King Kong’s last look: anthropocentrism and technosciences

Abstract

Simians are among the animals historically chosen by sapiens for scientific experiments, doubles, companionship, games and exterminations. Monkeys are a usual choice in laboratories in researches of the so-called “hybrid natures”, which can investigate the production of organs and tissues for transplantation. In such a scenery, ethical norms have to be seriously imposed, but until when? It is urgent to seek solutions for diseases and to extend the human life. At the same time, the “hairy ape” before whom we are a kind of third “naked chimpanzee” is a starting point to think about our relations with (other) animals. As a contemporary milestone, the Anthropocene forces us to reconsider what we have done with other beings in the biota. In the anthropocentric writing of civilization, the enigma aspect that the non-human animal awakens in us emerges. In a perspective that disregards the classic dualisms between humans x animals, rational x irrational, instinct x drive, I seek to understand these “others” who look at us and seem to “know” that the survival of our species depends on a radical change in how we choose to situate ourselves in the world as sapiens and civilization. For that, I count on the imaginary of cinema - capable of leading us through self-reflections – and also on companion animals - loved by many philosophers and thinkers.