The Prospects and Problems of Post-Bovine Man
The view that humans share an evolutionary bond of co-domestication with cattle has become close to a position of orthodoxy amongst Biological Scientists and Anthropologists alike. (See for example, Dunn [2011], Scheinfedt and Tishoff [2020]) Leigh Binford (1966) affirmed that human transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculturist occurred not out of an urge to explore and progress but rather as a response to hunger and hardship.
Thus, when the first human chose to crawl under an aurochs to suckle at its teat, s/he did so in a state of starvation and desperation. It was this act of desperation that led humanity into a contract of mutual dependency with cattle.
Both parties grew in health and number as a result of this contract of mutual dependency which saw humans clear forests to provide grasslands for cattle to graze, and cattle produce milk for the sustenance of the human.
Both saw evolutionary change as a result of this contract of mutual dependency: suites of genes associated with smaller bodies and docility preferable for interaction with humans came to be favoured in subsequent generations of aurochsen, and likewise a mutant form of gene for the digestion of milk in adulthood became favoured in subsequent generations of humans. Humans ceased to be wild by this genetic development; they were instead a domesticated animal dependent on cloven-hooved herbivores.
The aim of this paper is to assess the impact upon this contract of mutual domestication using research carried out in the fields of Food Sustainability Analytics and Practical Ethics. Specifically, it focuses upon Poore and Nemecek influential paper Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts Through Producers and Consumers (2018) and the subsequent work of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.
As will be outlined, these works highlight that cattle farming is one of the biggest contributors to global heating: that making space for cattle and cattle feed is the single biggest cause of deforestation globally; that furthermore, it is also a major polluter (e.g., through producing manure, and by emitting 14.5% of global greenhouse gas, i.e., more than the emissions of all transportation combined). Both Poore and Nemecek and the Oxford Uehiro Centre advise that humans avoid the consumption of meat and dairy products.
Evidently, there is a need to consider the evolutionary impact of the termination of the 9,000 years of genetic co-dependency between humans and bovinae that these authors call for. What might be the impact on the behaviour and wellbeing of the human freed from domestication? Might it constitute a rewilding of the human animal, and what are the ethical implications thereof? To our knowledge, no previous study has assessed the implication of these developments.
Quadrupedalism
It is a sight which we have all become familiar with as the 2020s have taken shape. You might see them emerging out of a pop-up shop, or perhaps a cereal restaurant. Smiling friendlily within their beards and beanies, their distinctive Herschel Supply fingerless gloves pounding the tarmac as they negotiate the High Street on all fours. Those of us old enough to have seen punks, goths and hipsters come and go are unlikely to be shocked by these harmless characters. But should we look closer we might see that they represent something more than a passing trend in youth culture. These are members of the Four Collective - these are people who identify as quadrupedal.
The belief that humans should walk on all fours is not without scientific foundation. For much of our time on earth, humans have been quadrupedal, and it is only in the last six million years that we have stood upright on our hindlegs. Ester Sanchez Gonzalez, a professional in postural re-education, believes that bipedalism requires much more effort than quadrupedalism, and much of modern backpain can be linked to this evolutionary development. Her observations are that bipedalism leads to the entire weight of the torso being placed on the lower part of the spine, and because the lumbar and dorsal muscles are being used to hold the upright posture, there is a resulting shift in the position of the pelvis. “(T)he pelvis is moved backwards, and the lumbar column is curved resulting in the compression of the vertebrae and the intervertebral disks and an exaggerated lumbar curvature that will lead to future pain,” she writes. Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University reaches a similar conclusion – he also believes that the human decision to become bipedal has led to a grave deterioration of our sense of smell.
When most of us think about human quadrupedalism we think of Geoff Shawcross’s controversial 2008 book, To the Treetops. Shawcross was, of course, a former NUM shop steward who rose to prominence as an academic and member of the IPPR think tank during the New Labour years. In later life he was known to suffer from chronic lower back pain, most likely a consequence of his earlier mining career. He made headlines in 2004 when he appeared on Question Time, squatting on his seat in what proponents of the Alexander Technique refer to as the ‘monkey position’. Later that year he was photographed walking on all fours along Brighton Pier during the Labour Party Conference. In the spring of 2007, he abandoned his family to set up home with his physiotherapist in a treehouse overlooking Darrington Golf Club – a treehouse allegedly built with funds allocated for a West Yorkshire Miners Heritage Centre and Soft Play Facility in Pontefract. Shawcross fell to his death shortly after the book’s publication. Today it is perhaps difficult to disentangle our thoughts about Shawcross from our thoughts about his book, and there is the temptation to dismiss some of its ideas too easily.
“As your feet learn to grip the bark, your body finds an equilibrium that bipedal life denies. When your arms regain the strength of the Ruc People, your body gains a grace that modern life denies. And when your torso embraces the tree trunk, one feels a oneness that modern life denies … Unexhausted, procreating, in the giddy bliss of the treetops, we dance beyond all heavens.” And that’s just the Foreword.
As derivative as Shawcross’s writing might be, it is tempting to think that the disenfranchised youth of Generation Z might be drawn to the romance of this vision. Yet when I met Jethroe and Trudie, co-founders of the South Manchester wing the Four Collective, they only expressed a passing knowledge of Shawcross’s writing. Idyllic treetops are not easily found among the vintage furnishings' shops and chai bars of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. To them, identifying as quadrupedal is about keeping their noses to the ground – it is a way of sensing the truth about modern urban living.
It is also about moving forward from a human life focused upon work. The human urge to stand upright very probably came from a need to free the upper limbs in order to propel a rock or stick at either prey or predator. Six million years on, there is no longer the threat of predators, nor is there the need to kill one’s own prey. Digitalisation means there is less work to be done, and the work that is to be done is no longer reliant on strong or skilled hands. To members of the Four Collective, the human hand has started to look antiquated. Trudie explains, “For me it started when I noticed how rubbish I had become with my hands. Everything I was buying was handsfree. I only had to speak into a device and I heard Piazzolla or someone brought me sushi. And the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I didn’t really need hands, and these limbs might be put to better use.”
Yet the Four Collective’s mission goes further than this. Their aim of unblocking humans’ restricted sense of smell through adopting a low body position, goes further than Ehrlich’s suggestion that it might lead to a greater recognition of a partner. Many of us now believe we live in a post-truth world, that digital communication bombard us with visual stimuli, leaving our eyes unable to detect the real from the unreal. The Four Collective believe that we should stop relying on our eyes and start using our noses. With a reclaimed sense of smell, we might again be able to sense the truth. As Jethro says, “As it stands, I can sniff you – but you can’t sniff me. As it stands, as it were. I can smell what’s going on with this planet – can you?”
Quadrupedalism is already impacting mainstream culture. Last year Gwyneth Paltrow caused a stir when she walked on all fours on the red carpet at the Golden Globes. Recently there have been reports that Alphabet Inc. have installed tree-swinging facilities for executive staff at their Silicon Valley Headquarters. Jethroe and Trudie dismiss moves like these as tokenistic. For them, walking on four legs along Barlow Moor Road is the greatest journey that any human needs to make.