Power and the Anthropomorphization of Animals

Reading Schumacher today I realized an interesting possibility in the current trend to relate humans more closely with animals and animals more closely with humans. What if it was tied to our sense of power?

This argument assumes that we are ontologically different than animals, higher being who have categorical differences with non-human animals. This assumption being made, what would the possible motives be for anthropomorphizing animals? Well, they can be made to seem like they have human emotions, human capability for speech (save we cannot understand them), similar social arrangements, and a host of other humanizations. The end of this promotion would seem that we can treat these animals as humans, while remaining gods to them. We can appear totally benevolent, life-giving, caring, and all-powerful while maintaining that these creatures are really closer to ourselves that they actually are ontologically.

The flip side of this is that either animals are promoted or we are demoted. Many people do both, "we are just cool animals" and the like. What could the motive for this be? Well, we can completely comprehend animals (potentially) because they are on a lower level of ontology. Thus if we relate ourselves more to the animal we can mistakenly think that we have much better understanding of the human person than is the case. Again, this feeds our sense of power because we (and the other) are no longer a mystery to ourselves. We Know.

Homework, Yoga, and Mass

Hiya all!

Whew! It has been a crazy last three weeks, getting settled in classes, work, and living in Brighton. We finally have everything we need for our car not to get towed: MA plates, resident parking permit, inspection sticker, and MA license. Yay! We're going to take a picture of our car parked outside of our condo one of these days... as proof of that feat.

Gary, Nick, Gary's friend Yulia, our good friend Tina, Anne and I had a wonderfully relaxed weekend this last weekend. I think I have been burning both ends of my candle a bit too much so we slowed down and slept in. Poets have been strangely silent on the subject of sleeping in (not to mention cheese). It has been fascinating to me that while I took 7-8 classes a semester in undergrad, I find 4 classes in graduate school quite taxing... and I haven't even written a paper yet! Yikes! Hopefully I'll be able to manage my time such that it won't be a problem by then. I doubt I will take four classes again. In one way though, I suppose that graduate school is supposed to take a great deal more time because so much more is expected of you. The reading is in-depth and plentiful, the detail in discussion is minute, and working 20 soild hours a week really adds up. Still... I'm surprised.

It's nice to really be on our own now too, not the fact of being separate from the parents and whatnot, but the fact that... well... we're making our own way in the world! We're working and paying bills, and surviving (albeit with parental support in areas like creditability and whatnot).

Masturbation

Masturbation:

From a letter by CS Lewis to Mr. Masson dated March 6^th, 1956 found in the Wade Collection at Wheaton College.

“For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete and correct his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself. Do read Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell and study the character of Mr. Wentworth.

And it is not only the faculty of love which is thus sterilized, forced back on itself, but also the faculty of imagination. The true exercise of imagination in my view, is (a) to help us understand other people, (b) to respond to, and, some of us, to produce art. But it also has a bad use: to provide for us, in shadowy form, a substitute for virtues, successes, distinctions, etc. which ought to be sought outside in the real world – e.g., picturing all I’d do if I were rich instead of earning and saving. Masturbation involves this abuse of imagination in erotic matters (which is bad in itself) and thereby encourages a similar abuse of it in all spheres. After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison."

Another thing that I think worth noting is the causal effect that can be drawn between our imagination and reality. Now, I have taken classes in which we were told that we can and indeed it is good to imagine everything we want. The stated reason for this is that we can repress important emotions and build up tensions that result in horrible breakouts of anger, violence, and what have you. I disagree with this on principle that, as CS Lewis shows, the real danger of masturbation is that the desire for attachment (which is the deepest seated of out desires) does not accept substitutes that our imagination creates. Thus by supplanting the real needs of our psyche with imaginary ones and wrapping ourselves up in this harem that we have created we increase the probability of a violent release of this tension.

Not only this, but the objectification of another human being inherent in the imaginary "harem" while is not necessarily causally related cannot be supposed to have no relation to one's actions and predispositions towards actual human beings. If I am constantly having these imaginary women always at my beck and call, why won't these thoughts slip into my actual life?

It smacks of the situation of Tantalus from the view of the person who is interacting with a person who masturbates because it would be attempting but always failing at meeting the person's needs. It would be impossible (even if it was possible it would not be good) to live up to the standards of the person who masturbates because one could not emulate the imaginary harem.