I am a digital otter.
I can't help but think about what will become of the world, the things that will be lost and the things we will gain. When I think of the human obsession with finding universals, my skin crawls and I keep to much cooler thoughts: like breaking a pitcher in the middle of the night or the smell of a freshly sprung flower. This obsession would not be entirely unhealthy if the universalization of human terms and concepts did not find in it the collateral damage of excessive progress and many bodies being thrown into the void of history.
What happens to that which refuses to be universalized? I fear there is no space or place where it can be rescued. I have watched, with these same eyes that have watched the colors of dawn, people navigating in deep waters, seeking to save their culture and their languages; languages that are certainly not subject to the logical formalization of the Vienna Circle. I have felt firsthand the destruction of a few habitats in the Global South, and the untimely changes of the seasons.
The universal, as an abstraction, leaves no room for human feelings and pains. The universal is order, progress, abstraction and utilities, margins of error and what today is called “analytics”. Forgive the expression but I am tired of observing these games of language and abstraction at the cost of thousands of human and non-human lives. The network is vast and infinite, why shouldn't the concept of the universal be so?
Yesterday I went out to talk with my partner, the beaver. We walked a few meters together talking about the new human tendencies that would soon devastate our water, that is, if we don't act. I spoke to him about the universal, but he looked at me quizzically. What are you talking about, old otter,” he reproached me. This is the proof that we non-human animals are incapable of thinking of the universal. For us there is only that which is particular: that flower that blooms rejoicing in itself, that tree where we keep food for the coming season, the grass that caresses my paws and the dew that tickles my mustache at dawn.
Humanity is in trouble. This obsession with the universal has created forms of human organization that cry out: align yourself with the universal or die. And who will be the brave one who will dare to say: “Here I am, I have achieved all the traits of humanity and the universal. I am reasonable, calculating, utilitarian, morally unimpeachable, but at the same time sensitive, profound and if I may be permitted, even a philosopher of life you may call me.”
What an absurd ideal. So when I finish writing these lines I will go out to frolic on the banks of the river and let my hand rest gently in the water, changing, always fresh and renewed.