Politics and Value, Part 1

Abstract

Although an animal may very well have a consciousness of himself, it is inconceivable that he should have a consciousness of history in any way analogous to that of man. Let us take for purposes of illustration a dog—in this instance a pug, that friendly little breed good primarily for sitting on the laps of old ladies. It is quite clear that the pug has an image, and a complex image, of the world. He has a memory; although it may be dependent more on the sense of smell than on other senses (and certainly more dependent on this sense than is man), this is not the point. The fact is he has a memory. And this is fairly well developed, as in the capacity to distinguish among a whole series of toys by name. In the second place, it is quite obvious that they have a rich range of emotional responses; they are sensitive to joy and sadness. I am inclined to think the range of emotional responses is wider than that of the human being, or at least of many human beings. They have a strong sense of sympathy and will comfort a suffering or unhappy child or adult. The ears are very expressive and go down in times of contentment and up in times of danger or excitement. The tail, needless to say, registers a whole range of emotions! What is more, they also have wills, which become quite apparent every time one passes the favorite fire plug or oak tree. They also have multiple forms of self-expression, as revealed in Daniel Schorr’s story about the dog in East Germany. Why then did you leave? Well every now and then I sort of wanted to bark!