Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The thing at the library yesterday was actually a K-9 presentation. Two cops and their big german sheperds. And kids. Lots of kids.
What got me thinking was something I learned there: the dogs cannot receive affection at all. It would decondition them from their "tough-dog" working life. One cop said when he walked his dog, kids would come up and want to pet it. He had to explain to them how they couldn't, that it was a work dog. Can't have the dog getting friendly, it has to attack escaped convicts.
So this started spinning a lot of gears in my head. Is that fair to deprive an animal of physical affection because of its job? Do animals truly need that affection, or is that a human trait we lavish on them? And is it fair to put dogs in that position, to sniff out cocaine and murderers?
And this all ties into Brave New World (which I did check out, despite my absent wallet). I devoured that book, I haven't read it in years. It's a book about - amongst other things - societal conditioning. In Huxley's bizarre "utopia," people are genetically modified to fill the roles in society they are destined to play. They are then further trained and conditioned (like the K-9's?) to meet those goals.
Stephen Gaskin once said that all people have telepathic abilities. We are conditioned out of them, he said, to be a part of a duplicitous society. How much are we conditioned all our lives? Wash your hands say shema don't hit it's not nice don't talk to mommy that way 8 o'clock time for bed...
p.s. Aldous Huxley requested 100 micrograms of LSD as he lay dying.
Love, Maven @ 
7 Comments:
At 10:49 AM,
Anonymous said…
Thanks for reminding me to re-read Brave New World.
I think 1984 would be the next read.
Thanks Maven.
At 4:04 PM,
Anonymous said…
Gosh!don't fill yourself up with that narrishkeit!
At 7:01 PM,
Maven said…
anon - try philip roth's book "this perfect day." variation on a theme. amazing book.
anon - true, it's narrishkeit. but i can think of a lot worse.
At 10:23 PM,
Dinosaur Mom said…
Okay, I'm stumped, what is narrishkeit? Man, I hate it when I can't hum a few bars and fake it in Yiddish.
The police and bomb dogs and the guide dogs (I know a little sumptin sumptin about this from work) are not deprived of affection per se. They are deprived of random affection. The idea is that they get affection as a reward for desired behaviors and when kids pet them it messes with their conditioning. I can't decide if that's morally better or worse, but it does make for more effective service animals ...
At 8:57 AM,
Anonymous said…
Narishkeit is foolishness.
Maven--I just read Steven Gaskin's book "Rendered Infamous." It is great fun. Are you a Spiritual Midwifery person? That is our favorite book.
"This Perfect Day" is by Ira Levin.
At 10:05 AM,
Anonymous said…
Maven -
So funny that you are recommending Philip Roth. My Aunt Fan taught Philip Roth in Newark, NJ.
What riot.
At 10:19 AM,
Maven said…
anon - that's right! "this perfect day" is by ira levin. my mistake.
anon # 2 - the only philip roth book i ever read was "portnoy's complaint." i didn't like it. (maybe if i was a teenage boy i would appreciate it more?)
am i a "spiritual midwifery person?" i would say so. though i keep that well-read book hidden away. (i knew a family in crown heights who kept it in their kids'/guest bathroom, is that weird?)
their approach is not the jewish way, but it's special - there's a place for it. i'll add that i'm more enchanted by ina may than her husband.
anyway, yaakov keeps hinting he wants to take us camping in tennessee. "hey, we could stop off at the farm!" (he thinks this is incentive - like i need any).
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