Cultural criticism has hardly acknowledged the Darwinian revolution. As a result, it has become dishonest: it views humans and their culture outside the context of biological development. Vilem Flusser and Louis Bec are attempting to change this state of affairs. Their investigation focuses on the life functions of a species that they hold up as a mirror to human cultural life. They chose Vampyroteuthis infernalis because this species occupies a branch of the tree of life that is almost antipodal to the human one, not only in a genealogical sense but also in an existential sense.