[lit-ideas] Re: Can't have a gun? Get a dog
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 13:45:43 -0700
Eric Yost wrote:
Robert: I don't know how this discussion became one in which it's being
argued that Lawrence is right and the straw man is wrong.
You may have read my comments about dog training and conflated them with
my views on containing Islamist expansion. It may have sounded to you
like "war-monger on dog-training."
That's probably it. But I have now several times explained just what I
meant by Lawrence's straw man. This post comes a bit late. I took
Lawrence's straw man to be that someone here might support a method of
training in which the dog was trained to be dominant. Last night he
explained that this was meant facetiously. What did not strike me as
facetious was the notion that if anybody thought that people living with
dogs didn't need to establish who was the alpha animal they would of
course be committed to that silly view.
Until this morning, I thought that everyone agreed that when a dog/human
'pack' exists there may be a period during which there is an actual
'struggle' for dominance and that it's in the human's best interest to
make it clear that he or she is 'alpha.' I have been absolutely clear
what my views are throughout this discussion. Andreas (and in a way)
Omar have both claimed that this was a parochial notion, a sort of
Western fantasy in which certain unargued for beliefs about 'dominance'
lay behind how one viewed dogs and formerly colonized people. This is an
interesting conjecture but it isn't borne out by what can be observed in
situations in which packs do exist. The dogs in India that Andreas
observed apparently did not form packs, and they existed harmoniously
with each other and with humans. This doesn't show, however, that dogs
and humans in their artificial 'packs' don't exhibit alpha-competitive
behaviour or that dogs/wolves in packs live in democratic bliss.
I'm glad you reminded me that I was originally responding to your notion
that 'old people' couldn't establish dominance (or apparently train),
large powerful dogs. If you think this is so you must think it's so
because 'old people' lack the brute strength to 'handle' large powerful
dogs. And if you think this it would seem that you must believe brute
strength is essential to training Rotties, GSDs, Bouviers, and other
dogs (this is a Western list) that are used as protection dogs, in
police K-9 units and the like. These were the beliefs and assumptions
I challenged.
It's not. Throughout my childhood we had hunting dogs. I've had dogs in
New York, taken care of friends' dogs, and am in the middle of writing
something about dogs. I agree with what Lawrence and David Ritchie have
written.
Lawrence has by now, written a number of things. David has recounted his
experience with his Border Terrier. My only disagreement with Lawrence
was over how to understand some of the things Andreas said. As far as I
can tell, no one has challenged anything David wrote. I certainly haven't.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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