Transmitting a language implies ... a subject and an Other
Sharon Wilsie proposes that horses transmit a language from mother to foal and that this language, along with nuances and an appreciation of context, has to be learned by foals in order for them to become horses, in order to become members of the herd. She is not alone, nor the first to say this, but, let's underline a couple of things: the language is not automatic; its elements can have more than one meaning and require an effort of reading. The language, according to Sharon, is linked to points on the body. This implies that the foal becomes a thinking agent with the mother's tongue literally licking the body, but the language she uses implies that both the foal and the mare have one foot in an Other. This goes beyond instinct, outside the bounds of signs, and includes a social bond.
There are similarities here with humans.
Sometimes when young horses are taken rather early from their mothers and raised in a group of other youngsters, as can happen when humans get involved, they are likely to end up resembling a group of delinquents. If no one is there to teach or transmit the language, it does not spring spontaneously from the youngsters themselves. The teaching of the language also imparts a knowledge of how to get along with the other horses. It implies a set of rules, a grammar, a kind of law.
Similarly, if a foal is brought up predominantly by a human, it becomes something a little other than a horse, sometimes with heroic consequences (see, for example, Reckless, by Andrew Geer, or perhaps, Harry and Snowman), sometimes with tragic consequences (there is an example of one such horse in Buck, a documentary about Buck Brannaman).
What is it in a body that thinks? And how is this thinking agent linked to the body it inhabits, the rest of its species, its group, its herd? For humans, thanks to Freud and Lacan, we can suppose a subject of the unconscious which is "represented by a signifier for another signifier." The structures of discourse form the social bond, make the subject readable, and provide an added layer to the world in which human beings live. This is not the same for horses even if they seem able to have access to something that moves in this dimension.
Nevertheless, in the dimension of horse communication some things are similar. For example, a tail swish, according to Wilsie, can not only mean "get out of my space" but might also mean "that's enough of that" or "we can ignore that" or even "goodbye." It can seem polite, it can seem aggressive, it can appear to have a calming effect. It can be ignored. It can be about flies. You have to learn how to read it. But can it become part of a sentence? There's something interesting going on here, but it is obviously in need of some more thought. The experience with Oberon that I wrote about in the early blog almost made me believe that we had linked elements together in a series and were approaching a kind of conversation. The head-collar does seem to offer a tangible representation of a communication chain, it is certainly something more than a direct, mechanical implement for making movements go in a certain direction.
A few weeks ago the major news agencies carried a story that "scientists have discovered" that elephants call each other by a name. Complicated technology that measures the vibrations of sound are essential for us to count this a scientific discovery, as well as the presence of a major university professor. A comment posted after the New York Times story appeared drily remarked that any musician worth his salt could have been able to verify the theory with his own ears which may well be true, but is not enough to count as "scientific" for the New York Times or its community.
A researcher from a US university has become interested in the work of Sharon Wilsie and her partner Laura. I was privileged to hear an account of some of this neuropsychological research last November at one of the Wilsies' European horse clinics. It has to do with monitoring the heartbeat of a human (Laura) and a horse who was being taking care of because he was having difficulties. The research involved taking readings of the heart beat of the human and the horse and submitting them to a measuring process to arrive at a ratio. The movement of the ratio was then compared between the horse and its human during some activities. There were two particularly magical moments.
The first one relates to a period after the human had left the horse and gone off to feed the other horses in the field. The monitor recorded that the two ratios remained in a close relation for twenty minutes. That suggests that there is something connecting the horse and the human across physical distance and over time.
The second was slightly more dramatic and more moving. The horse and its human were wearing their monitors, and the readings were analysed later that day. The horse was in his stall in the barn amongst the other horses. The human began taking the horses out into the field one by one. Just as it was the turn of the monitored horse the scientist arrived and the human broke her attention with the horse and became preoccupied with the scientist. This meant that her horse to wait even longer for his moment to be taken to the field. Later on, when the scientist analysed the data, she pinpointed the moment when the horse became what she called "disregulated." Apparently, the heart rate variability ratio showed an increase. The video camera in the corner of the stall showed that the horse wasn't doing anything particularly alarming: perhaps sometimes pacing, and sometimes going to stand in a corner. Nevertheless the word "panic" started to get attached to the description of the horse.
Let's follow the word "disregulated." It was possible to identify that the horse's "heart rate variability" reading began to change as the human began taking the other herd members out into the field. It seems to have then made another increase when, instead of taking him out, the human broke her trajectory towards him and turned instead to the scientist. When this news was given to her some hours later, it was her turn to become "disregulated." She became upset, blamed herself, felt guilty, wanted to rush to her horse and try to make amends. The scientist had to intervene! She slowed the human down, and persuaded her to reconnect herself to the heart rate variability monitoring technology so that they could read the result on the apparatus. Sure enough, this was achieved, and the machinery managed to record the traces left in the body by the emotional reunion of the horse and its human on its instruments.
There are two things I want to underline here. First, all the Wilsies' careful work on reading the body language of the horse had been temporarily eclipsed by technology. Instead of trusting her own judgement, Laura responded to what the technology was saying. Second, this says much more about the herd of humans than it does about horses.
I would like to propose that the equipment recorded a trace of something that people have long suspected but have had trouble pinning down, naming and measuring: that there is a thinking being connected somehow to the body. The scientist translated this machine reading as "disregulated." As the human went back and forth in the barn the horse in the study began to respond to her activity: his heart rate changed, he moved around his stall, but there were no other particularly readable signs that he was distressed. Nevertheless, the word "disregulated" slipped unconsciously down a chain of linked signifiers and we began to hear that the horse was panicking. But there were none of the usual signs that people pick up by looking closely at the horse.
What the technology recorded is crying out for a better translation, a word that might truly carry some meaning. The words "regulation" and "disregulation" imply a problem. The master signifier (S1), "disregulation," gets unconsciously linked to an S2, "panic." When the human (Laura) heard that the horse was "disregulated" she immediately felt guilty about having caused a problem. She wanted to rush off to the horse and make amends. But was the horse panicking? Perhaps something else was going on. Maybe he was looking forward to being out in the field with his herd. Maybe he was really looking forward to that, but was still in control ("regulated"!) of himself. What pops into my mind is the anxiety that is felt in the moment before an actor goes on stage. We hear stories of famous actors who even throw up before their turn on stage. Perhaps a monitor would give a reading indicating high "disregulation." But what commands our respect is that the human actor has a desire that is stronger than his "disregulated body." It almost seems as if we could say that this particular horse also has an ethic! He was able to think his way through it. He chose not to panic, even if he could feel something rising in his body.
This bodily response recorded by the monitor might have measured the effects of the subject's reading of his Other. The changes in his body can be read via the trace left on the machine, and this reading becomes one of reading the trace of the subject in relation to his Other.
The "disregulation" of the heart rate variability ratio is misleading name given to this trace of something whose presence––an "x"––has to be deduced. In this case, at least with the human, we could say that this invisible "x" has something to do with love and desire. And this love and desire ... implies ethics.
Some sources:
Kate Golembiewski, "Every Elephant has its own Name, Study Suggests," New York Times 10 June 2024
Cindy Meehl, director, Buck, documentary film about Buck Brannaman, 2011, online.
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