When Cosmo’s pet accuses me of feline-like guile, I take it as high praise — though in this instance, it takes no guile to sustain an argument that my opponent chooses not to rebut. Just to recapitulate: I originally argued that cats have been of greater practical value than dogs to human beings, primarily because of the former group’s affect on disease-carrying and grain-eating rodents. It was entirely an issue of utility from the word go, so dropping the Jeremy Bentham bomb on me doesn’t accomplish anything. Nor does it really work to make comparisons to germs, which are obviously not domestic animals (jokes aside). I’d say he’s just barking up the wrong tree, but even I’m not shameless enough to employ so obvious a line.
If I had advanced the notion that cat behavior was more ethical, or that human-cat relations were more deeply meaningful or spiritually uplifting than human-dog relations, it would be relevant to discuss intentionality. But that was not what I originally said.
Though now that I think about, felinity at least as worthy of conservative veneration as caninity. One of my favorite stories of all time, Rudyard Kipling’s tale of “The Cat That Walked By Himself,” contains some great insight. Having watched the Wild Dog, the Wild Horse, and the Wild Cow be seduced into servile domesticity (by the First Woman, naturally), the Cat opts to retain his freedom by coming into the humans’ cave on his own terms, not theirs. His decision doesn’t not come without cost — there’s much talk of dodging projectiles and doggie teeth for eternity — but the Cat remains the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to him.
Hey, freedom ain’t free.
Now for a couple of fun reader comments. First, a serious historical/economic argument supporting Cosmo & his pet:
I have little doubt that you’re getting a fair bit of interest from your assertion that cats have been of more value to humanity than dogs. To be simple, I think we can break ourselves into three eras. Prior to large scale agriculture, cats were almost useless. For a hunter/gatherer society, dogs were of clear value. They were loyal companions serving as a hunting companion, and served as a guard and warning system from attack by wild beasts. With agriculture, and the settling of people into larger, stationary communities, cats certainly became useful for the reasons you mentioned. Furthermore, while dogs were still useful during hunts, but their importance as an aid to eating must have lessoned with crops. Furthermore, their importance as guards and as warning systems were greatly reduced with town walls, fences and so forth. Dogs were still of use in protecting heard animals, of course. Now, we’re in a modern age with great pest control. Cats could be replaced with rat traps, poisons and so forth, and dogs have again risen in prominence as seeing and hearing aid dogs. You also ignored the value of dogs as loyal and loving pets versus the habit of cats to walk around a premises as if they won the place in a craps game 😉 Yes, I’m a dog person, but I’d be winning to say that we’re close to a wash.
And then another one for the home team:
Glad to see you challenge Jonah on this – he’s been getting a pass for far too long. When a cat is affectionate towards you, he really means it. With a dog he’s merely sucking up. Cats are like Britons. Dogs are like the French. Dogs expend insane amounts of useless energy yet never accomplish anything – they are like liberals. Cats conserve their energy and pick their fights – they are like conservatives. Please keep up the good fight.