So, leaving aside that Pepe Le Pui
is just a horrible skunk for chasing cats
- which is totally unnatural, although
I suppose if the cat were into it,
we'd all be in favor of Wild Kingdom
coverage, make it a series even, but the point
- or one point - is that interspecies bestiality is
hardly a problem, except
between porpoises and dolphins, possibly,
where consent is also a major concern
(or to be more specific: the lack thereof),
and usually this ends up a case
where nonconsensual sex
is definitely about murder, and reduction of competitors
for the same delicious fish - but still, brutal?
For all I know,
there are probably instances of this
in the primate kingdom. Family, class - whatever.
It's not a kingdom, which
is beside the point:
it's good to be king.
Skunks don't chase cats, but whatever, this guy
does. That's not our problem with him.
The problem we have with this guy is,
he is what they used to call in those days
"a masher." This was sort of a real "cute term"
for I don't know,
a platonic rapist? Someone who would
nonconsensually grab women and
wrestle with them, in
a sexually-suggestive fashion? Now to me frankly,
I'm glad we retired the term because "masher," you know,
fuck off. There's nothing wrong with calling it "sexual
assault," which it is. And was, and here comes
Pepe, confused by a stripe of paint whose bouquet
surely he's not REALLY mistaking for the ripe musk
of a female of his own species? Paint, folks
doesn't smell like skunk, folks, if it did
we'd be considerably less consternated when one of our dogs
got in the paint. Or
when we accidentally did the whole outside of the house
in skunk. And don't tell me
skunks only stink
when they spray! Check out Pepe's tail, for gosh sakes
- you can
SEE THE STINK,
radiating off it in waves!
but the point is, here I am
Telling you to check out Pepe's tail.
This is an instance of situational irony.
The second point is: whataboutism. Everybody's all up in Pepe's tail
vilifying the guy.
And they're right. He deserves to be. Even if he were targeting
his own species. Because he speaks English. So clearly,
- language-user, advanced sentience - he can't claim the right of animals
to amorality in the single-mindless pursuit of amorous conjunction
in complete disregard of consent, even if he spoke French.
Unacceptable. They should be
vilifying him.
But it's chilling
to see Wile E. and Sylvester to the side,
right in the thick of the lynch mob,
nervously cheering
1 comment:
There could probably be a poem about what this poem's about. It's about making cute cartoons out of animals, including humans. We love cute cartoons that convince us we're all just animals at heart, and we love to think that animals are at heart good creatures. Whereas in actual fact, animal behavior includes a great deal of normalized viciousness, activities we'd class as capital crimes in our world. Are those behaviors therefore bad? Are they good when animals do it, bad when we do? What makes us different from the animals, in terms of the rightness or wrongness of behavior? Why do we believe animals are morally exempt? Well, they are. But why are they?
I think it's because we can talk. For instance, hear and understand a fellow human being pleading not to be hurt. And because we can, many of us can hear in the cries of animals a reason for analogous compassion, which is probably just compassion. Dolphins, they say, are smart, maybe smart as we - and their communication is purported to be very expressive. They seem to enjoy helping other creatures sometimes, but it very much depends on who the creatures are and the circumstances. They can be breathtakingly, systematically vicious in ways we would not hesitate to call sadistic, if it weren't for the fact that they're animals. We shouldn't be surprised. It's very doubtful that dolphins ever had to go through epochs of intellectual and social upheaval where the dolphin equivalent of Greek, Chinese, German and French philosophers had it out over what life means, how much life is worth, or what is right for a dolphin to do.
Badly or well, dolphins behave. Cats play with prey for as long as they can keep it scurryingly, terrifiedly, excruciatingly alive to hone their needed survival skills, and then the male ones extrude a cruelly-barbed genitive organ to mate with screaming females. We, it seems, are the animal that agonizes over behavior, with our words. Once arguments are possible, arguments against cruelty aren't hard. And we keep the best arguments and pass them around, build upon them, and I think this is why we've come to consider some behaviors wrong. It is why we consider we have a right to declare such behaviors wrong, and to band together to punish deviant actors.
Animals are not better than us. They're blithely vicious in the ways that are natural to them, and to us as well. But because we can talk, we've convinced ourselves that we are not vicious. Or at least, that we shouldn't be. It amounts to the same thing.
We are actually very, very good animals. That's part of what makes us such horrible people.
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