People are upset when they are considered animals, or rather, when they are likened to animals. You monkey/pig/dog…. The fauna vary from one language and culture to another.
     There are, of course, also affectionate names: my dove, kitten, even horse (Chekhov), but I imagine that they are rarer. The value of a person is that he is human.
     In folk tales, animals are imbued with human qualities. The fox is sly, the bear stupid, but just and strong, the wolf violent and deceitful. In most stories, chickens are stupid. What a superficial judgement - as Kaarina Valoaalto demonstrates in her novel Nooakan parkki ('Noahannah's barque'), whose protagonists are the narrator's domestic pets. The owl appears wise, but that is because, unusually for a bird, its eyes are close together, so it recalls a human being.
     Urban, prosperous people like pets, sometimes even more than children, because pets are easier to care for than kids. I remember when, as a proud young mother, I put my baby in a pram and got into a tram. There sat an old lady with a poodle in her lap. The travellers cooed over the dog, but no one paid any attention to my child, who was as handsome as a bright winter apple.
     Recently I was walking along a commercial street in Berlin. On the ground sat a reasonably prosperous looking young man, begging. Beside him was a dog. All at once I realised how many of the beggars I have seen in different cities are accompanied by dogs. I have vaguely wondered why these beggars have to use their pennies to support their dogs too, but of course it is the other way round. The dog supports the man, because the dog arouses more sympathy in the big-city dweller than his master.
     We are no longer shocked by the knowledge that our DNA is broadly similar to that of both apes and pigs. Quite the opposite; in the study and treatment of certain diseases, we have benefited from our similarity to the rest of the animal kingdom.
     In everyday life, people are concerned about another biological phenomenon: ageing. The cosmetics industry, fitness clubs and plastic surgeons hit a rich vein as the baby-boomer generation begins to grow old. The attempts of men and women to stay young, or at least to look young, is based according to evolutionary psychology on the fact that only a companion capable of reproduction is desirable and interesting. The old and the ugly (and the poor) need not apply (see 'Love, actually', page 309).
     Happily, things are not this simple, either in theory or in practice. It has also been said of human beings that they are 'verbal peacocks'. The peacock grows its enormous tail to attract females. Mate selection in humans is thus not determined only by appearance.
     If and when other characteristics are also important, particularly after reproduction, ageing people can, instead of expensive night creams or exercise regimes, concentrate on talking, studying and reading fiction.


     Kristina Carlson
     Editor-in-Chief