National Review
What cats can teach humans
Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life, by John Gray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 128 pages, $ 24) Parents sometimes say that nothing gives you more insight into the natural differences between men and women than raising a boy it’s a girl. I don’t have children, so I can’t judge – but I know someone could make a similar claim about dogs and cats. As the owner of one of each, I find it obvious that they have very different natures. My dog is energetic, submissive and warm; my cat is lazy, independent and reserved. When I call my dog’s name, he runs to me; when I call my cat’s name, she looks at me indifferently, without moving a muscle. My dog is happy to do what I do: sleep with me if I’m sleepy, go out with me if I need fresh air. If my cat does anything to me, it’s on her terms. If she doesn’t want to nest with me, she won’t; if she wants to eat, she will meow until I feed her. Now you must be asking yourself: is there any place for a discussion of cats and dogs in a serious political publication like this? Yes: a serious thinker launched a book arguing that we can learn a lot about human nature by analyzing the nature of cats. (Okay, there’s not much about dogs here, but I needed to mention them so as not to be accused of pet favoritism.) In Feline Philosophy, John Gray, observing how cats live their lives, tries to learn lessons about how we should live ours. A philosopher by training, Gray writes extensively on politics; he published books on liberal political philosophy, the modern condition and atheism. He now turns his attention to our feline companions and what they can teach us. Feline Philosophy is neither a philosophical treatise nor an exhibition of scientific literature on feline behavior. Instead, it is a short essay that makes amusing (but insightful and provocative) hypotheses about the cat’s nature, with the ultimate intention of providing wisdom about humanity. When I first heard about this book, I expected it to be filled with funny stories about, well, cats. That would have been good for me. I soon realized, however, that Gray’s love for cats was quite peculiar and certainly different from mine. He recognizes his cuteness, of course – but he almost seems to love cats because of his disdain for humans. At the very least, he thinks cats are superior to us in some important ways. Whenever he compares the nature of the cat to human nature, he finds the latter deficient. Consider Gray’s comparison between cat love and human love. He argues that even when cats love humans, they remain independent of us. As long as we supply their basic needs, they will remain in their natural state of contentment. They may be attached to us, but they don’t need us. In contrast, says Gray, human love is characterized by all kinds of pathologies: between human beings, love and hate tend to mix. We can love others deeply and, at the same time, resent them. The love we feel for other human beings can become hateful to us and be felt as a burden, an obstacle to our freedom, while the love they feel for us may seem false and untrustworthy. If, despite these suspicions, we continue to love them, we may end up hating ourselves. Cats are also superior, Gray reasoned, because they lack the ability to think – and thinking, in their assessment, is a curse. Thought gives rise to self-awareness, which in turn lets us know that we are going to die. “Our image of ourselves passing through time,” he writes, “comes with the realization that we will soon die. We spend a large part of our lives running from our own shadow. ”The story of Adam and Eve must convey this same lesson:“ In the Garden of Eden, the primordial human couple is clad in ignorance of themselves. When they reach self-awareness, they discover that they are naked. Thinking of yourself is the gift of the serpent that cannot be returned. ”For Gray, then, thought is a source of existential anxiety that serves only to disturb our souls. Cats, on the other hand, do not think; therefore, they are not affected by perpetual restlessness like us. Now, it can be objected that cats are not special, since no animal is capable of abstract thinking, certainly not at the level at which humans practice it. But Gray is aware of this; he responds by saying that even if cats had the capacity for a human degree of abstract reasoning, they would still “maintain the ease with which they inhabit the world”. Presumably, he inferred this from the way they currently behave, although he does not explain how cats would differ from other non-human animals in this respect. In any case, he argues that while humans engage in philosophy to answer the questions that plague us, feline philosophers – if they existed – would practice their craft just as a form of entertainment. Therefore, cats and humans have fundamentally different natural dispositions regarding life. “Happiness in humans is an artificial state,” writes Gray. “For cats, it is their natural condition.” Human happiness involves a struggle against our own nature, because it is in our nature to be miserable. Happiness for us, therefore, requires fun. We spend our lives seeking power, wealth or love in the hope of escaping the inevitable anguish that accompanies our self-awareness. Cats, on the other hand, achieve happiness simply by being. We are tempted to express some good words for humanity against Gray’s accusation. Of course, he is right to point out that human love is often unhealthy and that human thought often produces anguish. But the general picture he paints is quite one-sided. If love can cause a lot of pain, it can also lead to great happiness. Bertrand Russell, another British philosopher, wrote in the prologue to his autobiography that he sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that many times I would have sacrificed the rest of my life for a few hours of that joy. I sought it out, next, because it relieves loneliness – that terrible loneliness in which a trembling conscience looks over the edge of the world into the unfathomable and lifeless cold abyss. I finally looked for it, because in the union of love I saw, in a mystical miniature, the prefiguring vision of heaven that saints and poets imagined. Human thought also has its blessings. For example, reason can help us to appreciate beautiful things. When we think about the effort and ingenuity required to create a great painting, or a great work of literature, or a great cathedral or palace, we feel a reverence and delight that are not available to creatures without reason. (To be fair, Gray may argue that the aesthetic bliss made possible in part by reason is not enough – it is nothing like that – to make up for all the anxiety and confusion that reason also generates.) Leaving Gray’s grim assessment aside about humanity, which is defensible even if you disagree with that, let’s consider your proposals on how we should live. What can cats teach us? Near the end of the book, Gray offers ten “feline tips on how to live well” – that is, tips that a cat would give us if it could speak. Some of them are very suitable for me – for example, “sleep for the joy of sleeping” and “forget the search for happiness and you can find it”. This seems quite sensible. Some of Gray’s other feline tips are more controversial. He advises us not to bother to “persuade human beings to be reasonable”, because we are not reasonable and it is foolish to pretend that we are. He tells us to “be careful with anyone who offers to make you happy”. These people cannot be trusted, as they “offer to make you happy so that they themselves will be less unhappy”. For Gray, those who claim to live for others just want to relieve their own pain. I leave these tips for the reader to reflect on. The weakest part of the book comes in a rather strange argument that does not seem to fit the rest of the text. In addition to his observations about cats and humans and the lessons he draws from them, Gray says that “a good life for any living thing depends on what it needs to fulfill its nature. The good life is related to this nature. ”In a different passage, he writes that“ the good life is not the life you desire, but the one in which you are fulfilled ”- and what you find satisfactory will be determined by your individual nature. But there is an obvious problem. Gray spent much of the book criticizing the contradictions of human nature, so how can he encourage us to find fulfillment by trying to achieve that same nature? Oddly, Gray anticipates this objection, but does not offer a solution. “Human nature has produced many divergent and sometimes antagonistic life forms,” he writes. So, “how can anyone know his own nature, when human nature is so contradictory?” Well, how in fact? He doesn’t tell us. Feline Philosophy is worth reading if you love cats or philosophy, and especially if you love both. The author is somewhat misanthropic, but his misanthropy is central to the text and explains part of his appeal. This succinct book contains deep insights into the human condition and, yes, some funny stories about cats. What more can you ask?