Anthropotheosis, or the deification of humanity and the cultural erasure of animal otherness

The Great Human Spotlight

Imagine you are walking through a forest. You see a bird, a beetle, and a bear. To a scientist studying nature, these are all living creatures with their own lives, feelings, and ways of seeing the world. But to many of us humans, there is a invisible spotlight that always shines on us. We tend to think we are the main characters in the story of the universe, while everything else is just the background scenery. This paper lives in the field of Critical Animal Studies and Semiotics (the study of signs and symbols). It asks a big question: Why do we act like humans are gods, and animals are just props?

The paper builds on a few key ideas you might already know. Anthropocentrism is the belief that humans are the center of everything. Speciesism is like racism, but instead of judging people by their skin color, we judge them by their species, deciding humans are "better." Anthropomorphism is when we give animals human traits, like saying a dog is "guilty" or a cat is "stubborn." Usually, scientists hate this word because they think it makes us see things that aren't there. But this paper suggests that our fear of "anthropomorphism" might actually be a trick we play on ourselves to keep humans on a pedestal. The author wants to show us that our special status isn't a biological fact, but a story we tell ourselves—a story called Anthropotheosis.

The Paper's Big Idea: The Human Myth

This paper, written by Dario Martinelli, introduces a fancy new word: Anthropotheosis. Think of it as "human deification." It's the process where human cultures lift themselves up to a mythical, almost divine status, while pushing non-human animals down into a lower, "lesser" position. It's not just about liking humans more; it's about creating a whole mythology where humans are the heroes, the thinkers, and the rulers, and animals are the "others" who don't count as much.

The author argues that this isn't just one big mistake. It's a system built on four pillars that work together to keep humans on top:

1. Anthropocentrism: This is the idea that the whole world exists for us. It's like thinking the sun rises just to wake you up. In this view, nature has no value unless it helps a human.
2. Speciesism: This is the claim that humans are simply better than animals. It's the "we are the VIPs" attitude.
3. Anthropocracy: This is the belief that humans have the right to rule over everything. It's like a king who thinks he can do whatever he wants to his subjects, even if those subjects are other species.
4. Anthropization: This is when we change the world to fit our needs, ignoring what animals need. We build cities, farms, and roads, turning the wild world into a human playground.

The Two Types of "Human-First" Thinking

The paper makes a very important distinction between two kinds of this thinking.

First, there is Basic Anthropotheosis. This is unavoidable. We are humans, so we see the world through human eyes. We can't know exactly what a hedgehog feels like because we don't have a hedgehog brain. This is just a fact of life, like wearing glasses. It's not bad; it's just how we are built.

Second, and this is the problem, is Constructed Anthropotheosis. This is when we take that human perspective and turn it into a weapon. We start saying, "Not only do we see things differently, but our way is superior." We create strict lines between "us" and "them."

• Qualitative Construction: We say, "Humans have souls and language; animals have neither." It's a total "either/or" switch.
• Quantitative Construction: We say, "Animals might be smart, but humans are way smarter." It's a ladder where humans are always at the top rung.

The paper suggests that most of our cultural stories, laws, and even our science are built on this "Constructed" version, which creates a false hierarchy.

The Great "Don't Be Human" Taboo

One of the most interesting parts of the paper is how it tackles Anthropomorphism. In science, scientists are taught to be terrified of this word. They think, "If I say a bear is 'friendly,' I'm lying and being unscientific."

But the author points out a funny contradiction. Scientists are super strict about giving animals human feelings, but they are totally okay about taking away human feelings from animals.

• The Clever Hans Story: The paper tells the story of a horse named Hans who could do math by tapping his hoof. Scientists said, "He's not doing math! He's just reading the teacher's body language!" This was used to prove animals aren't smart. But the paper argues this was a double standard. The horse was incredibly smart at reading human emotions (a very human-like skill), but scientists ignored that to protect the idea that "math is only for humans."
• The Movie The Bear: The paper looks at a movie where bears act like they have feelings like friendship and mercy. Scientists criticized this as "too human." But the author says, "Wait! Bears do show friendship and mercy in real life!" The problem wasn't that the movie was wrong about the bears; the problem was that the movie made the bears look too much like humans in a moral way. It threatened the idea that only humans can be "good."

So, the paper suggests that the "no anthropomorphism" rule is often just a shield to protect human exceptionalism. We police what we say about animals to make sure we stay on the top of the ladder.

The Four Pillars in Action

The paper breaks down how these ideas show up in real life with a huge list of ways we "humanize" the world (called Anthropization).

• We change the names of animals to make them sound like food (a "pig" becomes "pork," a "cow" becomes "beef"). This is a linguistic trick to stop us from thinking of them as living beings.
• We treat all animals as one big, stupid group called "the animal," ignoring that an octopus is totally different from an ant.
• We even see this in our digital world. We create virtual pets that are perfect because we programmed them to be, and we use animal names for computer code (like "neural networks") to make computers seem smarter, while ignoring real animals.

The paper also connects this to how humans treat other humans. Just like we say "treat someone like a beast" to insult them, we use the same logic to oppress people based on race or gender. The same story that says "animals are inferior" is the same story that says "some humans are inferior."

What's Next?

The paper doesn't claim we can stop being human-centered entirely. We can't change our brains to see the world like a fish. But it suggests we need to stop pretending that our human view is the only truth. We need to realize that the idea of "Human God" is a story we made up, not a fact of nature.

By understanding Anthropotheosis, we can start to see the invisible walls we've built between ourselves and the rest of the living world. The goal isn't to make animals exactly like humans, but to stop treating them as less-than. It's about realizing that the "myth" of human superiority is just that—a myth—and that we can build a world where we share the stage with the other characters, rather than trying to be the only ones in the spotlight.