In response to the editorial "Feline fixation a frightening fashion"

Feline fixation a frightening fashion

MARTIN VAN BEYNEN

Last updated 03/01/2015

SUPPLIED

A kitten fostered by Christchurch's Cat Rescue volunteers. The charity suffered a theft of its food and equipment over the weekend.

OPINION: A few years ago I wrote a book about remarkable earthquake survival stories.
I mention this fact not because I am hoping to flog a few more copies - still available from Amazon, by the way - but because when I am in bookshops, especially local ones, I like to check if it is still on the book shelves.
Sadly, although some old stalwarts which predate my book are still available, my book has gone from the shelves.
This would not be so bad but the other day I was in Scorpio Books, and on the shelf in a prime place was the latest earthquake book called Quake Cats.
A closer inspection revealed another related title - Quake Dogs.
This is perhaps a healthy sign about our current feeling about the earthquakes now nearly four years ago.
If people are ready to read about traumatised cats and dogs, perhaps we have reached a level of equanimity about the human strife experienced.
Some might see it as a gross trivialisation but whatever camp you are in, there can be no doubt society is going through a disturbing cat fixation.
Is cat worship putting it too high?
The ancient Egyptians had a cat cult by about 3000BC but their cats earned their place in the goddess parthenon because they were useful catching vermin.
Unsurprisingly, they came to be identified with fertility and sexuality.
I am not sure when the cult in modern times started but I first got an inkling when in hospital a few years ago.
I was mooching around the corridors and I glanced into an office to a see a staff member completely absorbed with what was on her computer screen.
I did not linger but it was long enough to see the screen covered in cat pictures.
Before I am dismissed as a cat hater like Gareth Morgan, I hasten to mention the VBs have a cat who is actually smarter than most of the members of the household.
He started life as an orphan and we found him surviving on the scraps on our compost heap which, I guess, means he started life as a vegetarian.
He was eventually adopted, desexed - I know how he feels - and became a member of the family.
He never got over his early trauma and to this day continues to be needy for affection.
The need is generously indulged although we never got around to giving him a proper permanent name.
Perhaps we have exceeded the boundaries of a healthy relationship between pet and human but it is nothing compared with the cat obsession in wider society.
It is not just me saying this. A publication no less than The Financial Times (October 4/5) has picked up the disturbing vogue.
The story, fetchingly headlined "Pussy Riot", starts with Karl Lagerfield's cat, Choupette, which reportedly has 42,000 followers on Twitter, a bodyguard, two fulltime attendants and a collection of Louis Vuitton handbags.
It eats from silver Goyard dishes.
"Choupette is the furry face of an emerging trend," the article says.
"Cats are in the ascendent style-wise."
The article points out that publishers are in on the cat action and fashion doyens like Vivienne Westwood and Ashley Williams have incorporated cat themes in their prints over the past year.
London's East End now boasts a cafe for cats, and celebrities sometimes get more attention for their cats than for their love exploits.
The combination of felines and fashion is understandable and has some historical foundation but that does not explain the wider societal fixation.
I blame the internet in part. Never have so many cute cat pictures been available so readily to the weak-minded among us. Never have there been so many opportunities to get your cat pictures noticed.
As The Financial Times story says, cats get you attention.
"So there you have it. Cats are lowbrow, highbrow, fun and chic.
"They're the essential fashion accessory for 2014. Especially if you want a good Instagram."
But there are more profound and dangerous undercurrents at work.
The cat mania is part of a trend towards people becoming more obsessed with trivialities, as a reaction to the apparently insurmountable problems of the modern world and in the search for some sort of meaning in a futile existence.
Humans, as the Egyptians did in ancient times, have turned to another species for solace and distraction.
We had an abundance of noble animals to choose from.
We chose the cat.

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 My Response:

Perhaps some of what Mr. Beynen says is true, as I'm sure there are people only interested in animals of any sort in order to gain attention to their human selves. If that is the case, then no one is going to pay attention to them for longer than it takes to see their cat.

Some folks are just into trends, but that's because they were superficial from the get go. They are no loss to me or the rest of the world;they are the followers of Kim Kardashian and her stupid kind of MTV/Bravo bullshit clan whose shallowness is akin to the scum left behind a dried up pond.

Then there are people like you and me who think of our furry roommates as family and would hurt someone if they hurt our kids, just like humans do for their own natural born kids. Does anyone question people if they ooh and ahh over someone's human baby? Do they question parents when they say that their kids are THE absolute smartest in the neighborhood? Do we question the years of home video of adorableness shrouded in colorful nappies on YouTube or reams of images of drooling infants on Flickr? Oh no. That is perfectly allowed and normal.

Perhaps this is even more true. That we are coming upon a new age, where we are joined to nature and to all living creatures, as we never have been before. That this movement begins with kittens that stir our hearts and escalates to wolves and penguins and tigers and trees and oceans full of fish and squid and whales. That we are developing a new form of sentience that is aware of more than what we are as a species, but less than God, but more god-like in its embrace?

If it is fashion, then it's wrong. But if it is more, open your eyes and really look. Time will tell, certainly, but for myself, I will be content to see my furkids, as much of myself as my own soul and be grateful that their presence in my life has made me a far better person than I would have been left to myself.

Lin Kerns
January 4, 2015