If you've read Dark Ecology you'll know there's a whole thing about cats in it, more than once.
So I just found out that this dude published a book where he argues that, you know, cats are all about selfish narcissism and dogs are all altruistic and friendly and stuff.
Wow really? On what scientific -- or for that matter artistic -- or for that matter simple normal observation basis does one make such a claim? Oh, I know, none--because the book doesn't have to, because it's coming from Lacan who comes from Hegel who comes from a freak out to Kantian correlationism, so we humans (which "we" is a good question) get to decide what's real. And guess what: the old agrilogistical cat panic means our ideas about cats are accurate.
That and the classic selfish/altruistic binary and double-bind (because how can you really be altruistic? It's a self-defeating concept based on a rigid conception of self).
So I'm not gonna read this book because wow, you can learn all that stuff already--from Garfield.
I agree with all that and interspecies altruism is a key concept here. i recall Zizek's attenuated explanation of why Hitler was worse than Stalin and the vid illustrates this.Most human interactions with critters involve killing and eating them, so altruism remains a bit of an exception. One finds this in Phillipa Foote's essay on Stalingrad as well.
ReplyDeleteA spoilsport would say the cat acted out of self interest, but as a dog person I am happy to witness cats exceeding expectation. It is just cat people that are horrific, not cats themselves. hehehe