I have been bothered by the words attributed to Plato “A dog has the soul of a philosopher.” because I cannot decide what he means by that. It sounds all romantic to those of us who love dogs- cooooool… my dog = philosopher! - I did name him Sage- how deep… Does Plato mean that dogs are contemplative and wise and think of things the rest of us haven’t? It would extend my already hefty willingness to anthropomorphize to believe that. In my search for depth on the matter I have found this often serenely quoted but never explained, but I did pick up the trail of a sidetrack- that the word “Cynic” is Greek for “dog-like.” Is it maybe supposed to be “A Cynic has the soul of a philosopher?” If I am cynical about things, is it because I am actually a philosopher- a lover of knowledge who knows too much to be caught up in hype and fluff?
Perhaps this quote is backward, and it is a philosopher who has the soul of a dog? In fact, in ancient Greece those philosophers who practiced and expounded on what more cultured people considered a dirty, doglike lifeway were termed the Cynics, after dogs specifically. The poster child of Cynicism was the philosopher Diogenes, who did hang around in the streets with dogs, lived in a tub, rejected all material possessions, addressed his physical drives on impulse and was ridiculed for living like a dog, with no shame. He countered his critics that the fact that a dog has no shame just proves that shame is artificial (by extension pride is superficial too) and we don’t need it and would live more purely and therefore more happily by sleeping, pooping, eating and licking ourselves whenever and wherever we please, like dogs do, and not sweat the details.
Sage on a scrap.
I have asked Reilly about this and she has rolled her eyes and sighed- “duh, Mom.” Seiji is hardly a worry-free soul himself, but agrees that if life were simplified and all he had to do was whatever he wanted wherever he was, he’d feel relieved. “Only you keep asking me to trespass with you through other dogs’ clearly marked territories and stay cool while we get cussed out by threatening brutes and shrilled at by lhasa apsos…that makes my life less simple.”
Reading about Diogenes is actually rather funny, and he reminds me of people we now call “performance artists,” and come to think of it, Diogenes was possibly afforded about the same regard at the time as performance artists today. (”weirdo! I hope you haven’t received any NEA funding for that?”) Am I cynical if I point out that exploration of Plato’s quote does not elevate dogs above mundane people to the vaunted status of philosophers, but humbles people and philosophers to the mundane, and delightful, earthiness of dogs?
Somehow I am again called into service representing the interests of the off-leash canine users of a local Field- THE Field- as the proprietors of the The Field walk the tippy tightrope of public relations between wanting the community to enjoy their Field VS liabilities for outcomes resulting from this use. (I am personally hoping that by typing the word “Field” many times I will condition myself to putting that i before e…) This comes up annually and the proprietors are sensibly not one bit interested in a repeat of someone’s ridiculous claim that the Field owners be financially responsible for the medical treatment of a dog that ran out of the Field into the road and was injured by a vehicle.
The proprietors’ offering to assuage their anxiety over this matter in the future is to post a sign requiring that all dogs must be on leash. This completely defeats any point of going to the Field at all, as for most users the privilege of taking their dog off leash to a vast field of alfalfa to meet his friends and watch them play while stumping along with your dog-owning human friends is worth driving to the next town for, worth being a little late to work for, worth walking in ice, snow, rain, mud, bugs and armpit high grass for. Walking dogs on leash you can do anywhere.
My proposal is, once again, for Field Proprietors to substitute their current sign draft with statements very specifically absolving themselves from responsibility and stating that all use is at your own risk, and change the leash language to one specifying control, not tethering. This may be an uphill battle though as it gets addressed pretty much annually in the same way, either because the Props really do not want to be bothered anymore to host us, or if they are just not creative enough to be flexible with the language to solve the problem. I am not sure I can continue to stave off the leash policy, mostly because the Props keep hauling out the same concern, which means I have in the past only been able to assuage them temporarily and they are not confident about liability (though they have not got as far as posting a sign before), but also because I have many balls to juggle of my own and since I cannot bring Sage to The Field, my attendance with Reilly has been very, very rare in the last year and a half. In short, my capacity to really care and put passion into the cause is really emptying out.
It is a privilege to bring our dogs there, for sure, and the Proprietors are happy to provide such a positive thing to the Community, so it is not a question of intention at all, just how to allow safe use, with no risk for the Props, and freedom for responsible dogs and owners/handlers. I have sent them examples of wording used by municipalities with off leash areas that thoroughly and clearly express responsibilities lying with dog people as examples of wording that works for other legal departments.. After all, if its good enough for Albuquerque, it should be good enough for The Field. In discussing this with Jeff, though, he reminds me that if you ask a lawyer how to cover your butt, they will always err on the side of over coverage- “We asked a lawyer at work about liability for our product, and we had to print lengthy paragraphs all over our packaging- but none of our competitors have done anything like that.” Why not? They didn’t ask any lawyers. Don’t ask if you don’t want the answer.
ahhh, NOW who’s being cynical?
This entry was posted
on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Urajiro.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
