Saturday, August 27, 2011

Yvonne the cow as difference


How can we think difference in itself? It is a question posed by Deleuze in Difference and Repetition. Examples of D's thinking are hard to come by since the question bears upon the unrepresentable. Animality offers a mode of engaging difference in itself. Cows are domesticated beasts but for Yvonne the cow, domestication is merely a camouflage. She has not only taken herself out to pasture, she kept running and is in full on wilderness. Some in Germany are hunting to kill her. The State says she posses a threat since her corporality, her animality that was used for commercial gain in milking, has turned into a possible weapon should she step onto a road and get hit by a car. Others, animal welfare folk, want to bring her into the fold and give her a safe home. But Yvonne is having none of this dialectics. She has receded into the wildnerness and humans can't find her. Recall Heraclitus: "Nature loves to hide." But really, must we seek it? Can it not be into and of itself. Allowing Yvonne to be is a recognition of a difference in itself, one that cannot be domesticated but roams of its own accord.

1 comment:

  1. Have you heared about Boruta - polish cow that escaped from slaughterhouse? She was very determined, run many kilometers and finally run into the city. It was hard to catch her. She escaped even after a few soporific shots. After that veterinary decided to kill her... But she is living! In a farm sanctuary Przystań Ocalenie. But still she feels fear of the people in white clothes...

    http://uwaga.tvn.pl/14946,wideo,75828,przecietna_krowa_z_nieprzecietna_historia,przecietna_krowa_z_nieprzecietna_historia,reportaz.html

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