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The Truth about Cats and Dogs
Jan. 20th, 2002 09:51 pmPausing briefly only to mention that I love the film, except for not understanding why anyone would think that Uma Thurman is cuter than Janeane Garofalo. Except for that aside, the following has nothing to do with films.
I had a brief discussion this morning with Erin about keeping cats off of tables. It's my opinion that attempting to do so is pointless, as the cat merely waits for us to be out of the room before getting back on it.
And this is a vital difference between cats and dogs.
Cats are not tribal animals. If you repeatedly punish a cat for it's crimes it will think "Getting on the table when Andy is about pisses Andy off, I'd better wait for him to be out of the room."
Dogs, on the other hand, are tribal animals. They are more suited to dealing with rules and mores which are socially originated. If you punish a dog for doing certain things, it will start to think that doing those things is Wrong. If it then performs those actions, it will actually look guilty.
You will never, ever see a cat look guilty, because cat's don't feel guilty about doing things you don't want them to. They might avoid doing them so as to not get in trouble, but they would never think "That's wrong." because right and wrong are concepts you only need to make societies run smoothly. If you're always on your own, all you need to know is what causes problems and what doesn't.
This, of course, also applies to Libertarians (who tend to be loners and don't want social rules) and Socialists (who exist only in large societies and want to regulate peoples lives to make society work better). You can't train a libertarian, you can only show him danger. Similarly, socialists will generalise from individual points to create rules that cover all of society protecting us from 'wrongs'.
I think I'm stretching things here, but I don't think I'm stretching them very far. But that's probably because I'm far too tired to be typing this...
I had a brief discussion this morning with Erin about keeping cats off of tables. It's my opinion that attempting to do so is pointless, as the cat merely waits for us to be out of the room before getting back on it.
And this is a vital difference between cats and dogs.
Cats are not tribal animals. If you repeatedly punish a cat for it's crimes it will think "Getting on the table when Andy is about pisses Andy off, I'd better wait for him to be out of the room."
Dogs, on the other hand, are tribal animals. They are more suited to dealing with rules and mores which are socially originated. If you punish a dog for doing certain things, it will start to think that doing those things is Wrong. If it then performs those actions, it will actually look guilty.
You will never, ever see a cat look guilty, because cat's don't feel guilty about doing things you don't want them to. They might avoid doing them so as to not get in trouble, but they would never think "That's wrong." because right and wrong are concepts you only need to make societies run smoothly. If you're always on your own, all you need to know is what causes problems and what doesn't.
This, of course, also applies to Libertarians (who tend to be loners and don't want social rules) and Socialists (who exist only in large societies and want to regulate peoples lives to make society work better). You can't train a libertarian, you can only show him danger. Similarly, socialists will generalise from individual points to create rules that cover all of society protecting us from 'wrongs'.
I think I'm stretching things here, but I don't think I'm stretching them very far. But that's probably because I'm far too tired to be typing this...
