Earlier, I mentioned the Caillou series of short picture books that depict mundane situations and offer solutions for integration into the civilized order by appealing to the child’s need for acceptance and love. C.S. Lewis’ (1949–1954) Chronicles of Narnia, written for older children, also oscillates between the “chaos” of the world of “wild” animists under the leadership of the White Witch and the desired “order” under the patriarchal rule of the Lion, whose goal is to impose on Narnia the order of Earth, naturally, through bloodshed.

The same holds true for the Harry Potter novels that present a divided world, first between the ignorant muggles (those unenlightened masses) and the clandestine world of the select few who possess the secret knowledge of how to manipulate natural and other forces in order to establish a civilized hierarchy. The series reflects perfectly the civilized order, where the “ignorant” masses are exploited and excluded from academia and other centres for the control and production of elite knowledge. Harry Potter’s clandestine society itself is divided. Here, a handful of chosen men battle for hegemony while the rest of the men, women, and other life-forms exist to help these men’s quests, maintain their power, ensure their success, keep their knowledge and powers secret, with some of these individuals and groups simply existing as slaves, such as the house-elves and “half-bloods”, for those of mixed race in all supremacist ideologies are seen as inferior beings that pollute the pure race.

The same myths of civilization feed the imaginary of most of the contemporary films for children. Here is a good example of how a film plot claims to be a story about love and empowerment, when in reality it depicts subjugation, devastation, and death. The award-winning Pixar animation film Up (2009) was described by Rotten Tomatoes in the following words: “Another masterful work of art from Pixar, Up is an exciting, hilarious, and heartfelt adventure impeccably crafted and told with wit and depth”, receiving 98% vote on their site and 8.4/10 on the imdb.com film database. The film includes everything in its formula for success: symbolism, alienation, violence, effacement, gendered and racialized silencing, objectification, the heroic agency of one (white, male) character (but occasionally a white female would also do), and the desertification of the rest of life. Finally, for it to ensure financial success, it must be about white people and their agency with people of colour caricatured if appearing at all.

The film begins with a white girl called Ellie who dreams of moving her house to the top of Paradise Falls mountains in South America. She meets a white boy, Carl, tells him her dream, he promises to take her there, they fall in love, and spend their lives working little jobs trying to save money for travel, but never have enough and always end up being forced to spend their last pennies on emergencies. Life goes by and they grow old together without having fulfilled Ellie’s dream, which gets relegated to a drawer in an old journal where it remains until the end of her life, collecting dust.

The film, however, portrays their lives as natural, even “romantic”. The romantic aspect is concocted by the narrative’s focus on the little things that bring them joy in spite of this overwhelming civilization that sucks out their very life force and thereby silences the horror of such an existence when a person cannot voice her aspirations, let alone realize her most cherished dream. The “beauty” of the film for the civilized resides in the fact that it ignores the ninety-five percent of Ellie and Carl’s reality and only occasionally sketches or alludes to it. Instead, it centres on the five percent and their “positive” attitudes and reactions. It would have been a very “unlovely” film had it shown accurately the realistic proportion of joy to pain, disempowerment, and struggle. Moreover, like the cyborgs, not only are their dreams sterile, they themselves have no continuation: they have nothing to transmit and no one to transmit it to, no children of their own, no nieces, no nephews, no adopted kids, or kids of friends, no one. Only after Ellie’s death does a child appear in Carl’s life. And even then, as the boy scout, Russell, accidentally finds himself on board, Carl is annoyed by his presence and tries to get rid of him. For, together, Carl and Ellie exist as machines to work and pay bills and after her death, Carl appropriates Ellie’s dream and gets a chance at a glimpse of what it means to live.

The film depicts this tragic life as “lovely” and “romantic” simply because the protagonists have a dream, which conveys the message that it is not important for them to live this dream while they are young and full of yearning and life. In fact, it would have distracted them from fulfilling their real purpose in civilization: work and pay bills. Do not fret, lulls the underlying whisperer of the civilized narrative, even when you do not have the time to dream it together and even if you die, someone else will live your dream on your behalf and might even take your picture on the trip to symbolize your “participation”. Impotent, infertile dreaming, like androids’ dreams of electric sheep, thus replaces the doing and the living.

Furthermore, the civilized plot goes on to depict the “natural” evolution of civilization that ends up surrounding the outdated, even expired, dreamer’s house with high-rises. Carl gets cranky, tries to resist, but since he is impotent before the new day and age and his time is, after all, gone (mostly into work fuelling this very “evolution” and into the bills he had paid to pave it), he has no recourse but to cede the place to developers. So he does the “heroic” thing: attaching his house to balloons he flies away to Paradise Falls, all the while talking to a picture of Ellie. The audience is expected to derive satisfaction from the fact that Ellie’s photograph and Carl make it to Venezuela and so it is “as if” Ellie has lived her dream.

The problem here is the replacement of the person by the picture and the satisfaction with the “as if” substitutes for the real life of pleasure. In the end, the film effaces Ellie and her dreams, depicting her and Carl’s docility and disempowerment as natural. But not only is there a replacement of the person by a picture, what matters for the narrative is that the house, with the photo inside, is the only one who makes it to the top of the lifeless landscape. Why would anyone be happy for a house making it to Paradise Falls is difficult for me to grasp, yet the rating of the film on the various film databases mentioned earlier demonstrates that amnesia, sterility, impotence, and downright charlatanism appear to make sense and are appealing to the domesticated masses.

The moral of the film is that most children should learn to expect a “beautiful” life of self-denial, hard work, and poverty and accept that, after all, someone else will live their dreams for them when they die or even before then. The beauty of life for the civilized consists in the knowledge of the effaced “members of society” that, in the end, they will “as if” have lived. The violence of monogeneity and capitalism, of the substitution of reality by “as if”, or of silencing, deadening, and effacement, according to the film, is not only a natural and benign way of living but even constitutes the only way, for nothing else appears in the film apart from this way of life and these kind of people. That, the audience is told, is a happy ending.

With regard to colonized landscapes and the knowledge of “other” places, the film also lives up to civilized expectations, for when Carl arrives in South America there is no one there to greet him and his new friend, the accidentally attached Russell, the boy scout. There are no people, no animals, hardly any trees, with the exception of another white male American by the name of Charles Munz, his remote-controlled dogs, and a weird bird addicted to “U.S.” chocolate. In the manner of Christopher Robin who names, Russell domesticates the bird by naming her Kevin and offering her the food she likes but which, in the manner of the Oompa-Loompas, the bird cannot obtain because it is now “American” and no longer belongs to South America, where it actually grows. Russell domesticates the purpose of Kevin in another way as well, for by giving her a male name, the female bird forgets her own children and plays the role of the useful native guide who follows Russell and Carl on their adventures, helping them in their feats and conquests. Even though, towards the end of the film, Russell and Carl return Kevin to her family, in the real world a mother’s absence from her children is disastrous not only for her own children but for the whole community. In the span of its ninety-six minutes, this narrative succeeds to completely erase the indigenous reality and diversity of a whole continent and, instead, portrays a barren landscape with no life apart from Kevin and the greedy white American male and robot dogs. Finally, as the humans (three white American males) depart, the dead white American woman’s house and photograph claim the territory at the summit of Paradise Falls.

The majority of films produced for children in English dominate the world film industry and market, and regardless of whether they are based on fairy tales, literature, or original film script, operate from these civilized precepts. For instance, another computer animated film, Hoodwinked! (2005), focuses on empowering older women and young girls and once again demonstrates that such empowerment must necessarily proceed at the expense of other groups that are disempowered by the agency of the newly empowered. Again the focus is on white women with the assumption that they stand for Women, unlike black or Asian women who stand for their specific, essentialized constructs and racialized needs. In order to focus on the “positive” message, the script ignores the massive injustices and the rest of the painful realities in the manner of other civilized narratives. Thus, it must portray the individuals and groups that suffer from the empowerment of these two women as happy for the protagonists’ achievements and supportive of their feats, even while they themselves remain homeless, disempowered, and even dead. This tactic of focusing on the aspirations, emotions, hardships, and conquests of the “heroes” and “heroines” of civilized narratives helps the audience to identify with the conquerors’ needs and to caricature the needs of others. Since these protagonists are not real and, therefore, are not competing with the audience for their own piece of the civilized pie, their representational status allows the audience to cheer for them, to desire their success, and to be sad with their failure “as if” it were their own. Since the details of the remaining characters, who are victims of this white women’s feminist plot, remain sketchy and caricatured, the audience forgets about reality and joins in the depicted joy of the rest of the forest beings who, we are told, are happy to get trampled on by Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, galloping across their lives, running over animals, recklessly felling trees, causing dynamite explosions that bring about avalanches and tear down mountains, simply because the two women need to salvage granny’s recipes in order to save a few private businesses. And yet, like so many other films and books, the more the narrative is insensitive and status-quooriented, the more it is celebrated for its “originality” and empowerment.

Most important, however, is that hierarchical, gendered and racialized anthropocentrism leads to gross misrepresentations of reality because it is rooted in the myth that depicts human agency as key to the survival of the planet: “If only we can get the right kind of management for the natural ‘resources’ and ‘environmental’ ‘initiatives’”, the standard logic goes, “we can make things right; if only the right kind of ‘moral’ people get elected in government, everything will be fixed; if only more people participate in the show of spending billions of dollars on the handful of people to represent them at their own expense to be elected to take the trip to Paradise Falls on their behalf, then there will be less hunger and more empowerment; ad infinitum”. Yet for thousands of years leaders and managers have been misleading, mismanaging, and profiting from abuse, but for some reason – and I argue the reason has to do with the postulates underlying the civilized narrative and the unknowledge and structure for social relationships that the civilized premises foster – people still believe it is just about to improve with their personal help and contribution, because they possess the agency to renounce their voice, thereby relinquishing that very agency in favour of the handful of mis-leaders, the ones whom they choose to voice their hopes, represent their dreams, and tell them what to do, how to live, what to buy, what to believe, how to become beautiful, how to become happy, like the amnesiac cyborgs without a world. But just like the representation that ends up living Ellie’s dream when she dies, so do the representatives of people’s will and desires – the politicians and other public figures and celebrities – live people’s dreams as the people themselves die. Representation renders dreams sterile and people perfect machines that think they are empowered by their function to serve as limbs for another’s will. For their part, these impotent cyborgs appear to gladly agree to be depicted as singing with joy because they have grown to be ashamed of their tears.

Into the Moominland

We have thus come to embody the civilized narrative invented to split us from ourselves and our world, its memes and dispositions burnt into our flesh, minds, and desires. We have become the fiction we write and have forgotten our past, our truth, our possibilities, and our future. Language was there to make this world and sever our communication with wilderness. Language and grammar are the primary mechanisms for praxis that allow standardization. Through formulae they help transmit the unspoken doxa, the habitus of untruth, and the ideologies of deception.

Literacy has been pivotal to the successful transmission of civilized memes and genes, altering the very brain and physiology of civilized humans. Children’s narratives have come to play a central role in cementing the grammar of domestication and socializing children into an oppressive, hierarchical paradigm of civilized social relations and knowledge. As seen in Winnie-the-Pooh, concepts such as illness and health, sadism and masochism, in-group and outsiders need not even be articulated, since the underlying assumptions driving the civilized plot in themselves are sufficient to convey civilized meaning and transmit the doxa through the structure of its codes for social relationships, desires, fears, and aspirations. In this nexus of all the components comprising the civilized narrative, the role of biography, i.e. understanding the personal experience of all the interlocutors in any study, becomes particularly important, since the ability to comprehend and build knowledge can begin only on the personal level of sentience, empathy, and personal actions. Everything depends on this ability to tune in to one’s world. The less a person relates to the world outside herself and the more alienated she is, the less capable of understanding and the more damage she inflicts. When the syndrome of apathy and impotence becomes an epidemic, the repercussions are disastrous, as the 6^th Extinction in the history of the world threatens to end it all.

Attempts to compromise with the civilized plot, even while slightly decreasing the pace of the looming demise, nevertheless, ultimately lead to collapse. Even in fiction and in spite of the possibilities that imagination offers, as Dunno’s trilogy shows, the logic of the argument itself cannot reconcile order and technology with self-governed wilderness, since civilization necessarily sucks everything into its vortex. And even if the destruction of the institutions on the Moon bring about a change of system, it is not a revolution in the sense of a total change of epistemology and ontological positions. For the minute a person is overpowered by this cancerous narrative and accepts the path towards the machine and civilized ontology as an ineluctable fate, then, like Dunno’s adventure, the progression of the plot cannot deviate from the path of evolution towards cities and states, control and order, and the ultimate descent into the mode of agricultural expansionism, which entails growth, overpopulation, and hence massacres and extinctions. Therefore, even though Nosov does his best to embrace multiculturalism, inter-gender, and other forms of co-operation, including trans-nationalism, his narrative is unable to overcome speciesism, which constitutes the root of oppression and segregation by means of the civilized construct of humanism.

Instead, Nosov tries to reconcile wilderness with civilization through empathy and conscience, and while he offers important explorations on morality, his critique of oppressive orders, nonetheless, succumbs to two pitfalls of the civilized narrative. First, in spite of being one of the fundamental aspects of morality, kindness to animals is insufficient to eradicate discrimination and disempowerment brought about by the humanist position that assumes civilized human (un)reason as superior to all. The concept of kindness, while necessary for life in wilderness, fails in civilization because it does not attack the solid socio-economic foundation of abusive relationships and hence, ultimately, remains an anthropocentric venture of a superficial and short-term nature that remedies wounds but does not heal. Healing comes from wild generosity with the wild. It is a love for the other as she is for whatever purpose she chooses.

Second, driven by an apology for technological investment, the narrative manages to remain optimistic in face of the inevitable evolution towards a general state of technological and agricultural colonialism as, particularly, the last book in Dunno’s trilogy conveys. The trilogy takes the classical anarcho-socialist stance that sees a liberating potential in technology as long as there is a self-defined communal organization and leadership painted as brotherly guidance. The author acknowledges that in itself, government causes serious social problems, particularly in the context of capitalism and technology, where leadership and representation become integral components of oppressive systems. However, since there might not be a choice, as the underlying evolutionary narrative posits, then a communist government, although problematic due to its totalitarian potential – for it needs to control the crime that it creates in the first place and to exploit “resources” – is still a preferable option to the devastating capitalist state.

In this way, the trilogy projects reconciliation with the state as an inevitable evil that can be alleviated if a society chooses to follow the principles of compassion, moderation, and co-operation. For only an informed and caring leadership is seen as capable of channelling the purpose of the machine into the organization of complex infrastructures. A complex infrastructure can thus become the vehicle for an egalitarian distribution of resources, thereby freeing time in a communally organized manner by replacing human servants with artificial machines. What the narrative leaves unsaid is the impossibility of an egalitarian distribution of resources when the point of departure is a world that needs the machine – i.e., the servant whose very purpose for existence has been defined to serve – and because of this dependence on artificial limbs and servitude, such a society becomes necessarily divided into resources and agents. Political representation becomes unavoidable in this scenario and hence symbolism and alienation – the very enemies of empathy, intelligence, diversity, and co-operation – acquire a central place in the ontological conception of living beings.

In this regard, even though Dunno’s trilogy raises many critical questions that challenge the civilized norms, it still projects the same Darwinist plot as the one underlying the Christian monarchist structure of the Hundred-Acre Wood, in which the omission of technological gadgets does not detract from the “mechanical” nature of the characters in Christopher Robin’s world, who constitute the prostheses of the human child’s possibilities. In this sense, the characters, with their propensity for greed, literacy, envy, and sterility, resemble Haraway’s metaphoric cyborgs, for they are the mutants that provide the power for Christopher Robin’s self-realization; they are the limbs that re-enact a domesticated and, therefore, impotent will that can realize itself only through the abstract re-enactment of the imaginary, the unreal, and the untrue. In this regard, the genesis here is utterly civilized: the toys from their inception have been created for the purpose of serving the human, for being named and dominated by him. They are his prey. The narrative transmits the Darwinian doom of evolution towards the ultimate cyborg and domestication through a sense of inevitability of the real-life boy, Christopher Robin, abandoning this world and transferring to boarding school, a place where he will be locked up and taught how to participate in the narrative of dependencies and machines in real life, while the story of this world, in which he was an empowered agent, must end with his integration into the humanist order. And thus, he forgets his past.

Unlike the sterile world of Pooh and in spite of the nature of language, literacy, literature, and narratives, there still exist uncompromising tales of wilderness. My third example of how a children’s book can offer wild narratives explores the possibilities of handling civilization and of remaining free in a wild world. The Moomin books examine co-existence and ways of dealing with the pedantic and ignorant figures of authority, the Hemulens. Ignoring them and rebellion against civilization, including property damage and sabotage in confronting jailers and schools, are some of the diverse tactics explored here. Typically, under the civilized circumstances in which these books emerge, such uncompromising tales are a minority in the world of literacy and, in spite of their overt critique of racism, speciesism, institutions, and oppression, are still capable of being tamed and disarmed by the mere fact that they remain solely in the realm of “identification” and “entertainment” without truly rewilding the civilized subjects or prompting them to make specific choices in terms of actions. In this context, the personal life choices of the author reflect the meaning of the narrative and shed light on the extent of its feasibility as viable options in the real world. Here, as my interdisciplinary analysis shows, wilderness is still a feasible way of life and Tove Jansson’s personal experiences and life choices – ranging from her bohemian lifestyle, through a lifetime with a lesbian partner, to travel and years spent on an island – are not the exception in the history of the world but rather are part of its intricately rich past and an intense future filled with infinite possibilities that the diversity of wilderness avails.

Wild narratives include everything and have no standardizing grammar for outcome in favour of anyone, including humans. Hence, they too can play with representation, but it is usually in the context of the trickster who misleads, and as examined in Chapter Two on indigenous ontologies, tricksters too have a place in wilderness, where cosmic justice is ensured by the rotation of chances. Because the Moomins have no representatives and no substitution, there is no order, only chaos. Everyone lives how she deems fit and is free to pursue her own desires and dreams whenever and wherever. Moominpappa learns this as soon as he grows up and takes off to wander the earth in search of community. When, together with his travel companions, he comes ashore and steps into a kingdom, he discovers the Autocrat is the biggest joker and the traps and tricks he sets work only on those who fall for them and who accept his walls, borders, and limitations. As the Mymble’s daughter explains, these enclosures are associated with language and literacy, and they work only for those who believe in them and who know them as barriers; otherwise, they are good for having picnics and playing pranks.

The same applies to children and pedagogy. In wilderness, children are not limited by their parents but by their own needs for proximity, protection, and care. When they decide they are ready to venture further from parents and home, with all the relationships that constitute one’s feeling of belonging, in order to build their own relationships and acquire knowledge and skills, their parents help them prepare for the journey and they know they always have the old home to return to where they can bring along new members to integrate into the family.

Race, or the superficial difference of colour, is another issue that has no meaning here aside from what flowers and colours one could experiment with in decorating one’s hair. In Comet in Moominland, Moomintroll finds out from Snufkin that there are creatures exactly like the trolls, called Snorks, who are not only of different colour but change their colour according to mood. It must be so beautiful, thought Moomintroll, and when he meets the colourful Snork Maiden, he finds himself intimately attracted to her. Gender roles too are constantly subverted here. Even though the Snork Maiden likes “girly” stuff, such as putting flowers on her hair and admiring herself in the mirror, it does not prevent her from being capable of saving Moomintroll from a sea monster with the help of her mirror just as he had saved her from a carnivorous bush. The Hemulen usually wears his aunt’s dress, which proves handy for Moomintroll and travel companions when it serves as a parachute, saving them from the apocalyptic wind brought by the comet. All they had to do was grab the edges of their new friend’s skirt and the wind carried them home.

The Moomin books offer a wild array of possibilities and choices. Like their real-life compatriot, Lasse Nordlund, the Moomin book characters recycle and build their own tools but they never become dependent on them, as they always have the option to move away and subsist by gathering and roaming. They are entangled in a variety of relationships, but whenever these relationships lose the aspect of mutuality, turning into claustrophobic dependencies, the characters leave, then return, and nothing but an immense cosmic harmony can contain or inform their trajectories. That is why, in the world of Moomin wilderness, there is simply no room for machines, with the exception of self-made tools and experimental devices like the ones Moominpappa makes in his solitude at sea or during the period of his life described in his memoirs. The Hemulens, who try to control and threaten with authority and order, are powerless before the sheer will of the rest of the characters to refuse to abide by these nags’ whims and when necessary, as Snufkin demonstrates, they break out of Hemulens’ prisons and burn down their walls. It is such resistance and sabotage that saves Moomin wilderness and, like real-life wilderness, the Moomin world too contains in it everything: there is fear and misery that freeze the world around the Groke, authority figures demand submission, threatening to punish the disobedient, it has madness, sorrow, loneliness, and death, but at the same time, there are the expanses of dimensions beyond this world and possibilities of knowledge beyond one’s fear, the Hemulens’ attempts to oppress forges the spirit of comradeship and resistance, and just as winter wakes up to spring, so does death bring rebirth for those who care for life and love the world.

In this respect, the three children’s books – A.A. Milne’s Winnie-thePooh, Nikolai Nosov’s trilogy on The Adventures of Dunno and Friends, and Tove Jansson’s Moomin books – I have chosen for this study present three different paradigms for social relations and cultural systems, issuing radically different socio-environmental and political “fictional realities”. Each of these fantasy worlds has its own impact on the living world. One of my goals in carrying out this research was to bridge the gap between science and literature so as to examine the interconnectedness of fiction and reality as a two-way road. Another aim was to engage these narratives in a dialogue with each other tracing their expression in the various disciplines and books written both for children and adults, as well as the manifestation of fictional narratives in real life.

The hardest aspect of this work has been my attempt to reconcile with the occasional despair brought about by the overwhelming statistical data and the implications of having a fictional narrative (including the myths and misrepresentations of scientific and political plots) replace wilderness and life itself. It was hard to come to grips with the overbearing role that fictional narratives play in our lives. In this regard, it no longer matters whether the replacement of life by a civilized plot is intentional or whether it is the work of a self-replicating meme and doxa that have gone rampant and out of hand, because fiction and narrative have come to manipulate and domesticate human and animal persons, whatever their role or socio-economic background in this hierarchy may be, compelling the individual bodies that comprise the civilized institutions to behave specifically in the interest of civilization. Hence, not only do the narratives project specific values and provide idealized and admonitory tales, they also reconfirm the ideology, the habitus, the body hexis, and the doxa by eliciting the reader’s identification with the desires, suffering, and trajectories of the depicted characters while overwriting the nightmarish lives of the billions of human and animal people entrapped in the lower echelons of this hierarchy. The civilizing mechanism works smoothly when personal desires are adjusted to the domesticated ideology and remain in accord with its plot. This illusion of happiness, or satisfaction, breeds the ultimate doom and despair, since the narrative imposes a structure that a priori dismisses the emotions of discontent as “deviant” or “invalid” and thereby precludes the possibility to understand why the depressed or psychotic person feels miserable or rebellious. Today such people are treated with antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs so as to align their feelings with the civilized myth and recycle them into the system of resources.

At the same time, the realization that it is not the “genetic” heritage that writes our narratives, that memes and habitus can be re-imagined, rewritten, and reinscribed into chaos, is liberating because we now know we do not have to be hostages of any decision our ancestors may have taken seventeen thousand years ago or perhaps even further back, thirty thousand years ago when they first tasted flesh, devised language and art, and moved out of Africa to conquer the world. Real agency and freedom reside in the passion that strives to bring down these walls of civilization that, through a narrative that imposes rigidity and the doom of permanence, misleads us by promising comfort, safety, and pills in exchange for our wildness, chaos, and life. As the Moomintrolls show us, freedom, movement, happiness, and life dwell in the cracks. They inhabit the dimensions of technological inefficiency and, most important, in the community of all forms of deviance where difference becomes a celebration and in which change and variety constitute the norm.

To regain our community with life, we must accept the risk of danger, suffering, and madness, for these are also symptoms of resistance to the civilized plot implicit in one’s refusal to internalize the prescribed place with its social value. And at the same time, these are the manifestations of chaos. Accounts of wilderness tell us that even when civilization terms disruptions in individual or group participation in its narrative as “illness” and “disability” – whether “mental”, “physical”, or other, including the various forms of rebellion, destruction of walls and order, and “social deviance” – we can still subvert civilization’s attempt to differentiate between the groups and to uniformalize their individuals. By embracing the idiosyncrasies of each while admitting the shared common essence of all, we can regain the forest. With this ability to remember our past we can recover the sentience and empathy lost and reimagine a wild future. Roaming in this wilderness, we can come to share new stories by living them instead of having one story live our dreams.

References

Primary Sources

Original Texts

In Translation

Other Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Reports

Films

Documentary

Index

[1] Throughout the book, the term “civilization” will be used in the anthropological sense, i.e. as a concept that focuses on the social relationships among human animals and their socio-environmental attitudes, which stem from an anthropocentric world view that allows for predatory cultures of subsistence and which in turn yield specific material cultures, all of which have dire repercussions on the world in which we live. For instance, Eric Sunderland (1973), palaeontologists like Björn Kurtén (1984, 1995), and anthropologists Tim Ingold (1997), Marshall Sahlins (1974, 2008), Hugh Brody (2000), Piers Vitebsky (2006), John Zerzan (2002, 2008), among others, inform my definition of civilization.

[2] By environment, I simply mean the world that surrounds us. I differentiate it from the political concept of environmentalism, which stems from a desire to make that surrounding world livable, useful, or whatever else that any given group of environmentalists may see as high on their priority list of concerns.

[3] There has been a debate in the biological sciences regarding the type of relationships that the term “symbiosis” should include. Throughout the 20^th century, most biologists relied on Anton de Bary’s definition in 1878, which includes parasitic associations in the same category of friendly associations. R.A. Lewin (1982) and Lynda J. Goff (1982) make an excellent case for keeping de Bary’s use to include the whole range of intimate associations. Lewin’s argument is particularly strong as it acknowledges the bias effect on phenomenological observations and scientific conclusions of terminology built on exclusion. In this book, I rely on their definitions as well as on the more updated discussion by T.L.F. Leung and R. Poulin (2008).

[4] I develop these connections between literature and human genesis as a descent into civilization in my play, entitled Red Delicious (2003): http://www.inthel andoftheliving.org/essays/test.

[5] See DeVault et al. (2003) “Scavenging by vertebrates: behavioural, ecological, and evolutionary perspectives on an important energy transfer pathway in terrestrial ecosystems”. Also, in the tenth subchapter in Chapter Two, I discuss in depth Lasse Nordlund’s experiment that shows hunting is not sustainable because of the high cost of energy required in order to hunt down, kill, then share the victim with one’s group.

[6] I do not endorse laboratory experiments on animal people, and, therefore, do my best to avoid citing experiments where pain and trauma have been inflicted on living beings (for example, rats) in order to observe the transmission of this memory to future generations.

[7] See Roger Lewin (2005) and Stephen Jay Gould (2002).

[8] For more information, see the Human Genome Project: http://www.genome.gov/ and National Geographic: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/125explore/shared-genes.

[9] I use the feminine pronoun throughout the book to refer to generic individuals and revert to either masculine pronouns, when my intention is to highlight a patriarchal aspect, or gender-neutral pronouns to signal the arbitrary differentiation between life and nonlife.

[10] For examples of representation of African races during the transatlantic slave trade as either different from Europeans or even as an altogether nonhuman animal, see the classification of human races by Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778), Voltaire (1694–1778), Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 1707–1788), Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), among others.

[11] See the conference by Nekeisha Alexis-Baker entitled “Speciesism, Sexism and Racism: The Intertwined Oppressions”, 2009, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI. Retrieved on 9^th July 2014 from http://www.nonhumanslavery.com/ speciesism-racism-and-sexism-intertwined.

[12] The Washington Post published statistics for 2013 on April 24, 2014. Retrieved on 3^rd May 2014, from http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/ animals-taken-by-wildlife-services-fy-2013/1027/?2.

[13] These attitudes have their roots in the nation-state building period of Europe and WWII, but events in the 21^st century show these schemata have not disappeared. The Odessa Massacre is an event that has a tendency to recur several times per century; the latest took place on May 2, 2014, when Ukrainian ultranationalist leader of the Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh, declared a war on Ukrainian federalists with an ensuing neo-Nazi attack on pro-federalist activists in Odessa that day. As pro-federalist activists were trapped in the Trade Unions Building, locked there and burned alive, the attackers chanted: “Burn Colorado, burn”. The victims who tried to escape the burning building were either clubbed to death or shot. Supporters of this action referred throughout the Internet media to this event as the extermination of vermin and pests. See The Global Research Independent Report on the Fire and Massacre in Odessa on May 2: http://www.globalresearch.ca/independent-report-on-massacre-and-fire-inodessa-may-2-2014/5382241. Also see: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/world/europe/kievs-reins-weaken-as-chaos-spreads.html?_r=0. And a pro-Western account of the events in the following United Nations “Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine”: UNHCR, June 15, 2014. Retrieved June 21, 2014: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/HRMMUReport15June2014.pdf. And, for comparison, Ukrainian ultranationalist leader calls for guerilla war against pro-federalists. Published May 18, 2014 13:38; edited May 18, 2014 14:37 http://rt.com/news/159712-guerilla-war-ukraine-yarosh/.

[14] In a BBC article, Russell Smith reported on the effectiveness of hate in instigating the Hutu genocide of the Tutsi people. See “The Impact of Hate Media in Rwanda”, Smith, December 3, 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748. stm. Also see the BBC report of May 17, 2011 entitled “Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13431486.

[15] For example, see Edward O. Wilson’s Sociobiology (2000) or Williams et al. “New perspectives on anthropoid origins” (2010).

[16] I discuss this problem of civilized economies in depth in the 10^th subchapter of Chapter Two.

[17] In What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argues that an economic system based on property ownership is theft from nature.

[18] Armelagos et al. (1991) discuss the phenomenon of sudden population growth in agricultural societies with regard to the loss of health and quality of life.

[19] Orientalism, according to Edward Said (1979), functioned in this way: Backed by the power for violence, the imperialist could devise any picture of the imperial object without regard to its veracity and had the power to impose it as a structure that, in the context of this relationship, benefited the imperial power. This, however, does not mean that the object is completely deprived of any subjectivity or independence in relating to this knowledge. However, within the framework of a relationship that ultimately consumes the lives, dreams, personalities, and associations of the colonized, this structure of oppression has the most tragic and painful repercussions on the victims’ experience of life.

[20] Like ande in Swedish, the French term esprit incorporates both mind and spirit and hence linguistically renders the relationship more holistic than the separate terms for “mind” and “spirit” in English and Russian, the languages with which I will be predominantly concerned in this work.

[21] I enunciate the links between domestication, education, and colonization of resources and land in my article dedicated to the topic, entitled “Education as the Domestication of Inner Space”, Fifth Estate, Spring/Summer 2014, #391.

[22] Greenville Town is a motif of a women’s liberation zone that critiques gender segregation such as elaborated in the medieval feminist utopia La Cité des Dames by Christine de Pizan.

[23] I translated the names in the second book. In Russian they were respectively: Кнопочка and Пачкуля Пёстренький.

[24] Using the pen name Boris Karlov, a former police officer, Vladislav Yurjevich Shebashov, wrote a novel exploring a possible trajectory had Dunno chosen a different direction at the crossroads, namely, Stone City. Nosov’s son, Igor Petrovich Nosov, fought for copyright ownership and forced Shebashov to withdraw his book, and to rewrite and rename the characters. Igor P. Nosov now writes his own sequels (Chuprinina, 2003).

[25] Retrieved on 5^th July 2014 from: http://www.poohcorner.com/Bios/

[26] Complexity and nuances are further complicated by the different forms of the same verbs that signal whether the speaker is referring to a specific one-time event or a general regularly recurring one. In other words, the forms of Russian verbs signal the interpretation of time both as a controlled experience and as chaos.

[27] For more on the interrelationship between language and cognition see Palmer (1986), Papafragou et al. (2007), Boroditsky (2009), and Casasanto et al. (2010).

[28] A sociological study conducted in the U.S. by Gupta, Sayer and Cohen (2009) confirms the positive correlation between income and the time available for personal health-related activities and family.

[29] Science’s claim to objectivity has been challenged extensively, e.g. Lakoff and Johnson (2003) in Metaphors We Live By or Longino (1990) in Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry.

[30] The term “unschooling” comes from Teach Your Own by John Holt (Holt and Farenga, 2003). From his experience as a teacher, Holt learned that schooling methods worked to suppress chlidren’s creative expressions and to oppress their will. “Unschooling” is a term designed to incorporate all forms of child-led education and entails focusing on the child’s needs for autonomous learning and not teaching. I use “unschooling” for lack of a better word to describe empathic, attachment parenting and child-led learning, where a child is allowed to learn organically by interacting with and integrating into the world.

[31] In 2006, Sebastian Suggate defended a doctoral dissertation in psychology at Otago University in which he explored the benefits of delayed literacy in children. His dissertation, listed among exceptional theses for 2009, was titled The role of age-related development in literacy acquisition and response to reading instruction. My own experience confirms this. My parents did not encourage me to learn how to read and write Russian and I simply made the effort to learn it by the age of five. My daughter learned to read in Russian at six and in English, before she could even speak it, at the age of eight.

[32] Literally, styrelsen means both management and board, hence the major ministry of Sweden is that of social management.

[33] The Swedes concerned in this project were not talking about elitist jobs for the Somalis. They did not seem keen on having them as colleagues at the ministry, for instance. The commissioners from Socialstyrelsen and the various social workers complained the Somali women wore the scarf and, therefore, could get only background jobs (for example, dish-washing at a fast-food shop), because the stores could not hire them for positions where they would be visible, such as waitressing or cashier. The scarf issue and female genital mutilation appeared to be the main concerns for the commissioners. The Somali men’s jobs mentioned included cleaning, cashier, and taxi-driving.

[34] The prosecution of homeschoolers in Europe illustrates this. For instance, sevenyear-old Domenic Johansson, who was abducted on June 25, 2008 by the state as his parents had already boarded the plane heading to India, his mother’s native land (Sundberg, 2009; Lundström, 2010).

[35] The exact date has been contested, but according to I.M. Lewis (1993 and 2008) the Somalis have participated in the wars of jihad and appear to have been among the earlier converts to Islam in Africa.

[36] Memorization and recital of poetry also bring a “dead” text to life and ensure a living memory and live relationships. Theatre is another surviving form of this compromise, where active presence is required in reliving the written word.

[37] See also Samatar (1982), I.M. Lewis (1993; 1994; and 2008), or Helander (1988).

[38] Studies in animal psychology demonstrate that rats and other animals are kind, responsive, empathic, and willing to help others particularly when they themselves have experienced kindness and love (Church, 1959; Kraus et al., 2010; Bekoff and Pierce, 2009).

[39] This also applies to African countries who, after decolonization, adopted European political, economic, and legal structures, e.g., Kenya. Like Canada, they have parallel systems of legislatures. In Quebec, for instance, the major referent is the Civil code of Quebec, based on the French legal system, while the Common Law of Canada is secondary.

[40] In Russian, conscience is feminine, which adds depth to the nuances in his debates with the deepest, feminine side of himself.

[41] For examples and a discussion of punishment/reward tales see the chapter by Rina Drory (1977): “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves: An Attempt at a Model for the Narrative Structure of the Reward-and-Punishment Fairy Tale”.

[42] Hemulen is also a derogatory slang word for authority in Swedish (Bertills, 2003).

[43] For examples, see Misia Landau (1984 and 1991), Cheryl Mattingly and Linda C. Garro (2000) on narratives in science and Jameson on literary studies and politics.

[44] Frantz Fanon argued the European view of Africans as without language allowed the Europeans to classify Africans as inferior and “like animals” and thereby justify their brutality and exploitation of African labour; while Jeremey Bentham saw reason and language as insufficient categories of distinction to justify any torture or exploitation be it of human or other animals. For Bentham, sentience, or the capacity to suffer, was the only guideline that should warrant a human or animal person the right to be free.

[45] Cabral’s analysis specifically targeted Marxist historical narratives, which saw the history of people as the history of class struggle, leaving out all the people who suffered before civilization and under imperialism (in Arrington, 2001: 8). In turn, Cabral and the Marxists leave nonhumans out of their own narrative.

[46] Although Marx and Engels (1977a) propose in The Communist Manifesto that the state will ultimately dissolve, there has been disagreement about how much they agreed on an anarchist outcome. For further debates on the question see Adamiak (1946).

[47] For example, see the opening story in the collection of “Tales from Moominvalley”, book 7, titled “The Spring Tune”.

[48] Snorri (1954) interwove the various heathen and monotheistic mythologies to offer a tale of genesis, apocalypse, and redemption.

[49] This idea probably came from the Near East (Davidson, 1964: 191).

[50] Moses’ abandonment by his mother in a basket and questions of slavery, liberation, and growing up parentless are recurring motifs in the Moomin books. For example, Moominpappa is abandoned by his mother, wrapped in newspapers at the orphanage run by Hemulens, and he wishes she would have placed him in a basket on the moss (1952: 9; 1968: 3).

[51] In an interview published on BBC and in Time (25 April, 2010), the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said NASA should not send out signals to “alien” forms of life. It would be best not to get noticed as the result might be as devastating as when the Europeans noticed Africa, Australia, Asia, and the Americas (basically, the world outside Europe).

[52] For instance, the Moomin family helps the stork-bird find glasses and the storkbird helps them find Moominpappa, a reunion that leads them back to life in Moominvalley.

[53] National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

[54] The term “schizophrenia” comes from Greek meaning “split mind”, referring to the condition when a person is “split from reality” (Noll, 2007: 339).

[55] See the case of Ernst Zündel (CBC News, 2006).

[56] For more on the role of water in racial disempowerment see Werner Troesken (2004) and Paul Gelles (2000).

[57] A feather is an element of an animal, but a needle and a thread are inanimate objects. “A Mouse and a Bird”, an Evenkian tale, tells a story of a girl who saves her beloved from an envious rival by turning him into a thread and herself into a needle. In the Belorussian tale “Blue Retinue-Sewn Inside Out-Straw Hat”, a Czar promises to give half of his kingdom to the one who succeeds in hiding from him. Blue Retinue transforms into a bird, a fish, then a needle, and wins the prize. In the Russian tale “Go Thither Know Not Where”, a dove turns into Maria-Tsarevna and Andrei-the-Bowman has to befriend Baba-Yaga, devils, and animals who, through negotiation, all agree to help him defeat the envious Czar. The genealogy of Maria-Tsarevna-the-Dove goes back to Baba-Yaga, an ambiguous character in terms of good and evil. The spectrum of possible transformations in folklore is wide and includes everything, from serpents and insects to inanimate objects thus revealing the common and interchangeable essence of life and nonlife.

[58] Lewis Henry Morgan’s terminology has largely been updated and refuted. For example, subsequent research into Hawaiian kinship systems reveals the oversimplification and ethnocentrism of Morgan’s, as well as of a vast number of anthropologists’ work, in approaching Polynesian or “Other” peoples (Ingold, 1997). However, the general economic structure he describes is still useful in understanding horizontal kinship systems.

[59] This is a reference to Rudyard Kipling’s “The Cat that Walked By Himself” where the cat, unlike the horse and the dog, does not renounce his will even when he accepts the food.

[60] Even if Saint-Exupéry meant the rose, the fox, life, and travel as metaphors for spiritual attainment, these metaphors work only from the perspective of domestication and become meaningless when examined from the perspective of Moomintrolls.

[61] Listik means both a page and a leaf. It may have been the author’s intention to play on both aspects of the name. In English this association with literacy and nature is also retained with Leaf.

[62] Bukovka in Russian means a letter of the alphabet.

[63] Nordlund omits in his calculations the role of land ownership in the constant inflation of prices, which Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Peter Kropotkin identified as important factors in the perpetual devaluation of peasant work, forcing extra labour out of them and then expropriating it through taxation, rent, and other costs.

[64] The theme of what, by civilized standards, would be considered an “idiot” has been challenged in various films and literary works, in which the Idiot emerges as the holder of Truth and Knowledge because he is driven by empathy, for instance Al Tayeb Salih’s The Wedding of Zein, Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Zamyatin’s We, Kurasawa’s film based on Dostoevsky The Idiot, among others.

[65] Foucault used the term “discourse” to discuss the relations of power as they transpired through the act of relating to the publicly acknowledged authority, an act that entailed negotiations between actors in terms of who to listen to or cite in social networks, or whose speech to allow in the public space. In this context, language is considered to be more specific to the rules regulating the dynamics of power and its communication. I find particularly useful Bourdieu’s (1979) analysis of social capital especially alongside Zerzan’s (2002) critique of symbolic culture and language as tools of alienation. From an anarchoprimitivist perspective, hence, discourse appears to be a much more insidious program that affects the value of taste, reproduction, cultural identity, and much more, all of which manifests itself through the articulated and the unarticulated “knowledge” of domestication.

[66] Charles Darwin has indeed acknowledged in his work the dangers of the reproductive success of any given species that may lead to the extermination of another species. My usage of the terms “Darwinian” or “Kropotkian” theory or perspective pertains to (1) the main focus of the authors, i.e. what they emphasized; and (2) the main focus of the reception. Namely, Darwinian evolutionary scientists highlight Darwin’s focus on the competitive aspect of social relationships whereas the Kropotkian theory was embraced for favouring the mutual aid aspect of co-existence. Kropotkin, however, acknowledged, the place of violence and competition, but considered it as a less important strategy and more as a check-in-balance regulatory mechanism, instead giving more weight to the role of co-operation as the more general strategy for surviving and proliferation.

[67] Marcel Mauss’ The Gift (1990) is an excellent anthropological exploration of the redistribution of wealth in non-domesticated cultures, such as expressed in Potlatch.

[68] http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/endangered_species/background/index.asp?article=endangeredspecies

[69] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8697693.stm