National Review
What Cats Can Teach Humans
Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life, by John Gray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 128 pages, $ 24) Parents sometimes say that nothing gives you more insight into the natural differences between men and women than raising a boy and a girl. I don’t have kids so I can’t really judge – but I do know you could make a similar claim about cats and dogs. As the owner of one of each, I find it clear that they have very different natures. My dog is energetic, submissive and warm; my cat is lazy, independent and aloof. When I call my dog’s name, he runs to me; when I call out my cat’s name, she looks at me with pure indifference, without moving a muscle. My dog likes to do what I do: sleep with me when I’m sleepy, walk outside with me when I need fresh air. If my cat does something to me, it’s on her terms. If she doesn’t want to hug me, she won’t; when she wants to eat, she meows at me until I feed her. Now you may be wondering, is there a place for a discussion about cats and dogs in a serious political publication like this? Yes: a serious thinker has come up with a book in which he states that we can learn a lot about human nature by analyzing the nature of cats. (Okay, there isn’t much about dogs here, but I had to mention them so as not to be accused of pet favoritism.) In Feline Philosophy, John Gray, who observes how cats live their lives, tries to learn lessons about how we should ours must live. As a philosopher by training, Gray writes a lot about politics; he has published books on liberal political philosophy, on the modern situation and on atheism. He now turns his attention to our feline companions and what they can teach us. Feline Philosophy is not a philosophical treatise, nor is it an exposition of the scientific literature on feline behavior. Instead, it’s a short essay that makes playful (yet insightful and provocative) hypotheses about the cat nature, with the ultimate intention of providing wisdom about humanity. When I first heard about this book, I expected it to be full of fun stories about, well, cats. This would have been fine for me. However, I soon saw that Gray’s love for cats was rather peculiar, and certainly different from mine. He recognizes their cuteness, of course – but he almost seems to love cats for his disdain for people. At the very least, he thinks cats are superior to us in some important ways. Whenever he compares cat nature to human nature, he finds the latter flawed. Consider Gray’s comparison of cat love and human love. He states that even when cats love people, they remain independent of us. As long as we provide for their basic needs, they will remain in their natural state of satisfaction. They can be attached to us, but they don’t need us. On the other hand, according to Gray, human love is characterized by all kinds of pathologies: among people love and hate are often mixed. We can love others very much and hate them at the same time. The love we feel for other people may dislike us and can be felt as a burden, an obstacle to our freedom, while the love they feel for us may seem false and unreliable. If we keep loving them despite these suspicions, we can start hating ourselves. Cats are also superior, says Gray, because they lack the ability to think – and thinking is a curse in his opinion. Thought gives rise to self-awareness, which in turn enables us to know that we will die. “Our image of ourselves passing through time,” he writes, “comes with the realization that we will soon die. Much of our lives run for our own shadow. “The story of Adam and Eve is intended to teach this lesson:” In the Garden of Eden, the primeval human couple is clothed in ignorance of themselves. When they come to self-awareness, they find themselves naked. Thinking of yourself is the gift of the serpent that cannot be returned. ”Thus, for Gray, thought is a source of existential concern that only serves to disturb our souls. Cats meanwhile don’t think; therefore, they are not plagued by constant turmoil like us. Now you could argue that cats are not special, since no animal is capable of abstract thinking, especially at the level at which humans practice it. But Gray is aware of this; he answers by saying that even if cats had the capacity for a human degree of abstract reasoning, they would still “retain the ease with which they inhabit the world.” He presumably deduces this from the way they currently behave, although he does not explain how cats would differ from other non-human animals in this regard. In any case, he argues that while humans engage in philosophy to answer the questions that plague us, feline philosophers – if they existed – would only practice their trade as a form of entertainment. Cats and humans thus have fundamentally different natural predispositions for life. “Happiness in humans is an artificial condition,” writes Gray. “It’s their natural condition for cats.” Human happiness involves a struggle against our own nature, because it is in our nature to be miserable. Happiness for us therefore requires distraction. We spend our lives seeking power or wealth or love in the hope of escaping the inevitable fear that accompanies our self-awareness. Cats, on the other hand, achieve happiness simply by being. One is tempted to put a few good words for humanity against Gray’s charges. Of course, he rightly points out that human love is often unhealthy and that human thoughts often cause suffering. But the general picture he paints is rather one-sided. If love can lead to great pain, it can also lead to great happiness. Bertrand Russell, another British philosopher, wrote in the prologue to his autobiography that he first sought love because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed the rest of my life for a few hours of this joy. I then sought it out because it relieves loneliness – that awful loneliness in which a trembling consciousness looks over the edge of the world to the cold, unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have finally sought it, because in the union of love, in a mystical miniature, I have seen the progressive vision of heaven imagined by saints and poets. Human thinking also has its blessings. For example, reason can help us appreciate beautiful things. As we contemplate the effort and ingenuity put into creating a great painting, or a great piece of literature, or a great cathedral or palace, we feel an awe and joy unavailable to creatures who have no reason. (To be fair, Gray might object that the aesthetic bliss made possible in part by reason is not enough – in nothing like enough – to make up for all the fear and confusion that reason also causes.) Even if if you disagree, let’s take a look at his suggestions on how we should live. What can cats indeed teach us? Towards the end of the book, Gray gives ten “feline hints for living well” – those are tips a cat would give us if only it could talk. Some of them are very sympathetic to me – for example, “sleep for the joy of sleeping” and “forget the pursuit of happiness, and you might find it.” That sounds fair enough. A few of Gray’s other feline tips are more controversial. He advises us not to go through the trouble of “convincing people to be reasonable,” because we are not reasonable and it is folly to pretend we are. He tells us to “beware of anyone who offers to make you happy.” Such people cannot be trusted because they “offer to make you happy so that they themselves are less unhappy.” For Gray, those who claim to live for others only want to ease their own pain. I leave these tips for the reader to think about. The weakest part of the book comes in a somewhat strange argument that doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the text. Regardless of his observations about cats and humans, and the lessons he draws from them, Gray argues that “a good life for any living thing depends on what it needs to fulfill its nature. The good life is related to this nature. In another passage he writes that “the good life is not the life you want, but a life in which you are fulfilled” – and what you find fulfilling is determined by your individual nature. But there is a clear problem. Gray has spent much of the book criticizing the contradictions of human nature, so how then can he encourage us to find fulfillment by trying to realize that nature? Strangely, Gray anticipates this objection but offers no solution. “Human nature has produced many diverse and sometimes antagonistic life forms,” he writes. So “how can anyone know his own nature, when human nature is so contradictory?” Well, how indeed? He doesn’t tell us. Feline Philosophy is worth reading if you like cats or philosophy, and especially if you love both. The author is a bit of a misanthropy but his misanthropy is central to the text and explains some of it of its appeal. This concise book contains deep insights about the human condition and, yes, some adorable stories about cats. What more can you ask for?