So don't swim with dolphins and tickle their bellies. And quit petting those beasts you call "pets."
I want to connect the previous post about the dolphins to the post from a few days ago about emotional support animals. The latter post links to a New Yorker article that is very critical of people who weasel — I know, not fair to weasels — around rules against animals in restaurants, shops, museums, and public transport by presenting their pets as "emotional support animals." That's mostly about what an imposition on other human beings this is. But consider the animals themselves.
The author, Patricia Marx, says "No animals were harmed during the writing of this article," but she took a turkey into a crowded NYC deli, where he "lay immobile, on his side with his feet splayed as if he’d conked out on the sofa," and then his "head had turned purple," which signaled to his handlers that he was "too stressed" and needed to leave. And the alpaca in the museum began "intently humming a distress signal" and had to leave.
Nonhuman animals cannot talk. We look into their faces and see enough human likeness to stir up our thoughts of what they might be saying, and we tend to flatter ourselves and serve our own interests by imagining them projecting the thoughts we want them to have. There's a lot of talk these days about establishing a "yes means yes" standard for intelligent, verbal human adults on college campuses. The concern is that free citizens might go along with sexual activities and fail to convey their unwillingness in spoken words. Sexual intercourse, in this view, is so intimately and deeply invasive on the body that a spoken "yes" is a necessary step.
You might agree or disagree about the importance of hearing the affirmative spoken message of permission to become intimate with another human being's body, but I want to talk about what we do to the bodies of our pets who have no capacity to say "yes" or "no" and who are trapped in our space and cannot walk away but must submit to our self-serving petting.
Yes, the animal you're confining at home or controlling outdoors may seem to accept or enjoy your physical intrusions, but think how you would adapt if you were completely controlled and dependent like that. Then complicate that thought with the reality that as a human being, you have no way to know how the nonhuman mind works, what fears and confusion and gnawing needs roil inside that head with the eyes that give you the look that makes you feel you should be kind and give food.
October 18, 2014
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65 comments:
Molly Bloom knew how to give consent: ". . . then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
"Molly Bloom knew how to give consent…"
No, James Joyce knew how to express his vision of the way he thought a woman's mind felt from the inside when she was accepting sex from a man she didn't really have all that much reason to want.
Is that not projection? Isn't this the fantasy life that "yes means yes" is designed to dispel?
"we tend to flatter ourselves and serve our own interests by imagining them projecting the thoughts we want them to have."
then:
"...what fears and confusion and gnawing needs roil inside that head..."
Is Althouse serving "her own interests" and projecting the thoughts SHE wants them to have: fear and confusion?
I call that rhetorical move "The Reverse Dolphin".
Hopefully you have read the last thread, to note that the dolphin was not confined.
I noticed that our male poodle didn't take to being petted at first. He was born in our home. But now he is extremely affectionate. It led me to believe that receiving affection is a learned behavior for them.
Our female is a registered service animal. All she really does is match the play preferences of kids with developmental disabilities. She has gotten so good at it that when we are walking down the street and she hears a child's voice, even from afar, she stops and wags her tail.
I believe this is an adaptation that dogs are eager to learn because of their mirror neurons. In my opinion, someone with a service alpaca or pony is an idiot. FWIW the reason there are other animals are service animals is because the religion of peace finds dogs haram.
Do you get the dogs' consent when you take their photos?
I don't it's that hard to understand what an animal wants. The problem is getting people to try. Not only do we anthropomorphize, but we want to anthropomorphize.
When people live close to the natural world on a daily basis it's easy to see what animals are about. When we live in cities we have more license to see what we want to see. When I look at the natural world I don't see a plan, I don't see a balance of nature. I see billions of different lives trying to survive in a universe that doesn't listen. To a prey animal, predators aren't some kind of natural tool for limiting population. Predators are a terrifying threat that randomly murders your friends. If you had a choice of fearing murder all your life, or having the chance to starve, which would you take?
We can only look at nature as some kind of system because we've worked for millions of years to escape from it.
Worse, we are maladaptively substituting animal relationships for child relationships. I see childless people fussing over a cat or a dog and I'm thinking how their instincts for child rearing have driven them to getting a pet when their conscious mind has rejected a baby. I see the older woman who doesn't have grandchildren carrying around her little dog.
I'm old enough to see how things have changed. Dogs used to be pets, and a lot of them were working animals. I remember cats that were barely tolerated because they killed mice. Now... it's surrogate children. It's crazy.
betamax3000,
"Is Althouse serving "her own interests" and projecting the thoughts SHE wants them to have: fear and confusion?"
Yep - she's tipped over the edge and can't see the obvious hypocrisy and weirdness.
It's a white woman thing and we wouldn't understand,...
Re: "It's a white woman thing and we wouldn't understand,..."
I took it as a law professor playfully flipping the 'accepted' perception. Althouse teases me with rhetorical cat-toys.
Oh crikey--an animal is just an animal. Grow up on, or spend a lot time around a farm or a ranch. or spend some time with people who deal with animals on a daily basis, and some of the scales will drop from your eyes.
You should treat domestic animals--cats, dogs, horses etc with respect and kindness. But they are not and never will be just "furry humans".
As for wild critters (local problems for me where I live in the Los Angeles suburbs are coyotes and mountain lions--they kill dogs and cats), the idea of giving them human characteristics and emotions or "trying to understand and preserve" them is beyond stupid. And yet there are many who will do just that.
Meat is not made in supermarkets where "no animals are harmed"--it's made on farms, ranches, and poultry operations. It's then killed, butchered and sent to market. But many city dwellers will deny that such a process exists.
Two zen masters were watching a river, when they saw the flash of a fish's scales.
The first said, "I wish I were a fish. They are so happy."
The second replied, "But you're not a fish. How do you know how they feel?" The first replied, "But you're not me. How do you know what I know?"
So we don't know what animals are thinking, but then again, we don't know what other human beings are thinking, even when we have sex with them.
A tuna can never say "yes" and was thus enslaved and exploited. (Presently being consumed at The Grill, Linden New Jersey.)
In The Vagina as Fascist State it is common for women to tend to flatter themselves and serve their own interests by imagining them projecting the thoughts they want men to have. In this way they aim to reduce female-to-male human relationships to that of an owner and a pet, a pet that can never say "Yes" but can also never say "No".
The men who accept The Vagina as Fascist State thus accept the role of lap dog, and will even do 'tricks' for The Vagina as Fascist State's approval: tricks include rolling over, begging and playing dead.
Under such circumstances, is it any surprise that the men who reject The Vagina as Fascist State might enjoy film of the tables being turned -- and by 'tables being turned' I mean women having grunting, rutting anal sex in the 'doggie' position? Yes; The Vagina as Fascist State believes it is a 'Humane Society'.
Let it be noted that Ann's concerns about how animals feel about our interactions with them also applies to babies. True, they're not non-human, but we can't know that what an infant feels about something is what we as adults feel. We measure whether they like or dislike something by facial expressions, verbal cues and presence or absence of accepting or avoiding behaviors. As for Molly Bloom, she certainly says yes. True, a male author put those words in her mouth, but she's a fictional character of his creation. Even California would classify Ms. Bloom's spoken "yes" as affirmative consent.
Best comment on 'Yes means Yes' from Lawrence Kasdan
Yes means yes
I wish Prof. Peter Singer would weigh in on this. Didn't he write that animal buggery could be consensual?
That could be helpful to male college freshmen. If you can't kiss the co-ed, you can always screw the pooch. No campus rape court for doing that!
What about a parrot that has been trained to say "Polly wants to fuck"?
If we say that cannot be consent -- even though the statement by itself can only be seen as such -- because it has been a 'trained' response, can we not then say college women have been trained by an overly-sexualized society to say "Yes" even when they don't really understand what they are consenting to?
Watch out for college girls named Polly, that's my point.
This post is an example of what happens when place autonomy at the apex of our value system, and then overthink it and overgeneralize to nonhuman species.
"And now my world famous talking dog will say the word yes!"
If "yes means yes," the nonhuman animal never says yes.
It would never ever say yes to being willfully killed.
John Lynch is absolutely correct.
Treating animals as substitute babies is not a new thing, but it is far more widespread these days. It used to be an upper class ladies affectation, mainly I think because their grandchildren were more likely to be elsewhere or separated from her by servants and social convention.
What is even more absurd is that there are so many men doing this these days. A man would always have a dog, in the country, or keep one to amuse the children and give the beast an honorable retirement when they were done with it. Some men would, and still do, keep large and active dogs in the city for reasons (machismo, signalling, vanity?) I think are rather absurd. But now we see single urban men with cats and toy dogs. That is pathetic.
I grew up with a lot of pets. Now I have no pets. A friend asked if I didn't like animals.
"I like animals fine. Animals are great. I like them best when they're doing animals things out in their animal world. I do my human things in my human world, and I'm not that interested in bringing an animal into my human world to do human things with me."
But perhaps animals, or more likely only some animals, are perfected through interaction with humans. Perhaps that is what is intended for them.
Having said what I said in my previous comment, I acknowledge what Althouse is trying to say here. Once a little turtle showed on my back patio that my gardener brought to my attention. I was all excited and went and grabbed my camera and took a picture of it and the flash came on and the poor turtle peed. At the time both my gardener and I laughed but later and often after, it seemed cruel on my part to subject it to such fear and confusion that it had to relieve itself -- all for my whim. If I could say sorry to that turtle, I would.
We intellectualize our encounters with the non-humans ascribing to it what we know which is our own emotions and reactions in a similar situation. I think that is part of what makes us be kind and gentle next time around.
My kids want a dog, and I see benefits to kids having dogs, so some animal will probably be pressed into entering the human world by me.
A life is big. Sometimes you can try things out both ways.
"The word 'yes' follows a man."
How prescient.
a) Animals are only forced into interactions with humans. and they should not be.
b) Animals are only forced into interactions with humans, and they should be.
c) Animals are only forced into interactions with humans, and there is no ethical implication either way.
d) Animals sometimes choose interactions with humans, and this should not be allowed.
e) Animals sometimes choose interactions with humans, and this should be allowed.
f) Animals sometimes choose interactions with humans, and there is no ethical implication either way.
Do we get to bring in things like this to the conversation?
http://www.bestdaily.co.uk/your-life/news/a603479/female-teacher-who-had-2-year-affair-with-14-year-old-student-is-spared-jail.html
Pretty soon it will be illegal to call feminists hypocrites too because it hurts their feelings.
In betas Vagina as Fascist State only women get to rape.
The picture the other day of the leopard-cat mix certainly seemed to me like the picture of a very terrified cat. I think what most bothers me though, is the idea of pet owners quite generally spaying and neutering their pets and thus leaving breeding up to professional breeders who probably don't pay much attention to how likeable the animals are nor make allowances for what mates the animal suggests a preference for. It would seem breeders mainly want to encourage particular body shape or coat, stupid criteria that don't make for animals with proper character.
It seems like purebred animals from a long pedigree of purebred ancestors have what appears a kind of holy dignity about them. Though interesting, this does not have to do with piety or love in the animals, but just with the consideration that genetic crossover is fairly pointless in animals purebred (lacking heterozygosity) compared with ancient ancestors. Adopting emotions such as holy dignity compatible with pointlessness of genetic crossover probably affects DNA (epigenetically?) so that after many generations of being inbred the animals would tend to mate less selectively so as to increase diversity, if mating preferences were up to them.
To those not familiar with my theory, male holiness in my opinion is significant because it discourages genetic crossover in spermatogenesis, as benefits females mating him (people benefit by alleles harmonizing with each other), and which tends to encourage females to want to mate him. So male holiness can be caused by love of a mate, by a pious sense that he deserves more mates that his distant descendants would (it's probably complicated why it would be hard for males to feel piety or melancholy just to attract females, though part of it involves a gene coding for piety or melancholy needing a certain amount of crossover over the generations, which could however be provided in females, as in fruit flies, where genetic crossover only happens inside females; another possibility would be that piety and melancholy are associated with merciless self-judgment by the gene that can enable piety or by judgement from nature or the spirit world), by a sadness caused by misfortune to him (evolution works better if not driven by random misfortunes), or by sympathy towards the misfortunes of his mate. But male holiness can also be rather pedestrian, caused by a long history of inbreeding in ancestors or even by an evil desire to concentrate on the short-term because one is in an evil ISIS-like group trying in the short term to take over world (and kill the competition off).
"Hopefully you have read the last thread, to note that the dolphin was not confined."
Yes, and you should note: "There are three types of environments where people can swim with dolphins: ponds, natural demarcated areas and at the sea. The ponds are very large and deep pools, such as the SeaWorld aquarium. The natural demarcated areas are places adjacent to the sea that share the sea's pure water and seabed, Riviera Maya, and Cozumel in Mexico. Some (though certainly not all) sea swim programs are done at certain points where wild dolphins are accustomed to getting food. Some researchers are against feeding wild dolphins because of the risks of changing their eating habits. This practice costs somewhere in the range of $100 to $400+."
"Worse, we are maladaptively substituting animal relationships for child relationships. I see childless people fussing over a cat or a dog and I'm thinking how their instincts for child rearing have driven them to getting a pet when their conscious mind has rejected a baby. I see the older woman who doesn't have grandchildren carrying around her little dog."
Some people who don't have children yet get a dog, kind of as a practice child. Then when they get the child, what is the purpose of the dog? Everyone who has a dog has it for some purpose of their own, whether they want to face up to that or not. For most Americans, the purpose is not the function for which the breed was designed but companionship. If that is the dog's job, being your companion, he will probably do it well, and you ought to be honest with yourself that that is what you are using him for. I don't see a reason to be especially contemptuous of "older women" or women who lack children in their lives. You're just finding it easier to see the use the person has. But all dog owners are using their dogs. They're projecting humanity onto the canine because that is what their dog is doing for them. One reason I don't want a dog is because I know it would entail regarding the dog as a kind of person, talking to it, calling it "baby" or whatever. I don't have that as a need, and I didn't have it even when I lived alone. In fact, I had it even less when I lived alone, because I really didn't want to have my intimate life forming a closed circle with a nonhuman animal.
So you'll be giving up the dog park photos?
"So you'll be giving up the dog park photos?"
My interaction with dogs is only ever a consequence of relating to human beings. Those people will have to speak for themselves.
I have never owned a dog.
I've had 2 cats, and I have disqualified myself from cat ownership and acknowledge that it was a mistake.
Perhaps the question of how to treat dogs is also complicated by the fact that dogs are a human creation. They are broken wolves, ill-suited for any environment apart from humans.
The Dog Park MC sez:
So you'll benefit from OTHER people's oppression of animals.
Sounds like you need to check your primate privilege...
My basset hound, Winston, is able to indicate his feelings quite well. If he doesn't like it, like disturbing him when he is asleep in the bed between us, he growls. If that doesn't work, he snarls in blood curdling fashion. I haven't tested him to see if he bites.
When awakened he doesn't like it.
Swimming with dolphins. There is a bay on the west coast of Australia, Where it is safe to go into the ocean deeper than knee deep only because dolphins come in and chase away the sharks. Elsewhere, including Sydney Harbor, it is not safe to go into the ocean even three feet deep. The dolphins allow humans to wade in and tolerate them. I have not been there although I have been to Perth.
Dogs are hardly broken wolves. Dogs are doing a lot better than wolves, precisely because there are very few environments these days that are "apart from humans." Just ask the wolves, or pretty much any other wild (ie undomesticated) animal.
Natural selection is merciless. The fact of the matter is that the single best survival strategy for any species nowadays is that it coexists well with humans. Dogs, through a quirk of fate, evolved behaviors that remind human beings of loving, loyal, furry children and cause them to treat dogs accordingly (whether dogs are actually loving or loyal is another story -- but to human eyes they behave like they are). Humans, again through a quirk of fate, tend to act in ways that remind dogs of alpha canine behavior. For thousands of years these quirks of fate have been to the benefit of both species.
Dogs are doing a lot better than wolves, precisely because there are very few environments these days that are "apart from humans." Just ask the wolves, or pretty much any other wild (ie undomesticated) animal.
This in no way precludes my statement.
They are terribly suited to life in the wild. They are a human creation. So perhaps that should inform the way we treat them. Perhaps that gives them a right to privileged status with humans. Apart from us, they don't exist. They are broken wolves.
Why would you take your pet turkey into a place full of sliced up dead turkeys?
CR
Crack: "Yep - she's tipped over the edge and can't see the obvious hypocrisy and weirdness."
LOL
Pure. Gold.
And I love how crackie is now trying to piggy back onto betamax as if they were on the same page.
Betamax is, of course, forced to comply with this pathetic attempt. As noted before, such is noblesse oblige.
Turns out if the dogs don't love us, the part of the brain responsible for faking love is the same as the part in humans where we feel love
So I am applying Occam's Razor here and calling bullshit.
Even without the brain scans it only makes sense that after millennia of selective breeding, evolution is going to take the easiest path, which is to select for brains that really do like us.
Once Crack explained to me that I am racist because I am white and think reparations are a bad idea, irrespective of my personal history, intentions, or interpersonal behavior, I was done with him.
Same as I would be done with somebody who claimed I was a serial rapist based on their definition of rape, or the CDC's definition of sexual coercion.
Hmmmm. Maybe that is why Obama need a political activist at the CDC. Look what they have been doing with the definitions and reporting criteria of "rape."
I interact with wild dolphins everyday. We surf the waves together. Friendly but untamed. I like to see them around me.
Ann Althouse said...
"Molly Bloom knew how to give consent…"
No, James Joyce knew how to express his vision of the way he thought a woman's mind felt from the inside when she was accepting sex from a man she didn't really have all that much reason to want.
Is that not projection? Isn't this the fantasy life that "yes means yes" is designed to dispel?
Uhhh--so even "...yes I said yes I will Yes" doesn't mean yes? There's going to be a serious drop in the birthrate if people outside university wackoland ever start taking this bullshit seriously.
Althouse: "Yes, and you should note:"
Yes, I know some dolphins are enclosed and part of swim programs. This dolphin was not enclosed.
Our cat chose us. She just showed up one day. My wife started feeding her, and then took her to the vet to get spayed. Turns out she was already spayed.
She was a fairly impressive cat, when she was young. She could jump straight up higher than the top of my head. She's getting old now.
Once again, dogs are not broken wolves. They're dogs. Lots of them survive in the wild (feral dogs are plentiful) but they have adapted via natural selection to survive and multiply even better alongside humans. You can keep insisting they can't survive without humans, but that don't make it so.
On the other hand, a dog walking down Main Street will do just fine, while a wolf walking down Main Street will be killed in short order. Who has the best species survival strategy? You tell me.
And I agree with Tim. It's possible that dogs and humans have simply been misunderstanding each other's communications for millennia, to the mutual benefit of both species. But it's more likely that both species found they actually do like the other very much (with rare, emotionally twisted exceptions) and they both do better together than they do apart.
It's a shame there isn't some way to make the students comfortable with the new process, maybe associating it with something they're familiar with. Maybe it would help to have specially trained staff to explain how to properly ask if yes means yes, and maybe an independent third person who could later testify both persons understood the matter and both said yes. How could this sort of arrangement be made familiar to the kids so they wouldn't misunderstand each other? Maybe we need a special commission to study this proposed arrangement to make sure it isn't unconstitutional. Maybe that would help us all think ahead before we jump into societal experiments with what "yes" and "love" really mean.
Given a choice, the average Pekinese would much prefer to play with a human than a coyote.......I doubt that the dolphin felt remorseful. I also doubt that the dolphin feels that by interacting with humans he is betraying his true dolphin nature. Neither remorseful nor joyous, he just plugs along without much contemplation of the true meaning of life.
William:
The answer to the Ultimate Question of life is 42.
Dolphins already know this.
The new rules state there can non-verbal cues. Our dog sticks her head under my hand.
RE: Dolphin. The dolphin experience is a terrible thing. These mammals are captured in the wild and then transported to the pen. The die trying to escape. My wife describes them as the dolphin torture chamber. They are only being nice to get food from the trainer. People, please don't support this grotesque industry. Dolphin really aren't nice animals. They have been "Flipperized"
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man."
He said, "That's okay, boy, won't you feed him when you can."
As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Odysseus had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any enjoyment from him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus seeing it, and said:
'Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?'
'This dog,' answered Eumaeus, 'belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Odysseus left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him.'
So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years.
—Homer, Odyssey
I've had 2 cats, and I have disqualified myself from cat ownership and acknowledge that it was a mistake.
You and I, Althouse shall get along extremely well.
Take a load off Ann(ie), Meade.
And put the load right on Me(ade)?
Meade's passage from the Odyssey brings up another point.
Have dogs earned special consideration from humans by their loyalty?
Perhaps pet animals cannot "say" "yes", but anyone who has had a pet cat knows they can say "no", very effectively. The dogs I have owned were pretty good at it too, and generally communicated that thought without the subsequent need for bandages, iodine, and bleach. Despite these peculiarities in their communications with me, I did not reject them.
Perhaps there's a lesson in there somewhere for college-age human females and males.
Also, sean? You beat me to it, darn you.
"Uhhh--so even "...yes I said yes I will Yes" doesn't mean yes? There's going to be a serious drop in the birthrate if people outside university wackoland ever start taking this bullshit seriously."
It's an internal monologue. Even if we see the final yes as spoken, that's not occurring at the beginning of sexual intercourse. That's later, at the point of orgasm.
You can't say that the ultimate orgasm retrospectively conveys consent because the man's decision to proceed occurs before he knows that's going to happen.
I wonder if these people who don't like that we have 'defiled' the pure form of the wolf, to name one example, think that God is mad at us for messing around with his work?
That is why I am so sure that so many you consider themselves atheists are some kind of doubter at most.
These people do not seem to understand in any visceral way that we, humanity, are here alone on this planet and we can do what we want here without any judgement aside from the inevitable judgments that evolution makes.
Evolution is cool with us domestication animals, so far anyway. Nothing else matters.
(1) The numerical answer to Everything is in fact 27 (3 raised to the power of two).
(2) What about manatees? Never aggressive, wild friendly. Like to be petted, never known to cause harm to people that has happened (albeit rarely) with "dolphins."
Since 1995 we've always had 3 or 4 cats living with us continuously. We live in suburbia with woods for our back yard and have a cat door, so the cats come and go as they please. They stay with us because we feed them and they like being near us and getting rubs.
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