Bovine Thought

I was driving past a field of cows, most of which were laid down. Now, when a cow is grazing, I can imagine what's going through its mind – or whatever passes for thought in that heavy, cud-chewing head – and it would be something like: there's a nice piece of grass... and there's another nice piece of grass... I'll have that... ooh, there's another nice bit, that’s going down the hatch too.

But when it's laid down on the ground, what is it doing? What's it thinking?

That’s the bit that gets me. Because a cow standing up and eating is all action and intention – low-level intention, granted, but still something you can interpret. But a cow lying down? That’s either rest or rumination. Possibly both.

And by rumination I don’t just mean the re-chewing of its cud, though that’s going on too. I mean the kind of slow, meditative, blank-stare cogitation that might be the bovine equivalent of philosophy. Not “Is there a God?” but maybe, “Was that patch of clover actually better than the one near the fence?” Or, “If I chew this one more time, will the flavour deepen or fade?”

You look into their eyes – half-lidded, glassy, unbothered by flies – and you think: is anything at all going on in there? Or is the cow simply... being?

Here we brush up against the old problem of Cartesian dualism – the idea that mind and body are separate substances. Descartes would have had a nightmare trying to locate a res cogitans in a ruminant. "I chew, therefore I am" doesn’t quite hold the same metaphysical weight. But still – is there a sliver of cow-soul in there somewhere, or is it all biology and fermentation?

Because, honestly, there’s a point – and I’ll say this bluntly – when it starts to resemble the internal life of a Farage supporter. Nothing going on. No lights on. Just the occasional flicker of something base and primal: fear of outsiders, a vague fondness for flags, and a deep suspicion of anything complicated, like facts or joined-up thinking.

Unlike us, though, the cow isn’t pretending to be deep. It isn’t trying to justify its worldview on Facebook or misquote Churchill. It’s just lying there, mind untroubled, doing the closest thing to nothing any large mammal can do without being dead.

And that’s when it hits you: maybe cows have it right. Maybe lying down in a field after a good graze is the apex of mammalian contentment. Maybe we’re the fools – overcomplicating everything – while they’ve cracked it: eat, lie down, digest, repeat.

No spreadsheets. No news. No existential angst. Just grass... and a bit more grass... and eventually a nap.

Maybe that’s not idleness. Maybe it’s enlightenment. And crucially, unlike a Farage supporter, the cow isn’t angry about imaginary boats, waving a red cross on a white flag as if it were some sacred artefact. The bull charges at red flags – the Farage supporter just hoists theirs and waits for someone brown to appear.