Animal Laborans

Definition

Animal laborans (the laboring animal) is Hannah Arendt's term for the human being reduced to the activity of labor—biological metabolism with nature. Unlike homo faber (the fabricating human) who creates a durable world, animal laborans is bound to the cyclical processes of production and consumption, leaving nothing permanent behind. "The animal laborans is indeed only one, at best the highest, of the animal species which populate the earth." The modern age elevated animal laborans to the highest rank, glorifying labor as the source of all value, but in doing so reduced all human activity to the level of biological necessity.

Key Thinkers

• arendt-hannah — developed the concept in The Human Condition (1958); critiqued the modern glorification of labor
• marx-karl — analyzed labor as the essence of humanity; Arendt critiques this as a reduction of human specificity to biological process

Related Concepts

• homo-faber — the fabricating human; creates durable objects; distinct from animal laborans
• the-social — society is ruled by animal laborans; conformism replaces action
• consumerism — animal laborans is the consumer par excellence; consumes as quickly as produces
• (Labor, necessity, modernity are mentioned in the source but not yet separate pages — see log.md.)

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss animal laborans:

• arendt-1958-the-human-condition — "It is indeed the mark of all laboring that it leaves nothing behind, that the result of its effort is almost as quickly consumed as the effort is spent." (p. 87)

Open Questions

• How does animal laborans relate to contemporary discussions of affective labor and immaterial labor?
• Can animal laborans be a site of resistance, or is it necessarily passive?
• What is the relationship between animal laborans and the posthuman decentering of the human?