Zoos and Humans

I had never considered zoos pornographic. After reading Acampora’s article, I agree that many, but not all, zoos can be viewed as pornographic. I see some significant differences between the nature of erotic (porn industry) and biotic (zoo industry) entertainment. There is a certain “economy of desire” which exists human-human in the porn industry, and human-animal in the zoo industry - relationship shortcuts.
The presumption of mastery and control occurs in both industries. For this reason, some zoos can be classifed as pornographic. However, I am unwilling to classify all zoos as inherently pornographic. At times, profound, fulfilling exchanges, however brief, can occur between humans and animals in zoos, even those meeting certain criteria of pornography.

Human-animals have dominated and radically altered the environment of “wild” animals in their “natural habitats,” precipitously so, since the industrial revolution. Acampora claims that in zoos, “The very structure of the human-animal encounter is disrupted, and the interaction that is sought—encountering the animals—becomes impossibility as the “real” animals disappear and the conditions for seeing are undermined.” I would posit that industrialization, globalization, human poverty, and human greed have curtailed opportunity for true interaction between humans and “wild” animals. Their “natural habitats” exist only in the most remote, humanly –inhospitable environments. Remoteness offers no protection to the animals, or their habitats, from human-created alterations, like pollution and global warming. Doesn’t this also create structural inauthenticity - despite the best intentions of humanity? Couldn’t we also consider the proclivity of human beings to alter habitats of nonhuman beings within the structure of possessive consciousness?

Acampora stated that his argument focuses on what the institutions of animal-keeping, particularly the zoo, reveal about us and our possibilities for relating to other human and nonhuman animals alike. Does it reveal the same, or different possibilities/limitations for relating to other human and nonhuman animals as the human domination of the environment?

How can we ethically argue against the structural inauthenticity of zoos, and the consideration of live beings within the structure of possessive consciousness, without applying this same logical morality to the reverse stewardship perpetrated by some humans against all living beings?