Review of Vinciane Despret\u27s What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions

Tebokkel, Nathan

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 15 | No. 2 Article 72-6-2017What Would Animals Say If We Asked the RightQuestions? by Vinciane DespretNathan TebokkelUniversity of British ColumbiaPart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North AmericaCommons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment CommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeTebokkel, Nathan. "What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane Despret." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 ,article 7, 2017,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/7.  On Asking the Right Questions  What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by VINCIANE DESPRET University of Minnesota Press, 2016 $30  Reviewed by NATHAN TEBOKKEL  Vinciane Despret’s newest book is an abecedary of what Bruna Latour calls “scientific fables.” Despret tells the stories behind animal experiments and challenges their canonical interpretations by offering alternative narratives and literature from the perspectives of the animals studied rather than from the researchers. Her theory is one of “additive empiricism,” of asking questions and opening up new modes of understanding. Because she approaches ethology and zoology with the acuity of a trained psychologist and the playfulness of a French theorist (which is perhaps a bit overwrought with the Thousand Plateaus “start anywhere” motif and the “hyperlinks” to other chapters indicated by a ), her hybrid tales are mostly insightful and provocative. They may even be accessible beyond academia—from the understated language to the book’s episodic structure, which foregrounds questions about the academic monograph against the brevity of Twitter and the immediacy of Google. It is a contribution, in the vein of science studies, to furthering the understanding and questioning of science.  Her moral ends are elucidated by the title’s allusion to utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s famous question about animals: “the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” These ends are elaborated in her main methodological principles: first, asking questions is better than making claims; second, field work is better than laboratory work. These principles are made more rigorous in her analyses of experimental methods and case studies that avoid potentially erroneous universalisms through curiosity and humour. Her writing, usually well-translated from its original French by Brett Buchanan, is often humorous and at times sarcastic. In “J for Justice,” she tells the story of termites charged in 1713 of destroying a Brazilian monastery, their successful defense lawyer’s argument—“‘Termites,’ he said, ‘are industrious creatures: they work hard and have acquired from God the right to feed themselves’” (73)—and the ruling that required the monastery to provide a woodpile for the termites.  Outside the pioneering work of ethologist Jakob von Uexküll, critical animal studies has few precedents so committed to the perspectives of actual animals, not only in terms of content, which is fairly common, but in terms of the rhetorical strategy that carries it—one that is necessarily tentative, but gains rather than sacrifices import because of this. Like animal studies, though, Despret mostly focuses on familiar large mammals (donkeys, chimpanzees, dogs, monkeys), cute small mammals (mice, marmots), smart birds (crows, ravens, parrots), and social insects (termites, ants). What about those animals we find harder to like—roaches, snakes, spiders, piranhas? What would animals say if we asked them all questions?  On a performative rather than solely logical level, Despret’s questions are intriguing. Her notion in “M for Magpies,” that a partially successful self-identification experiment on elephants and magpies may be more illuminating than a completely successful experiment would be (102), is one example among many that helps erode fantasies of objectivity and scientific 1Tebokkel: What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane DespretPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017  certainty. Though this reluctance to make or accept strong claims often works to Despret’s advantage, troubling easy anthropomorphisms, it works equally to her disadvantage. In “W for Work,” she questions the narrative of “animals as victims” via the work of sociologist Jocelyn Porcher on cows (177–83). She wants to conclude that cows collaborate with farmers in milk production, that their conditions are “not exploitative” (178), but skirts the history of this claim and how it might reflect the human history and reality of labour, in which pro-slavery arguments insisted that slaves liked and needed their work, or modernity required and still tacitly endorses sweatshops and child labour. Despret’s attempt here to give agency back to the cows is gentle but unaware of its heavy bulk. The example of the cows adumbrates what could be viewed in Despret’s writing as a certain slipperiness: simultaneously, a subtle shirking of responsibility via questions instead of assertions, an inheritance from the late 20th-century deconstructionists (Despret can always say “I didn’t quite say that”), and an attempt to stake a transcendental position outside all discourse from which to evaluate all discourse. This dual urge—bluntly, to dodge refutation and to be the philosopher-king—comes to a head in the final chapter, “Z for Zoophilia.” Here, Despret questions laws around bestiality through several case studies. Here, her privileged positionality emerges in what might amount to sophism, where she seems to want to support zoophilia, but instead couches whatever her stance and thesis are in criticisms of anti-zoophilia legislation as “returning to older laws,” “repressive laws [that] colonised much of the country” (204), “puritanism” that is “based on a contradiction” (205), and in mouthing the quotes of more forthright authors. Her chapter centers on the animal’s inability to consent, which she says is used both as “justification for condemning the zoophile” and for slaughtering animals (209); in contrast, the rest of the book grants animals the ability to consent (e.g. the collaborating cows). The “right question” here may not be about consent, but about the conditions in which consent becomes a question, and the very asking of this question—conditions and ideas of animals as property, machines, food, and humans as masters, inquisitors, and owners. Despret here asks a question for its shock value rather than for its being “the right question,” and this commodificationism colours her additive empiricism more broadly: more and bigger questions are not better when they bury tough and perhaps right questions. We don’t need to entertain zoophilia to understand animals, as we don’t need pedophilia to understand children. The bizarre notion that zoophilia “undoes anthropocentrism” (210) and that this might make it permissible is a failure of inquiry that invites the reader to return to the rest of the book and ask: Is anthropocentrism undoable, and are there worse –isms to more practically undo? Did this book listen to the answers to its questions? Did it ask the right questions about asking the right questions?         2The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 7https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/7  Nathan TeBokkel is pursuing his PhD in English at the University of British Columbia, where he studies poet-farmers from Robert Burns to Wendell Berry. Drawing on his background in genetics, melon farming, and food safety audits, he examines the aesthetic motivations behind biotechnological research, agricultural practice, and government legislation. 3Tebokkel: What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane DespretPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017

What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane Despret

Scholars Commons

The Goose
Volume 15 | No. 2 Article 7
2-6-2017
What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right
Questions? by Vinciane Despret
Nathan Tebokkel
University of British Columbia
Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America
Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment Commons
Follow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose
This article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrante
de la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactez
scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée
Tebokkel, Nathan. "What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane Despret." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 ,
article 7, 2017,
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/7.
  
On Asking the Right Questions 
 
What Would Animals Say If We Asked the 
Right Questions? by VINCIANE DESPRET 
University of Minnesota Press, 2016 $30 
 
Reviewed by NATHAN TEBOKKEL 
 
Vinciane Despret’s newest book is an 
abecedary of what Bruna Latour calls 
“scientific fables.” Despret tells the stories 
behind animal experiments and challenges 
their canonical interpretations by offering 
alternative narratives and literature from 
the perspectives of the animals studied 
rather than from the researchers. Her 
theory is one of “additive empiricism,” of 
asking questions and opening up new 
modes of understanding. Because she 
approaches ethology and zoology with the 
acuity of a trained psychologist and the 
playfulness of a French theorist (which is 
perhaps a bit overwrought with the 
Thousand Plateaus “start anywhere” motif 
and the “hyperlinks” to other chapters 
indicated by a ), her hybrid tales are 
mostly insightful and provocative. They may 
even be accessible beyond academia—from 
the understated language to the book’s 
episodic structure, which foregrounds 
questions about the academic monograph 
against the brevity of Twitter and the 
immediacy of Google. It is a contribution, in 
the vein of science studies, to furthering the 
understanding and questioning of science.  
Her moral ends are elucidated by 
the title’s allusion to utilitarian philosopher 
Jeremy Bentham’s famous question about 
animals: “the question is not, Can they 
reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they 
suffer?” These ends are elaborated in her 
main methodological principles: first, asking 
questions is better than making claims; 
second, field work is better than laboratory 
work. These principles are made more 
rigorous in her analyses of experimental 
methods and case studies that avoid 
potentially erroneous universalisms through 
curiosity and humour. Her writing, usually 
well-translated from its original French by 
Brett Buchanan, is often humorous and at 
times sarcastic. In “J for Justice,” she tells 
the story of termites charged in 1713 of 
destroying a Brazilian monastery, their 
successful defense lawyer’s argument—
“‘Termites,’ he said, ‘are industrious 
creatures: they work hard and have 
acquired from God the right to feed 
themselves’” (73)—and the ruling that 
required the monastery to provide a 
woodpile for the termites.  
Outside the pioneering work of 
ethologist Jakob von Uexküll, critical animal 
studies has few precedents so committed to 
the perspectives of actual animals, not only 
in terms of content, which is fairly common, 
but in terms of the rhetorical strategy that 
carries it—one that is necessarily tentative, 
but gains rather than sacrifices import 
because of this. Like animal studies, though, 
Despret mostly focuses on familiar large 
mammals (donkeys, chimpanzees, dogs, 
monkeys), cute small mammals (mice, 
marmots), smart birds (crows, ravens, 
parrots), and social insects (termites, ants). 
What about those animals we find harder to 
like—roaches, snakes, spiders, piranhas? 
What would animals say if we asked them 
all questions?  
On a performative rather than solely 
logical level, Despret’s questions are 
intriguing. Her notion in “M for Magpies,” 
that a partially successful self-identification 
experiment on elephants and magpies may 
be more illuminating than a completely 
successful experiment would be (102), is 
one example among many that helps erode 
fantasies of objectivity and scientific 
1
Tebokkel: What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane Despret
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017
  
certainty. Though this reluctance to make 
or accept strong claims often works to 
Despret’s advantage, troubling easy 
anthropomorphisms, it works equally to her 
disadvantage. In “W for Work,” she 
questions the narrative of “animals as 
victims” via the work of sociologist Jocelyn 
Porcher on cows (177–83). She wants to 
conclude that cows collaborate with 
farmers in milk production, that their 
conditions are “not exploitative” (178), but 
skirts the history of this claim and how it 
might reflect the human history and reality 
of labour, in which pro-slavery arguments 
insisted that slaves liked and needed their 
work, or modernity required and still tacitly 
endorses sweatshops and child labour. 
Despret’s attempt here to give agency back 
to the cows is gentle but unaware of its 
heavy bulk. 
The example of the cows 
adumbrates what could be viewed in 
Despret’s writing as a certain slipperiness: 
simultaneously, a subtle shirking of 
responsibility via questions instead of 
assertions, an inheritance from the late 
20th-century deconstructionists (Despret 
can always say “I didn’t quite say that”), and 
an attempt to stake a transcendental 
position outside all discourse from which to 
evaluate all discourse. This dual urge—
bluntly, to dodge refutation and to be the 
philosopher-king—comes to a head in the 
final chapter, “Z for Zoophilia.” Here, 
Despret questions laws around bestiality 
through several case studies. Here, her 
privileged positionality emerges in what 
might amount to sophism, where she seems 
to want to support zoophilia, but instead 
couches whatever her stance and thesis are 
in criticisms of anti-zoophilia legislation as 
“returning to older laws,” “repressive laws 
[that] colonised much of the country” (204), 
“puritanism” that is “based on a 
contradiction” (205), and in mouthing the 
quotes of more forthright authors. Her 
chapter centers on the animal’s inability to 
consent, which she says is used both as 
“justification for condemning the zoophile” 
and for slaughtering animals (209); in 
contrast, the rest of the book grants 
animals the ability to consent (e.g. the 
collaborating cows). The “right question” 
here may not be about consent, but about 
the conditions in which consent becomes a 
question, and the very asking of this 
question—conditions and ideas of animals 
as property, machines, food, and humans as 
masters, inquisitors, and owners. 
Despret here asks a question for its 
shock value rather than for its being “the 
right question,” and this 
commodificationism colours her additive 
empiricism more broadly: more and bigger 
questions are not better when they bury 
tough and perhaps right questions. We 
don’t need to entertain zoophilia to 
understand animals, as we don’t need 
pedophilia to understand children. The 
bizarre notion that zoophilia “undoes 
anthropocentrism” (210) and that this 
might make it permissible is a failure of 
inquiry that invites the reader to return to 
the rest of the book and ask: Is 
anthropocentrism undoable, and are there 
worse –isms to more practically undo? Did 
this book listen to the answers to its 
questions? Did it ask the right questions 
about asking the right questions? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2
The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 7
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/7
  
Nathan TeBokkel is pursuing his PhD in 
English at the University of British Columbia, 
where he studies poet-farmers from Robert 
Burns to Wendell Berry. Drawing on his 
background in genetics, melon farming, and 
food safety audits, he examines the 
aesthetic motivations behind 
biotechnological research, agricultural 
practice, and government legislation. 
3
Tebokkel: What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane Despret
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017


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What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? by Vinciane Despret

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