Domesticity
Mar. 25th, 2007 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteYou're going at a brisk walk, and you pass within inches of your cat, and she doesn't lean out of your way, doesn't even pull her head back to watch you. She knows you won't squish her. That's how you know your cat is treated well. How many of us would act so casual around, say, a 25-foot-tall two-thousand-pound human? A giant so clumsy that we can feel their steps shaking the floor as they pass?
There is a shorthand for size in the natural world, communicated by sound. The lower your noise, the bigger you must be. It's basic physics: Large things vibrate slower than small things. It amazes me how deeply this shorthand is integrated with animal behavior. When a cat wants to be threatening, it makes a low noise. Same with a dog. Human men practice their big booming man-voice for the same reason. It feels very strange to know the zoological reason behind behaviors inside myself, when long ago, I adopted those behaviors without question, without even noticing. I feel a bizarre urge to try and justify them some other way. Greek mythology? African legend? How The Dog Got His Bark?
And now the cat passes by, and I reach a hand out and run it over her head. To her it is grooming. But what is it to me? Why do people do this? I've noticed that there are symbiotic relationships in nature, where animals of different species will cooperate to enhance their lives. I know from history that humans have formed symbiotic relationships with many animals. But for humans, the relationship is different, and we even have a different word to describe it: Domestication. I was petting the cat yesterday, and I noticed something about my behavior that may be the perfect example of the difference between a symbiotic relationship and domestication. I was looking into the cat's eyes. I was empathizing.
A bird will hop around inside the mouth of a hippopotamus, pecking up insects. A clownfish will find safety in the tendrils of a sea anemone. Ants will stroke the bellies of aphids to collect their sugary excretions. But I challenge you to find any cross-species symbiotic relationship outside the realm of human activity where the participants look each other in the face.
A few nights ago I had a long, elaborate dream where I flew all around my childhood home, skipping forward and backward in time, watching the property change. I remembered things that I'd forgotten I'd forgotten. I saw the chicken pen become a goose pen, then a duck pen. I saw the trails in the redwoods. I saw the rusty lip of the well pipe on the hill, with the big oblong rock wedged into it to prevent accidents. I remembered lifting the rock out one day, and seeing a huge black widow spider, suspended in a crystalline web over the deep blackness. I saw the barn turn into a kid's fort, saw myself painting the walls and sweeping out dirt. I even saw the ancient hardback science-fiction novel I nailed to the wall one day as a joke. Then I saw the barn become a pile of broken wood, then a weed-crusted mound.
But the memory that came back today as I pet the cat was a memory of standing in the woods next to a horse. My sisters sometimes went next door and took their horses out riding, and one day I was allowed to ride a horse around a forest glade. I remembered running my hand up and down the bony ridge of the horse's nose, feeling the prickly hairs. Even then I was looking the animal in the eyes. Thinking back, and back into history before I was born, it's no surprise to me that the animals we look in the face are the animals we've had relationships with, as humans, for hundreds and thousands of generations. Natural selection has strengthened the bond.
Sometimes I wonder what will happen to those animals we have domesticated. In this industrial age, we no longer use oxen to pull a plow. We no longer pull a buggy with a horse. We no longer need cats to chew on the mice - we just keep cats for the friendship. And the hapless cows and pigs, we breed for complacency and hunger; we breed them to end their lives, not to live with them. So far, dogs have continued to be useful... You can't beat a dog as an alarm system, and when I was young, our family dog trailed behind me in the woods and kept watch.
Are the days of domesticity numbered?
There is a shorthand for size in the natural world, communicated by sound. The lower your noise, the bigger you must be. It's basic physics: Large things vibrate slower than small things. It amazes me how deeply this shorthand is integrated with animal behavior. When a cat wants to be threatening, it makes a low noise. Same with a dog. Human men practice their big booming man-voice for the same reason. It feels very strange to know the zoological reason behind behaviors inside myself, when long ago, I adopted those behaviors without question, without even noticing. I feel a bizarre urge to try and justify them some other way. Greek mythology? African legend? How The Dog Got His Bark?
And now the cat passes by, and I reach a hand out and run it over her head. To her it is grooming. But what is it to me? Why do people do this? I've noticed that there are symbiotic relationships in nature, where animals of different species will cooperate to enhance their lives. I know from history that humans have formed symbiotic relationships with many animals. But for humans, the relationship is different, and we even have a different word to describe it: Domestication. I was petting the cat yesterday, and I noticed something about my behavior that may be the perfect example of the difference between a symbiotic relationship and domestication. I was looking into the cat's eyes. I was empathizing.
A bird will hop around inside the mouth of a hippopotamus, pecking up insects. A clownfish will find safety in the tendrils of a sea anemone. Ants will stroke the bellies of aphids to collect their sugary excretions. But I challenge you to find any cross-species symbiotic relationship outside the realm of human activity where the participants look each other in the face.
A few nights ago I had a long, elaborate dream where I flew all around my childhood home, skipping forward and backward in time, watching the property change. I remembered things that I'd forgotten I'd forgotten. I saw the chicken pen become a goose pen, then a duck pen. I saw the trails in the redwoods. I saw the rusty lip of the well pipe on the hill, with the big oblong rock wedged into it to prevent accidents. I remembered lifting the rock out one day, and seeing a huge black widow spider, suspended in a crystalline web over the deep blackness. I saw the barn turn into a kid's fort, saw myself painting the walls and sweeping out dirt. I even saw the ancient hardback science-fiction novel I nailed to the wall one day as a joke. Then I saw the barn become a pile of broken wood, then a weed-crusted mound.
But the memory that came back today as I pet the cat was a memory of standing in the woods next to a horse. My sisters sometimes went next door and took their horses out riding, and one day I was allowed to ride a horse around a forest glade. I remembered running my hand up and down the bony ridge of the horse's nose, feeling the prickly hairs. Even then I was looking the animal in the eyes. Thinking back, and back into history before I was born, it's no surprise to me that the animals we look in the face are the animals we've had relationships with, as humans, for hundreds and thousands of generations. Natural selection has strengthened the bond.
Sometimes I wonder what will happen to those animals we have domesticated. In this industrial age, we no longer use oxen to pull a plow. We no longer pull a buggy with a horse. We no longer need cats to chew on the mice - we just keep cats for the friendship. And the hapless cows and pigs, we breed for complacency and hunger; we breed them to end their lives, not to live with them. So far, dogs have continued to be useful... You can't beat a dog as an alarm system, and when I was young, our family dog trailed behind me in the woods and kept watch.
Are the days of domesticity numbered?
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 03:13 am (UTC)Actually, it makes a lot of sense. Certainly not a conscious decision on any body's part, but the animals that we take care of live longer and more protected lives. Just as we have changed our own evolution, so have we changed that of many animals.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 03:19 am (UTC)Hmm. yes, the more I think about it, the worse that metaphor sounds.
Uh, anyway ... If you haven't already, check out "The Omnivore's Dilemma". The section talking about the domestication of corn is eye-opening.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-26 12:39 pm (UTC)The oxen will be handy in the post-fossilfueled, post-industrial age, the age of enlightenment or ultimate collapse.
We're still tool-using hominids.
Waxing biological (long & rambling)
Date: 2007-03-26 05:07 pm (UTC)The book opens with a summary on how dogs came to live in the homes of human beings, like Xty thousand years ago. The popular concept of this coming together usually plays out something like this:
Og, a gifted caveperson makes the mental leap to raise puppies in his cave and keep the resultant dogs close to him. The now-tamed dogs prove highly useful, making loyal hunting / guard animals. Og prospers, he is fruitful, his children go on to raise dogs and the knowledge spreads to other tribes... eventually we have the Westminster Kennel Club
What this book asserts is that what is prolly more likely is that packs of wild dogs were attracted to human villages due to our enormous heaps of trash. Over generations, these scavenging dogs became accustomed to life around humans and vice versa. We became behaviorally tied together, as producers and consumers of trash.
I'm pretty sure that most evolutionary thinking around the "domesticate" cat goes the same way. Cats found some benefit in living around humans. I've got no fresh reading on cats to "reference", but I'd personally imagine that it happened some time just after we developed large-scale agriculture & permanent cities. Farms & granaries attract mice... mice attract cats. The cats that live around humans do well and reproduce better then cats who live out in the woods.
In both cases, there had to come a point, tho, where the humans 1) started deliberately breeding the animals and keeping them indoors; and 2) actually *domestcated* the other animal. Domestication, in scientific terms is bringing about a change in the physical structure or life processes of another organism. Think seedless grapes: they don't come that way naturally. In both the cases of household dogs and household cats the only animals that can truly be said to be domesticated are ones that are 1) purebred to bring out recessive genetic qualities; or 2) are so tamed and innately tied to human behavior that they couldn't survive or reproduce outside of a human environment. Dogs, cats, pigs, horses, donkeys, goats, etc, etc, etc will go feral (and thrive as such) in a heartbeat. Domestic turkeys, & corn are far worse at taking care of themselves. Any animal that has a good capacity to go feral (IMHO) is not truly domesticated... but it's still a form of life that has adapted itself to fill a specific ecological niche... that of companion / food-item to humanity.
So I guess where I'm going with this is: yes, domestication absolutely is a form of symbiosis. One could debate the nature of the symbiosis until the cows come home, but the life-cycles of human beings and our domesticated animals are inexorably intertwined. Remember: evolution makes no distinction between an animal that manages to thrive in a human environment from one that thrives in a "natural" environment.
As for looking deeply into an animals eyes and seeing it's "soul" and that being the distinction between domestication and other forms of symbiosis... sorry, bro, I just cant agree. Just as dogs are animals with deeply social behavior that made them easier for people to "domesticate" then other large scavengers, homo sapiens are animals with an almost limitless capacity for anthropomorphization. Your cat was not empathizing with you while you gazed deeply into its eyes. It was (unknowingly) exploiting an innate aspect of primate behavior for it's benefit (safety & survival), while you (unknowlingly) exploit an innate aspect of feline behavior for your benefit (emotional safety & comfort). Looking a family member right in the face and feeling bonded with it is just part of being an ape... facial recognition is a very big part of what our brains do (humans, chimps, orang's... you name it). Animals with heads shaped similar to those of human babies provide us with an outlet for emotional needs. Just walk down the stuffed animal aisle of any Halmark Store...
Any time I get onto this topic I turn into such a downer. I'm sorry, man... I really am.
Re: Waxing biological (long & rambling)
Date: 2007-03-26 10:39 pm (UTC)Hence, my challenge about finding that behavior anywhere outside of human activity.
Re: Waxing biological (long & rambling)
Date: 2007-03-27 02:52 pm (UTC)Re: Waxing biological (long & rambling)
Date: 2007-03-26 10:40 pm (UTC)Humans: Making Friends Through Garbage
Re: Waxing biological (long & rambling)
Date: 2007-03-27 01:22 am (UTC)It's 'The Truth About Dogs' (http://www.amazon.com/Truth-about-Dogs-Ancestry-Conventions/dp/014100228X/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8367354-6762255?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174958264&sr=8-1), by Stephen Budiansky. Good read, feel free to borrowm my copy if ya like.
I Amazon'ed a copy of The Omivores Dilemma, btw.
dmp