More than woof
MANILA, Philippines - If a lion could talk, we could not understand him,” Ludwig Wittgenstein once said. (To which conservationist John Aspinall retorted: “It’s clear Wittgenstein hadn’t spent much time with lions.”) Author and philosopher John Gray characterized Wittgenstein as a “humanist in a venerable European tradition (wherein) Plato to Hegel have interpreted the world as if it was a mirror of human thinking… In all these philosophies, the world acquires a significance from the fact that humans have appeared in it. In fact, until humans arrive, there is hardly a world at all.”
Vinter, my Jack Russell terrier, would disagree with Wittgenstein — and Descartes who held that animals were merely unfeeling machines. Not that he cares much for their philosophies anyway. He has his own. If the latter philosopher found proof of his existence by declaring, “I think, therefore I am,” then I’ll submit that my dog has a massive capability for introspection. He’s always lost in his own thoughts and I’ve no reason to think that he’s preoccupied with bones or the other things we’ve ascribed to our canine friends as the extent of their preoccupations. In fact, he can spend the same length of time contemplating a painting of a famous fascist and Nazi that my wife painted that I spend watching movies like He’s Just Not That Into You and Yes Man back-to-back on HBO or a marathon of Callalily music videos on MYX. He also seems to like observing me though I’d refrain from drawing any comparisons to the painted figure and myself.
I often tell people that I prefer the company of my dogs to anyone else because they’re not evil even when I am. Not that they’re not capable of mischief or cruelty — they are. Vinter hates cats and always picks a fight with them. But I can’t subscribe that as being evil but rather just a character flaw. It’s quite natural for him to dislike them although age has since made him more tolerant. His younger brother Lucas loves Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. Apart from one or two songs in that, I personally find the musical to be risible but certainly not evil. Again, I’d put it down as a character flaw. (He can’t seem to get into Jesus Christ Superstar.)
The one thing that used to annoy me but now I’ve come to appreciate as endearing is the fact that they don’t obey me — especially when I call their names to come closer to me. (Which doesn’t seem to work on my fellow humans either, come to think of it.) A lot of times, Vinter, in particular, will just look at me when I call his name, as if acknowledging that, yes, he knows that I am uttering his name and that I want him to come near. But whether or not he will is another matter. That requires some thought, a weighing of options. It’s during these moments that I know we’re really communicating: bartering, pleading, convincing. It’s all the more gratifying and sweet when he chooses to walk in my direction.
Wittgenstein, Descartes and the rest of them can feign their deafness to the communication of animals and pretend they’re soulless automatons. I liken them to pet owners who choose to dress up their dogs and cats in outfits or dye their hair. They’re just not listening. Perhaps the example of another philosopher, Nietzsche, is poignant enough to point out. Famous for arguing that the best people should cultivate a taste for cruelty or his conception of the Übermensch, the German thinker had a mental breakdown in 1889 and embraced a horse he witnessed being flogged by a coachman on the Piazza Carlo Alberto. Some have interpreted it as an act of contrition or a begging for forgiveness for the erroneous thinking of his forbearers. To me, it was simply that he was finally listening and understood what the animal was trying to tell him. Without the benefit of or abandoning philosophy, he walked in its direction.
