THE COW

Foreword

In this book, I have tried to show and explain how our religious, cultural and social development would have been quite different without cows. We humans have been living with cattle, from cattle and, in some regions, for cattle, for about the last 10,000 to 12,000 years. They have been a source of happiness, wealth, beauty and security for us. Cattle have helped us to be free and to live in places where we would never have dared to venture without them. We have used cows to appease the gods and to conquer the world. Cows have fed us and taught us how to live. They put themselves entirely in our hands, and so we became their keepers. For a long time, a very long time, the connection between people and cows was a symbiosis, a symbiotic relationship. But now, in the dying days of this bond between people and cattle, we objectify them: we turn them into a product. In an interview with Anselm Kiefer, Alexander Kluge referred to the cow as “Nature’s poet”, and that sums it up exactly. I used to tell the cows which I looked after about my troubles and my worries. I used to rub my head against their bodies, seeking tenderness, warmth and affection from them. I was dependent on their presence.