Marxist Animalism
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You haven’t even demonstrated the first premise of your argument ie shown that pet owners do call their pets “it”. I think all of them speak to their dog, cat, rabbit, hamster, budgie or pot-bellied pig as if they were human.
The only context in which I have heard pet owners referring to a pet as “it” is when one asks another “is it a he or a she?” I am not sure how a “triggered vegan” would pose that question.
As the discussion on that link you gave brought out, grammar is involved. So somebody referring to an animal as “it” might just be a pedant for “correct” English.
If you go by grammar then in France they must all be animal lovers because they never refer to other animals as “it” but only as “he” or “she”. I imagine it is the same in Occitan and other Romance languages.
Was I being obtuse in finding it weird to call yourself “one”? No, I was having a go at pomposity. Just like everyone laughs at Prince Charles for doing it. The demotic equivalent to “on” in French is “you” , thus “you often hear people referring to their own dog as ‘it’”. Only you don’t.
I have spoken to many dog-walkers who say, as I pet their dog, “Yes, it makes me walk it more than twice a day.” Or, “It narf gets me up at night.” My aunt said of my dog Chopper, whom I grew up with, “Do you remember when you used to take it up Hengistbury Head?”
The point is not that the French are “animal lovers”, but that in English we have the linguistic option of denying gender to “things”, and many of us regularly do so, showing that we consider nonhuman beings too to be things.
So now too, you are being obtuse.
I have a habit of referring to all dogs as he and all cats as she regardless of actual gender. Makes little difference to the animal concerned.
My cat gave me a filthy look as I read your last out loud, Alan. 😀
And, mind you, my aunt referred to me as “it” as well.
Animals that can do math understand more language than we think
A related article that has coincidentally appeared on the web.
But one of arguments is that humans are prone to humanising some animals yet deny affinity with others. My favourite example is the octopus and squid species…proven to be intelligent, proven to have a language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence
https://qz.com/908695/squid-speak-a-unique-undeciphered-language-using-their-skin/
Absolutely!
We recoil at looks, each having particular phobias, which bodes very ill for contact with inhabitants of other worlds. We recoil at beings on this, our own, world!
A brilliant book among countless ones is The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery.
I don’t know if this is a coincidence or whether this blogger has been following this thread but here’s what he’s just put up from 25 years ago.
Many thanks for this.
The article refered to is here
Which had this response from friends and comrades.
Yes. Thank you.
These are very good.
“I don’t know if this is a coincidence or whether this blogger has been following this thread but here’s what he’s just put up from 25 years ago.”
A coincidence. I just wanted to listen to some music from 1995 . . . and very good it was too.
The music/scanning angle is a bit of a bugger when I’m scanning in stuff from 1919, though.
“The music/scanning angle is a bit of a bugger when I’m scanning in stuff from 1919, though.”
I don’t know, Vesta Tilley Live at Leeds was a great album and what about Ivor Novello’s experimental acid jazz rendition of Keep the Home Fires Burning 🙂
Aren’t you the first to scold over not keeping to thread?
I love this music too, and have just watched again the BBC’s 1978 Pennies From Heaven, and ordered more Al Bowlly CDs.
But surely this should be in Off-topic.
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