Anthropocentrism: Challenged or Affirmed?

Anthropocentrism refers broadly to perspectives that centre humans as more important than other forms of life. It is not necessarily hostile towards other species; one example of a benevolent anthropocentrism is Christian environmental stewardship, which holds that people are bestowed with the unique responsibility from God to protect the Earth's ecosystem. Alternatives to anthropocentrism include biocentrism (which assigns importance to all life) and ecocentrism (which centres broader ecological systems). Even when not explicitly stated, one of these approaches might be implied through what a piece of art presents as valuable. Note that anthropocentrism is not a prerequisite for the comprehension of children, as some might condescendingly assume— Herrmann, Waxman and Medin found 'unambiguous evidence' that 'the anthropocentric pattern of reasoning observed in urban 5-year-old children is not an obligatory initial step in reasoning about the biological world', and in fact 'emerges between 3 and 5 years of age in American children raised in urban environments'. This means that an anthropocentric perspective perpetuated in children's media is an artistic and political choice like any other.

Humans are completely absent in *The Octonauts,* as the Octopod is staffed by a diverse array of animals. Of course, though, they are heavily anthropomorphised, which means these characters reflect human behaviours and values. While some level of anthropomorphism is necessary in human-created media, as we do not have direct insight into animal cognition, this 'extreme' anthropomorphism does not even attempt to portray the natural behaviours of the characters' species.

Yet this is not consistently applied to all of the species: while the crew of the Octopod are functionally indistinguishable from humans, the marine life they 'explore, rescue and protect' live much more *animal* lives. Granted, they can use language to communicate, but they mostly display natural behaviours; they live in marine trenches, not houses, and we even see predator animals attempt to catch and eat their prey. The Octonauts do not respect that this is a natural part of the food chain— how could they, when Twinkle is fully sentient and able to directly express her fear of death? Peso applies a human ethical framework to prevent an animal from being eaten by its natural predator, fully discrediting any ecocentric reading.

The co-existence of 'mild' and 'extreme' anthropomorphism only serves to highlight the bizarrely un-animal behaviour of the Octonauts, and ultimately shows their true nature: not as true animals, but as fuzzy proxies for humans. Their marine conservationism is not an act of solidarity with fellow life forms; rather, it emulates the anthropocentric model of human stewardship over species *lower on the hierarchy,* and the superiority of human reasoning*.* For a show with a different focus, this might not matter so much, but *The Octonauts* exists, in large part, to promote awareness of and respect for non-human marine life. That it chooses to do this by privileging the narrative of heavily anthropomorphised animals who live and behave as if they were themselves humans implies an anthropocentric narrative, despite the technical absence of humans.

### References

1. ↑ E. Calvin Beisner & Michael Cromartie and others, 'A Biblical Perspective on Environmental Stewardship', *Acton Institute*. N/A. <https://www.acton.org/public-policy/environmental-stewardship/theology-e/biblical-perspective-environmental-stewardship> [accessed 6 Dec 2020]
2. ↑ Frances Quinn, Jérémy Castéra and Pierre Clément, 'Teachers' conceptions of the environment: anthropocentrism, non-anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism and the place of nature', *Environmental Education Research,* 22.6 (2016), 893-917, pp.894-895.
3. ↑ Patricia Herrmann, Sandra R. Waxman and Douglas L. Medin, 'Anthropocentrism is not the first step in children's reasoning about the natural world', *Psychological and Cognitive Sciences,* 22 (2010), 9979-9984, p.9982.