by BlisteredWhippet » Wed 01 Nov 2006, 20:36:15
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As far as pet induced brain chemical rush-- If you can reduce a sensation down to it's constituent chemical parts, the "highest love" of one human for another is largely dependant on the hormone oxytocin. But what is oxytocin, or any mood or state generating hormone? The chemicals are simply the observable and measurable manifestations of something more substantial in terms of meaning. You go from reductionism to romanticism with great ease, in your last post. Can these two be reconciled?
Well, I think of it this way: reductionism is a key to new romanticism. Otherwise, what have you got? Old romanticism becomes habit, tradition, and caricature. Romanticism under pressure of reductionism evolves; without it coagulates. Humans have certain assumptions about the world, and if you want to change those assumptions, then reductionism is the way to do it.
Science could be construed as a field of reductionism dissolving the entire culture in an acid bath. The western philosophers of the 17th century were all about science, and attempting to dissolve the veil of folk knowledge that covered everything. In order to undertake this effort, they had to reductify their mission to principles and then romanticize that process.
But culture tends to coagulate, solidify around certain romanticized images. Every time you open a wikipedia page about something, you're exposed to reductive forces. So we have a popular conception of pets and then the history of where "pets" came from, and the various meanings and evolutions of the concept through time, and only by reduction can you appreciate it fully.
The physicist Richard P Feynman had a friend, some obnoxious artist who he frequently talked about beauty with. The artist held forth the opinion that by dissection and discovery a flower was made less beautiful, whereas Feynman held that his appreciation only grew. I actually think the artist is and was a kind of reductionist because painting and perceiving is a type of reconstruction.
Most people are like the artist, they have a dog, they enjoy it, and they don't need to deconstruct it. The door is always there, though. If they don't open it, what do they really know- what are they left with? The relationship is therefore only the sum of their assumptions, biases, rationalizations, feelings, and so forth.
You would think that most dog owners, living so closely with the animal would be able to produce a small book about all the aspects of ownership, but I doubt they could make even a pamphlet out of their experience, and most of that would be conjecture and speculation. The "artist" can look in the sky and appreciate a Raven and say a few words about its beauty, but can you say he appreciates it as much as the person who writes a novel-length treatise on the species? Reductionism allows for deeper and more meaningful romanticization. Reductionism doesn't lead to a lack of romanticization, it leads to deeper, more varied types of romanticization. It doesn't "end" somewhere, it opens up a kaleidoscope of possibilities. You said " The chemicals are simply the observable and measurable manifestations of something more substantial in terms of meaning. " That is correct, there
is something more meangingful and substantial hidden beyond the veil of your romanticism.
Like I said, most people don't need to romanticize or reduce things. They are content with the romanticization they know. Consider though a psyche which resists reductionism. They are stuck with a romanticism, for better for fear of worse. Should they be? Why shouldn't they subject their thoughts and attitudes to introspection?
Its like Bush's America, for example. This Americanism is a strain of romanticism that protects itself from reductionism. It plays along where it tends to illustrate its own preconceptions and biases. Bush's team loves to report the economy just went into an upswing or talk about states that uphold "values" BS. This is like a dog owner who engages in selective reductionism, he will eat up a Living-section of the newspaper article about how pets lower your blood pressure or tales of the special, precocious relationship someone has with an animal, anything consistent with his romantic view.
Each example shows how romanticism is a conceptualization that gives meaning and defines experience. For many, their version of pet ownership is the very best relationship they can have, better than a relationship with people. They ascribe this virtue to the pet, when it is in fact their romanticization of the pet that defines it. Bush's government has been very effective at convincing everyone that their governance is the best that it could be because they believe so strongly that it
is the best.
People define themselves into a conceptual corner. You see them all the time, clutching these old ideas and concepts. The rigidity and inflexibility against the ever-encroaching forces of reductionism wears away at the veil, and their convictions become brittle and vulnerable. They eventually bear the
loss of romanticism by organic decay. Sooner or later the veil will fall, while suffering a thousand small punctures.
This process is illustrated with the romanticization of a new pet. The organic decay of fresh romanticism begins quickly as the dog pees on the carpet and shits on the bed. The more resilient- which is to say, those destined for brittleness- smile, clean it up, and restore the gloss of cuteness. After a while it becomes clear that there is a fair amount of work involved with getting a dog to understand where and when to poop and pee, and the difficulties in training shatter illusions on the intelligibility of initial interactions. In short, the experience is a kind of reductionism going from an idealization to a reality. The successful manage this in a way that does not diminish their experience.
But the reality of all this is not communicated by contemporary romanticization. Pets are an industry, and the industry pushes a romanticization that is a glossy simplification that impresses on unprepared people an unfair burden. I would argue that not only is it unfair to people, but to the animals as well. This is cliche, but the truth is, it is a disaster.
The dog and cat incinerators, as I mentioned, are running 24 hours a day across America. The Pet food industry is a large patron of industrial farming practices and a multibillion dollar industry. Cats decimate small local bird populations. Nutrient-heavy dogshit infects waterways with fecal coliform bacteria. "Easter" Bunnies are thrown away, multiply and overrun, eating young native plant shoots. Small effects multiplied by millions of indivduations, and subject to accumulation over time. This is not trivial.
You go to some towns in Eastern Europe, and you have no problem perceiving that perhaps their romanticization and relationship to animals needs a revision. The living room is covered with straw, a cow occupies the middle of the room. Fresh milk on demand- cool. But the filth and smell is overpowering. Here is the scythe of social relativism, twin evil cousin of reductionism coming in. You think you're enlightened until you encounter certain middle eastern or African or South American cultures, who look at you with disgust- you keep your animals
inside? Dogs are
filthy. There are whole swathes of the country where the appropriate reaction to any dog is to pick up a rock and throw.
If your only frame of reference is your own romanticization, that is the only standard you can use to interpret these things. Therefore every bodybag coming back from Iraq is a symbol of staying the course. Romanticism, I said, is subject to the forces of decay.
But romanticism is necessary. Romanticism gives us convictions and conceptual space. Humans romanticize. I am not suggesting that humans can get rid of romanticism or should even aspire to that. It is a barren impossibility. Nihilism is still romanticization.
What I am suggesting is that there be a new romanticism that returns the balance to nature. I believe the perception of this necessity is blocked by a romanticism that implies that the norms of pet ownership somehow balances the indivudal and nature. Pet ownership is clearly a salve for urban humans that lack an authentic connection with nature, which implies a deep psychological need. These psychological needs were never so bare, or so raw as when the natural world was closer, and wilder. With development and spread of humanity, wildness has been pushed back, sanitized, humanized, and the essense of nature chased from those places. These essential forces exist in animals most clearly. Pets are the watered down substitute. Domestication is the process where you drive from a an animal all traits not desirable. Wildness is a condition where traits do not exist for anyone's sake. Wildness makes possible diversity of expression. Pet owners, I think, attempt to tap the psychic wellhead of wildness that exists in the soul of an animal to touch a perfect form of devotion, and "love". All else is stripped out but is found in nature. So where do we pull the rest of human experience from as example, or avatar? Lapdogs can only teach humans to act like lapdogs. Ambivalent cats teach humans haow to be ambivalent and selfish. Caged birds teach us how to be frustrated. Fish teach us the essense of being trapped and confined. Our vital experience of life is holgraphically demonstrated by each animal. A native american on the plain could have the strength of a buffalo, the eyes of an eagle, and so forth. This is predicated on the presense of these animals. We think we can get by without the presense of these animals, or settle for a "nature documentary". We shall see.
I don't have to own a dog to appreciate dog-ness. Likewise for eagle-ness, bear-ness, fish-ness. I appreciate all these things. I internalize their conceptual forms. I find though, that dogs, honestly, are less rich than wild forms. They are, in a way, man-made. The relationship between (early) humans and wild animals was characterized by ambiguous, etheral presence. Pet ownership is characterized, I would say, by domination. This is a huge difference. This dominance has been triumphant over the past 300 years, driving wildness out of everywhere and levelling the conceptual tapestry of animal life, of which we are still just one part.
If a human remains free of domination, then what is he? A "savage". Humans can return to wildness themselves, return to the enfolded realities outside the culture. To get there requires a new romanticism of the self.
Why are we content with the perfect love of the dog?
Gollum's "precious" lies within the walnut brain of a domestic cat. We could run with bears but we have chosen the anally retentive ambivalence of the cat. Who chose this? Who can choose otherwise when wildness is gone? Animals disappear from the earth, and they cannot be brought back. Without wildness, we cannot find ourselves back to meaningful romanticizations. We will be marooned in a sea of human-centric, transcendent romanticizations brought about by religion and culture.
Culture is the antioxidant which resists romantic decay. Attack cultural norms and values and you poke holes in its conceptual defenses. Conceptual battles result in changes to material reality. A new romanticism was the underlying engine of the 60s cultural revolt. Its failure is irrelevant. Every new idea flings itself like a kamikaze at the old romanticization. The futility of this post, for instance. Every coyote crossing the highway is a conceptual attempt to stop traffic from happening. Birds occasionally try to transgress and stop windows from happening. Elephants try to stop human development from overrunning the land, and Tigers sometimes try to stop humans from thinking they are the top consumer.
PO is about sea-change. These are conditions in which wide swaths of culture are knocked down and barbarians are able to sweep through. Modern culture and society, predicated on cheap energy, amounts to a mass romanticization of man's place in nature. Those within the cultural value scale sense the nearness of change, and it makes them anxious. Many people quaver and wring their hands over the dissolution of false impressions. The balance of wildness and complextiy and diversity could potentially return. We must embrace this, finally. We must learn to live without these simplistic token comforts. The Earth cannot suffer the inevitable results of continued domination. People cannot evolve without new romanticisms which embrace nondominational concepts. It will be the end of us. We cannot suffer the advance of the current unworkable romanticizations.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')h Lord Whippet. Having a dog or cat is the nearest most people CAN come to having an empathic relationship with the natural world. Your own comments seem to anthropomorphize "nature" as much as people do their pets. Your adoration of the of the natural world is, in it's own way, as much of a caricature as a bleached blonde bimbo clutching a distressed looking toy poodle.
to commune with the natural world. It is not. It does not open doors in people's minds. As such it is delusion, a lie, a simple untruth. Its the Matrix. A smile for a veil, etc. Do you think you can tell?
My anthropomorphisms? This is putting a human "face" on things. I don't think I have done this. You can see in the art of early humans that they did not put a human face on nature, they wore nature's faces on themselves. They took its forms as totemic, not its physical incarnation. The imposition of man as domesticization, development, growth, springs from one cultural drive among untold numbers of cultures in which this was not so ruthlessly persued. Modern man is a person who has settled for less. There is no susbstitute for authenticity. No test-tube, stem cell elephant grown in vitro is going to equal the vanishing elephant persona. What is precious about nature cannot be subject to reduction without utter destruction, unlike a mere conceptualization or romanticization.
So finally, we come to this: we either apply reductionism to our romanticizations and act accordingly, or suffer reductionism of the authentic which will leave our subsequent romanticizations more authentically impoverished.
People should not miss the forest for the trees by fleeing from those mechanizations which move to destroy the barriers between themselves and what gives their life meaning, but they do. They hold onto unreality with the death grip of fear.
Those for whom this is their only option are already impoverished utterly. These are people walking blasted and scarred landscapes from which diversity was wiped out. I would maintain the modern American nuclear family home is just one such example, like Somalia.
For every specie or wild area wiped out, we invest fractionally diluted energy into the pet, zoo, or objectification investment with diminishing returns. Will we be able to pull everything about the expansive meaning of our experience in nature through the singularity of a handful of domesticated animals, and their cartoon representatives? Can myth alone carry the meaning these animals give our existeneces after their physical forms are gone? I think the acceptance of substitute is part of a great diminishment of individual humanity, and humanity as a whole. We accept too much the inauthentic as rountine. As such we are lost, and this civilization will fall. Its romanticizations will one day be laid bare, as obviously as the ruins of Athens or Rome.
