"Just a little cut."
In The Golden Compass a human being's soul exists external to the body in the form of a daemon. The villians of the first book perform experiments on children in which they cut the daemon away from the child; removing the bond between the child and its soul. The rationale for this experimentation is that cutting away the daemon renders the child immune to Dust, the quazi-physical particle version of original sin.
The heroes of the book are disgusted by the practice of cutting away a child's daemon (called "intercission"). To cut away the daemon is an abomination; it goes against the natural state and renders the child a shell of their former self. The villians in the book argue that protecting a child from dust, original sin, is worth the "little cut" of intercission.
So we have two parties in this situation. One party argues that modification of a being can be justified if the benefits outweigh the offsets. The other party argues that modification of a being is an abomination regardless of what this modification provides.
My sibling has a three legged kitten named Weeble. Weeble was hit by a car when younger and so his right front leg sustained terrible nerve damage and was itself broken and useless; the leg would drag on the ground as Weeble romped around. So one day Weeble had a surgery in which his right front leg, testicles, and claws were removed.
Relate that to the idea of intercission.
In what way is modification of a being through surgery justified? While viewing the film version of Golden Compass the audience was anxious and frightened during the scene in which the main character and her daemon are to have intercission performed on them. Yet surely these same people would see no problem modifying the reproductive organs of their pets via surgery. What of removing the claws of cats? What of circumcision? What of removing useless and detrimental appendages such as Weeble's leg? By what means do we define "useless" and "detrimental"? Is is detrimental for a cat to have its reproductive organs and claws; for a child to have its soul?
Certainly any action can have justifications fabricated for it. But by what means are these justifications assessed? Can we truly take offense at the idea of a child having her soul cut away in a book if in real life we remove the claws and reproductive organs of our pets; treating them like property rather than living beings?
I think not.
In Golden Compass the organization who performed intercissions justified their actions by claiming that they knew what was best for the children, that being immune to Dust was worth the hollow daemon-less existence. In what way are we not adopting that same ideology when we neuter our pets, when we remove our cat's claws, when we modify and change and conform living beings to our idiotic idealized notions of how they ought to be?
Are we truly so wise that we know all ends, that we truly understand what is best? Or do we merely rationalize the actions we perform to make our pets less whole, less natural, less free, and more convenient?
How often do we say "Oh, it's just a little cut"?
Too often.
8 comments:
I really don't think neutering or even de-clawing (as much as I detest it) can be compared to removing anyone's soul.
And sheesh, why not talk about people before pets, anyway? Organ replacement/removal surgery? Ever seen Return To Me? Is a person the same person or another person after they get a new heart?? What about Siamese twins, or whatever the PC term is now?
Your connundrum has way too much nonsensical reasoning attached to it, J.
"And sheesh, why not talk about people before pets, anyway?"
That's sort of the point. The arbitrary heirarchy by which humans are somehow above animals. The sense that human beings can know what is best for animals whereas animals are incapable of seeing the "big picture" in the same sense as children are incapable of seeing the "big picture" with regard to intercission in Golden Compass. The idea that animals are property and not entities in themselves in the same sense that the children in Golden Compass are basically, to use an apt term, guinea pigs.
What's interesting about this.. is.. J, your argument is one that you flat out would deny with different examples.
You're arguing, essentially, that animals MIGHT be people. That we don't quite know what seperates us.
And yet, anytime in the past three years something has endorsed a level of equality between humans and animals, you've been exceedingly hostile to it. Because animals aren't people.
You're making an argument for knowing your own uncertainty, but elsewhere you hold to your positions as certain. And I don't think it's because you're looking to score a point, but because you've got different starting positions this time - reading Compass and having Weebs.
"You're arguing, essentially, that animals MIGHT be people."
That's actually not in any way what I'm arguing.
It might be possible to not talk about people or pets at all, but rather what it means to have different kinds of relationships, and what kinds of decisions those relationships entail.
Do both parties agree to enter into the relationship or only one or do neither choose it? Is the relationship between peers or a superior/inferior, and are they cooperative or codependent, or is one dependent on the other? Can the nature of the relationship conceivably evolve to the point where the roles are reversed?
Once there is a relationship formed between two parties where a superior chooses an inferior and makes the inferior his dependent and it is quite certain that the dynamic will remain set, it seems natural (if not always proper) for the inferior to be made to adjust to suit the superior.
If the treatment of children/daemons in the Golden Compass seems wrong, then I think it's because we anticipate a relationship between adult/child that would not allow for intercission (one of superior/inferior with potential to turn into peer or even a role reversal), but instead the adults either see the children as permanent inferiors upon whom they can inflict their will, or they recognize the potential for change but decide to act during the superior/inferior stage and in that way abuse the relationship. If the subjects were not unwilling children, in other words, then the situation would probably seem less inappropriate.
As for what it means to be superior or inferior, I don't know what to say other than I suspect that superiority means a greater amount of whatever potency is considered important in his context. One constant, however, seems to be that those who have mastery over fire trump those that don't.
In the Golden Compass the relationship situation would be that The Church does not want children to "grow up". The removal of the daemon would keep children subservient to The Church.
In the Golden Compass a soul is external to one's self. So for human beings their souls exist as daemons. For Polar Bears their souls are their armor. To remove these things changes fundamentally what these beings are.
In that same sense removing the gender of an animal or removing various parts of an animal (claws, teeth, legs, the ability to move about freely) fundamentally changes the being.
So if we can think it wrong to change a fictional human being, a fictional polar bear, why would it be ok to change an actual being?
One aspect might be that when the polar bear loses his armor, he becomes a subservient drunkard who is able to tell others that he's not happy with his life. When a child loses his daemon, he becomes oddly distant and it's obvious that his life is in some way less than what it used to be, and he can say so. In other words, those changes are clearly detrimental and both subjects are able to communicate their displeasure.
When Weeble's leg was removed, he didn't stop acting like a kitten. He still runs around and gets into things and bats at things that are in front of him, and if he misses his leg, it's not very easy to determine that. He certainly can't just tell you that he misses his leg, but he could become sedentary or stop eating or something along those lines, but he hasn't.
And the more vaguely beneficial/detrimental removal of his gender and claws can probably be justified in a similar way. He doesn't seem to care, and he's not communicating in any real way that he feels as though he's been harmed. Granted part of that may be because he was so young when he lost parts of his body that he has nothing to compare his current state to, but is that sort of reflection even something cats are capable of? Using Golden Compass' polar bears to inform animal rights is maybe not the best way to go about it, since their polar bears are essentially human beings in the shape of a bear, and so anything we say about his treatment indicates how we feel about other humans, and says very little about how we should treat animals unless we likewise humanize animals.
And if you feel as though Weeble shouldn't have to communicate his displeasure, or that we should humanize Weeble, and therefore as his owner that you should respect his right to testicles and claws, then I would say that you should certainly question why it is that you feel you can "own" him in the first place (I know he's not your cat, but I don't think that invalidates my point).
Humanization of animals makes no sense if only because we have no way of determining whether or not Weeble ponders the meaning of his lost leg.
But the part of your argument where you say, "he's not communicating in any real way that he feels as though he's been harmed" is where I want to go.
Why ought communication be at all a factor in the decision? If I were to lay out an argument justifying abortion which said, "Fetuses don't say 'Please don't kill me!" so it is ok to kill them." I would be presenting a moronic argument.
Does the degree to which a creature is capable of communicating to human beings its feelings on a surgery matter when we consider the surgery? And even if a kitten could say, "Pwease do not wemove my craws!" could we not just say, as is done in the Golden Compass, "Oh, silly kitten, you simply do not fully understand the situation." and then rip its claws out.
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