The 9 Emotional Lives of Cats
An interview with Jeffrey Masson, author of The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey into the Feline Heart:
Cats are different because somehow — and this is what I think is so fascinating — they have made the transition. Somewhere along the line, they've chosen to live with people and to form an intimate bond with them. And that has allowed them to become a social species. They haven't changed genetically in four thousand years. I just don't see any scientific explanation except that they've made a choice. It goes against their evolution to bond with an alien species.
Hmmm. I haven't read the book, but claiming that cats' relationship to humans "goes against their evolution" doesn't make sense to me on the face of it. As I've ranted previously, evolution is uncaring and mindless, not seeking to benefit species or making 'progress'. I don't consider it meaningful to speak of an animal species going against evolution. They do what they do, and pay the genetic consequences. If domesticated cats didn't survive to reproductive age and reproduce, then they'd die out. Either way, they'd be experiencing the effects of evolutionary forces.
And I actually mean 'animal' to be exclusive of humans, there. We're memetic replicators also and memes can trump genes, an assertion I'm not going to attempt to justify in this blog entry. As ever, see Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine for more. This should not be mistaken as a claim for human superiority: being subject to memetic evolutionary pressure confers no moral advantage over genetic evolutionary pressure.
I've lived with cats most of my life and read some things about them, and the odd thing is, my impression is that they're quite social beings. So I think their relationship with us is an extension of their nature, their ability to interact with and express affection to others. It doesn't go against their nature at all. Of course, giving them a safe place to live with regular meals, and taking away the demands of sex (which are very intense for cats) gives them more scope to express these more laid-back emotions.
Posted by Kate on December 8 2002 20:56
Maybe he means, in some vague sense, that cats are subject to memetic evolution too. (Not that I agree, but at least he would be making a meaningful statement.)
Posted by Frank on December 9 2002 00:27