SERGEI M EISENSTEIN

Nonanthropocentric View of the World
And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness: and let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth. 19
Following this, the religions of the Book have Man at the center of the universe.
This view, curiously, has given rise to many ideologies, philosophies, and religious
and profane practices where the earth is to be exploited for the benefit of
man and for man alone. It has resulted into anthropocentric views of the world,
morality and aesthetics. With the technological power in the hands of a few, it is
nowaseriousthreattoourenvironmentandtotheveryexistenceoflifeonearth.
Eisenstein was one of those rare Western thinkers who realized early on the
limitations of this view of life and art. Though he did not develop his views on it
systematically, his notes on Disney contain one of the most profound and movingstatementsonhowintimatelyhumanlifeisconnectedwithallotherformsof
life.Henot onlywroteaboutDisney,healsopassionatelydefended anonanthropocentricandnonmechanicalviewoftheworld.
20
Eisenstein sees Disney as a torchbearer of a long tradition of artists, going
back to prehistoric times, which have given free vent to their imagination and
created a truly “animated” world in their art. Here he speaks about the rise of
this“animation”mentality:
It is interesting to note that the same kind of “flight” into an animal skin and
thehumanisationofanimalsisapparentlycharacteristicformanyages,andis
especially sharply expressed as a lack of humaneness in systems of social
government whether in the age of American mechanisation in the realm of
life, welfare and morals or the age […] of mathematical abstraction and
metaphysics in philosophy. 21
Andalittlefurther:
Animism, in which there wander vague ideas and sensations of the
interconnections of all elements and kingdoms of nature, long before science
guessed the configuration of the connection in sequence and stages.
Before this, man had known no other way than the supplying of the
environment with its own soul and judgement by analogy with himself. 22
Just as he sees Disney as a reaction to the mechanization of life in America, 23 he
sees La Fontaine and his fables about “humanized” animals as a reaction to the
distant echoes 377