make sure to refresh this page every time you access it

updated 2/24/16

 

     

 

2-25 Fowler 2:97-203 + the info on families in lit. on the schedule and this page. 2nd half b&w; QUIZ including definitions of "family" and "beside ourselves"; LEADER: DEER

Obstacles to Compassion: Domination and "Family" Dynamics

*"FAMILY" the word is derived from the Latin familia, usually translated "household," and from famulus, usually translated "servant." Both of these root terms invite animals into the family, most commonly defined as "the body of persons who live in one house or under one head, including parents, children, servants, etc." (OED).  That "etc." is quite inviting, in view of the more specific definitions of "family" in the O.E.D.  My favorite is the application of the term "Happy Family" to"a collection of birds and animals of different natures and propensities living together in harmony in one cage." The OED citations begin with P.T. Barnum's recollection that he visited such a family at Coventry in 1844. More importantly, in Victorian science "family" meant specifically "a group of allied genera." The Chambers Encyclopedia of 1753 is the first OED citation for this word: "The bream and the herring, though very different in genus, may yet be brought into the same Family." A related definition of "family" is "those descended or claiming descent from a common ancestor: a house, kindred, lineage" (OED). In 1859 The Origin of Species proved that the lineage of all living beings could be traced back to common ancestors, demonstrating that animals are indeed our "kindred": members, like us, of the "household" we now call the world ecosystem. A very powerful recent documentary about speciesism builds on this sense of family, identifying us all as Earthlings. 

            There are many more examples of families that include animals ranging from, for example, the popular Life of Pi to the Bible. Pi grows up in India with the animals in his father's zoo. When the family and some of the animals set out for Canada and the boat sinks, Pi cries, "And what of my extended family – birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned." He ends up on a small lifeboat with a few survivors, eventually only himself and a tiger, and they make it all the way to Mexico. Naturally, readers recall a similar boat full of animals who also survive a watery disaster. Noah has an even more extended "family" of animals, but when they reach land, the peaceful kingdom becomes a war within the "family": "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered" (KJV: Genesis 9:1-2). This conflict, repressed at almost every meal, is a primary family secret.

            Despite this tension, extended families including animals pervaded nineteenth-century popular culture. Black Beauty, for instance, was almost as effective against one version of  speciesism as Uncle Tom's Cabin was against racism. We are familiar with the pet as a member of the Victorian family but this novel is an excellent example of how familia  as "household" includes servant animals as well as servants (famulus). John Manly, the coachman, says at one point: "where should I and Nelly have been if master and mistress and old Norman had only taken care of number one? Why – she in the workhouse and I hoeing turnips! Where would Black Beauty and Ginger have been if you had only thought of number one? Why, roasted to death!" No discrimination is made in that sentence between the humans and the animal servants. More importantly, this sense of family in the novel is expanded to the rest of the Christian world by the extension of "love thy neighbor as thy self" to animal as well as human neighbors.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

looking ahead

 

3-1 Fowler 3; Final third of the novel, pp. 200-308; 1st half b&w; QUIZ; LEADER: LEOPARD

---

3-2 P3 critiques due by midnight

---

3-3   Obstacles to Compassion: Domination in The Research University pairs b&w; QUIZ; LEADER: CAPYBARA

---

"CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN AMERICA"[ FLAG]

---

3-8   Obstacles to Compassion: Speciesism // Racism, 2nd half b&w;QUIZ;   LEADER?

3-10 P3b due; meet at 10 at LBJ library? [$3] or 9:30 at Bob Bullock museum? [$10]

---

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, once wrote, "to allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.

More than that, it is cooperation with violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys her own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful."

One interpretation: The fear of failure and the need to get things done create this downward spiral of the spirit. To break this "circle of violence" we must step back, reflect, meditate. While at rest we may be able to see things anew, which will increase our "fruitfulness at work" and at home.