Blog #13 The Mixed Community

I'm glad Midgley chose to talk about the mixed community and the relationships that are formed between humans and animals. I like how she first put into context that not only in today's society are animals involved in human communities but animals were also part of human communities back in the agriculture culture when farm animals had day to day contact with humans. The idea of the species barrier is broken in these kinds of situations because animals react with humans and they too are emotional and deserve respect just like humans do. The species barrier is permeable because animals relate to humans and form bonds between each other. The bonds between animals and humans are strong especially with house pets which tends to allow for animals to experience close ties with humans. Since house pets allow for the human to have a close relationship with them there tends to be no species barrier. Also there is no species barrier because of how young children can interact and play with young pets as well. The pets realize that the human is of the same species size which allows for a closer relationship between the young child and the young pet. This is why young children tend to have a closer bond with animals rather than adults.

Midgley also points out how domestic animals have been conditioned to interact with human beings. This is also another reason why the species barriers is broken. The animals become domesticated because they are able to be tamed by humans who care and look out for the animals. The animals learn to obey humans and they do this because they see that the humans are social beings and they too become social beings as well. Humans realize that not all animals can be tamed and we take that into consideration. It is really weird to think that animals like elephants and tigers especially can be tamed. I went to the circus this past weekend and I have come to the conclusion that it takes a lot of skill and human interaction between the animals and the tamer because the way the animals act towards humans is just fascinating. It is weird to think as little kids we don't realize what animals may do if they turn on you. I think that young children just assume all animals are nice and want to be close too which is why the species barrier is especially broken with the young species.

Another aspect of this chapter that interest me was the idea of sympathy and how we humans relation to sympathy towards animals. Even if animals aren't house pets we still experience a bond between animals and may still feel emotional when animals are tortured or killed. Animals don't have to be domesticated to receive sympathy from the human race. We are sympathetic to the idea that we realize animals have emotional lives but we still put our interest above the animals interest because that is norm in this society. We use knowledge and the way we react towards animals of a different species to shape our behavior. The treatment toward animals as Midgley states, "has never been impersonal'. this means that our bonds towards animals have a meaning and purpose and this meaning shows how humans care for animals. Animals are capable of having a point of view and having a point of view belongs to the idea with people rather then the idea of things. Overall this chapter was easy to relate to for anybody since I am sure we all have or had at least one pet that we establish firm bonds with.