Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: RE: cats: the real extreme position

[Kay Argyle (argyle]

I've transitioned a number of cats from free-range to indoor, and moving
house is certainly a good time.  Changing owners even more so! Mostly they
accept the policies of the new household philosophically.  On the other
hand, there were a number of years when I always opened my door with a foot
in the crack, ready to scoop one particular cat up and toss him back into
the hall as he made a mad dash out.

Wasatch Commons backed off from discussing pet policy when it became
apparent there wasn't going to be easy agreement.  So our defacto default
pet policy is that animals are permitted to be a nuisance.

When considering the effect of cats vs dogs on wildlife, keep in mind
habitat destruction for food production. An eighty-pound shepherd eats more
than an eight-pound siamese, and neotropical migrants (a.k.a. songbirds)
depend on rainforests that get cut down for cattle ranches (& waterfowl
depend on marshes polluted by hog farm run-off, etc. ad nauseum).

> By the way, you can probably guess that I am not an animal "lover" in part
> because I believe what M. Scott Peck said - we can only love those who
> can grow spiritually from our love.  We can't really love chocolate or
> pets.

It's an awfully narrow definition of love -- and I think it's backwards.
IMHO, we love persons (and things) who satisfy our needs, physical or
spiritual -- and that can include inanimate objects or even abstract
concepts, if we receive emotional or psychological sustenance from them.

As a social species with an extended period of juvenile dependency, we have
a hard-wired instinct to nurture.  We love those we nurture (Peck's idea of
love) because the object of nurturance fulfills this need when it responds
to our care.

> And if we think we can help them grow to their full spiritual
> potential, wouldn't it be better to use that love and attention on a
human?

Why should it be better?  My cat Maggie is a better person than many humans
I know -- more empathetic, more forgiving.  In caring for her & my other
furred, finned, feathered, & fronded dependents, I extend my concern beyond
the narrow bounds of my own species.  They connect me with the natural
world.  They satisfy my need to nurture at lower cost to the planet than my
having a child would.

[Do keep in mind that all this is strictly IMHO, & different conclusions
from the same evidence are certainly possible and entirely legitimate.]

I recognize that care of a carnivore sacrifices other life.  That's part of
a larger conundrum.  Some types of life draw energy from photosynthesis or
geothermal reactions; the rest prey on them.

Until such time as humans either manufacture food entirely without
biological systems or are modified to plug into wall sockets, my livelihood
derives from the death of other living things.

Because we are more closely related to cows than to broccoli, we can
recognize when we cause pain to a cow.  On the other hand, while we do know
plants are "aware" of being damaged, since they take steps to protect
themselves when it happens, we don't know what the plant "feels" because we
have no analogous system.  Since plants respond to injury in a different
fashion than the neurochemical cascade and brain cell activation we call
"pain," we fail to recognize a broccoli's distress as even existing, let
alone as being an appropriate matter for our concern.

To see a cow as needing more protection than a broccoli is a failure of
imagination.  It's a form of nepotism -- cows are closer relatives than
broccoli, so it's easier to empathize with them.  It may be natural, but it
isn't necessarily moral.

Faced with this dilemma -- I couldn't (intellectually) justify special
consideration for animals vs. plants, yet I don't choose to starve -- I'm
afraid my solution was to throw up my hands in despair and choose *not* to
become vegetarian.

Kay Argyle
Wasatch Commons
Salt Lake City, Utah
argyle [at] mines.utah.edu

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l