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THE FRIESIAN COW


The Friesian is named after the tribe that first bred them two thousand years ago in what is now the Netherlands - though it is also known as the Holstein in the US. Over many generations it was developed for dairy production. It spends more than half its life dozing or asleep; and much of the rest of its existence  is devoted to slowly chewing grass or hay, taking only a very small mouthful at a time. The 19th century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, saw the cow as a symbol of a human ideal. In a section of Thus Spake Zarathustra, he asserts: ‘Unless we change (or be converted) and become as cows, we shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ In other words, in Nietzsche’s view, unless we adopt key qualities of the bovine character, among them, patience, a lack of rancour, perspective and a freedom from bitterness, we won’t find the degree of peace and consolation that makes life fulfilling and endurable. A cow does not suffer from envy, it does not think of revenge; it doesn’t regret the past and doesn’t fantasise about, or dread, the future. It looks placidly on at the world. It accepts its fate calmly. It is a proper philosopher, for Nietzsche, allowed to claim the title not on account of the books it has read or the amount it has published, but because of the exemplary life it leads in the course of its ordinary slow-moving days and nights.

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