philosophical dogs

 

The readings this week definitely challenged my perceptions of our relationship with animals. A lot of the readings shocked or confused me at first, but as I read I could see the valid points each author made.

In John Berger's Why Look at Animals?  he describes how as a society we are surrounded by representations of animals, but real animals are invisible to us. We see countless animal mascots, Tony the Tiger, the BYU cougars, cute internet cat videos, but the actual animals represented there hardly play a role in our more urban lives. The one place we usually see animals, the zoo, doesn't have 'real' animals. They are animals contained, depressed, and packaged for our view, and I really agree with that. I have seen reindeer in the wild and I've seen reindeer at the Logan Zoo, and just about every animal in the Logan zoo looks miserable. 

Steve Baker brings up a similar concept in Picturing the Beast, he even quotes Berger! Baker emphasizes though, how paradoxical it is that animals are innocent, exploited, and invisible in our society, all at the same time. What really struck me was when he started describing instances where animals are casually used, and with several of them, such as "the Teddybears picnic", I was confused as I didn't notice the animals in the phrase. It really made his point hit home, even in a reading about animals they were invisible to me. I'm so used to animals being used to advertise or symbolize something, I don't even notice them at this point. It's clearly not just me with this problem as well, and it doesn't bode well for the treatment of real animals when we treat them like a concept or an object and not an autonomous being.

In Pets, Erica Fudge explains how human relationships with pets display our capacity for compassion and cohabitation. She also makes a very interesting point about how we tend to anthropomorphize our pets to "elevate their status". For example when people refer to themselves as 'pet parents' to 'fur babies. 

Haraway talks further on this point in The Companion Species Manifesto, she says "to regard as dog as a furry child, even metaphorically, demeans both dogs and children- and sets up children to be bitten and dogs to be killed". She goes on to explain how a good relationship with a dog is built through training and work, not spoiling unconditional love. That's not to say I don't love my dog unconditionally, but I agree. Dogs can hold a special place in our hearts without being our children, and it feels strange to call them so. I found the rest of The Companion Species Manifesto to be a little long-winded and confusing at times (why did she say she's had oral intercourse with her Australian shepherd??????), but she made some good points nonetheless!