7:09am July 20, 2015

Fey is not an unusual cat.

withasmoothroundstone:

Or rather, Fey is somewhat of an unusual cat, but when people say she’s unusual, that’s not what they’re talking about. They usually comment on how much she communicates with me, and say they wish they had “a cat like Fey”, and then describe their own cats in terms that make it very clear that the issue isn’t the type of cat, but the type of relationship they have with their cat.

[Image description: Fey in bed with me and a lot of yarn while I hold a crochet project in one hand and she touches her paw to my other hand while we look at each other.]

Which is not necessarily their fault, but which is a completely different situation from Fey just being an unusual cat.

If Fey lived with them, they would rapidly discover that they didn’t have “a cat like Fey” either. They would probably decide she was mean and standoffish and uncommunicative. Because it’s not her, it’s them.

I can’t explain to anyone how to have a deep relationship with a cat or any other being.(1)

But I can say that if you take any cat, and try really hard to listen to them and understand them and engage with them on the same level of emotional complexity that you would engage with a human being on, then you’re likely to get better results, and a better relationship with your cat, than if you treat them as food-devouring mousing machines who only like you because you feed them and are probably just faking affection to manipulate you. Or even just if you treat them better than that, but not really taking them all that seriously.

Taking a cat seriously is the first step to having the kind of relationship I have with Fey. And I can tell you right now that it’s not Fey that’s unusual about our relationship. It’s our relationship that’s unusual. Put Fey in a context where she isn’t being respected or understood or seen as emotionally complex and a real actual being with thoughts and feelings about the world, and she’ll look like “just any other cat” to you, and possibly like a particularly mean cat at that.

Which is why it’s sad but almost funny to me when people tell me “I wish I had a cat like Fey, my cat is so mean.” And then describe a situation where Fey would be twenty times as mean if she had to live in it, than their cat is being (when their cat is being mean at all, which isn’t always).

Mind you, I’m not a cat whisperer. People try and call me that but I find that pretty offensive (to cats). I do not understand all of what Fey tells me. I don’t even understand a quarter of what Fey tells me. Fey and I fight on a regular basis, we misunderstand each other constantly, and we get frustrated about our inability to get basic information across to each other in both directions, and sometimes that ends up as frustration with each other.

But seriously?

If you start with respecting the intellectual and emotional complexity of your cat, and the fact that your cat is your equal in terms of worth and value (equal doesn’t mean alike, so nobody blast me for using that word, I find that really irritating and I’m especially irritable at the moment because I’m sick).

And if you make a serious long-term good-faith effort to understand and communicate with your cat as who the cat is, not as who you want or imagine the cat to be. (2) (This may take a lot of time if you’ve been projecting your own fantasies over the top of your cat, because your cat has doubtless noticed and responded to you in kind, and it will possibly take a long while to build trust.)

Then you have a good chance of, if not “having a cat like Fey”, having an amazing, fulfilling, complex, and demanding relationship with your cat, in ways you didn’t dream were possible. Which is what people seem to mean when they say they “want a cat like Fey”.

[Important but somewhat lengthy footnotes below cut.]

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The idea that cats are manipulative and only use us for food seems like one of those creepy things people make up to deny power imbalances. YOU (general you) brought that animal into your home for YOUR pleasure, and created an environment for them where YOU have ultimate power over when, what, and whether or not they eat, and you’re going to act like the cat created this situation?
I also really hate how much contempt people seem to have for people who try to take animals seriously. Like I’ve had people call me ‘vegan’ as an accusation. They act like taking animals seriously is so ridiculous and disgusting that only crazy people would do it. It really bums me out.

All of that, plus the thing where people say that if you care about animals at all you must not care about oppressed humans at all, like the two are mutually exclusive. And I’ve seen that concept used to manipulate and bully animal lovers way too many times.

Mind you, I don’t actually like most of the really prominent stuff said by animal rights activists, but that’s because most people who call themselves that, aren’t actually, you know, people who are working in the best interests of the rights of animals (and they often have a scary abstractified Peter Singer influenced approach to ethics in general). Sort of like the words ‘social justice’ are supposed to mean something that’s actually very good and important, but as actually commonly used these days they are almost always referring to something that’s the complete opposite of the real thing). And “bioethics” sounds like it should mean “ethics about biology”, but actually bears very little resemblance to anything that should be calling itself ethics (and often sits around “dispassionately” debating which people are worthy of living and which aren’t on the basis of disability and disease, with pretty much no input from disabled and sick people unless they can find someone who already agrees with them). And so forth.

It seems like there’s a thing, where people call themselves something and then do its opposite. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence, I think it’s a side-effect of a certain way of trying to think ethically.

In related news, widgets, widgets everywhere.

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