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emma wrote

Would love to have a nice discussion about indoor pet keeping, but it can't be with someone who refers to it by loaded terms that imply cruelty, sorry.

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vos wrote

'Indoor pet keeping' already implies a certain control or ownership over the 'pet', who is defined in terms of their subservient position or relation to their owner.

I agree that at least 'incarcerated' is somewhat loaded and I wouldn't normally use the word myself. I only did it here in this thread because other people who I replied to used them. But it doesn't change the fact that cats are kept inside, i.e. that they are not allowed to go outside, and you can't deny that they do occupy the position of a subject, in the sense that they are subject to our will.

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emma wrote (edited )

'Indoor pet keeping' already implies a certain control or ownership over the 'pet', who is defined in terms of their subservient position or relation to their owner.

This is just yet another instance of anthropomorphising pets to draw shallow parallels between human atrocities and pet keeping. Presumably a nod to slavery?

But it doesn't change the fact that cats are kept inside, i.e. that they are not allowed to go outside, and you can't deny that they do occupy the position of a subject, in the sense that they are subject to our will.

Cats don't care about this. Cats only care about the things I listed above, and depend on humans to provide them. If anything, my cats own me, as I have to constantly feed and clean up after them (not indoor cats, btw).

Addendum: I will admit there's a valid point to be made about power imbalance, but it only really matters if you abuse your pets. This has nothing to do with indoor keeping, however.

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vos wrote

This is just yet another instance of anthropomorphising pets to draw shallow parallels between human atrocities and pet keeping. Presumably a nod to slavery?

I'm well aware of bad parallels drawn between groups of oppressed peoples, but this was not a nod to slavery. People literally talk about being owners of 'pets'. Legally, 'pets' are considered property. It's not antropomorphizing to point out hierarchical differences.

Cats don't care about this. Cats only care about the things I listed above

You're presenting a very shallow picture of a cat's desires, which you simply cannot claim to know exhaustively or indeed, at all, because... well you're not them and you can't look into their brain. Doesn't mean we can make inferences from their behavior, but even then your list falls short.

And as I said, in my experience cats do care about being kept inside, since the ones I've lived with cried in front of the door to be let out and often tried to escape when they got the chance (staying away for days when they managed to get away). I don't get how you can claim cats don't care about being kept inside.

And even if they didn't care, because maybe all they've ever known is inside, that still doesn't mean that it's okay to keep them inside, is it? Imagine keeping a human inside from birth, and then claiming it's okay because they don't care about being kept inside.

Addendum: I will admit there's a valid point to be made about power imbalance, but it only really matters if you abuse your pets. This has nothing to do with indoor keeping, however.

At least you admit there's a power imbalance but I don't understand how you can claim that it doesn't have anything to do with keeping them inside.

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emma wrote (edited )

You're presenting a very shallow picture of a cat's desires, which you simply cannot claim to know exhaustively or indeed, at all, because... well you're not them and you can't look into their brain. Doesn't mean we can make inferences from their behavior, but even then your list falls short.

Until it's proven that cats understand unjust hierarchy and such, I'm just going to assume cats are more or less what they seem: simple creatures that eat, sleep and hump things, with relatively complex emotional needs, and just enough cognitive ability to figure out that doors are hinged and climbing on furniture gets their humans' attentions. The concerns about authority and ownership are fundamentally beyond their understanding, and raising them on behalf of cats just comes across as some weird drive towards moral purity in the face of other anarchists who are equally lacking in sense of perspective and realistic expectations of cats' anti-authoritarian leanings.

And as I said, in my experience cats do care about being kept inside, since the ones I've lived with cried in front of the door to be let out and often tried to escape when they got the chance

This means very little, sorry to say. We have neighbour cats that will do this when they want to be let inside. It's not in any way indicative of some desire for autonomy or free roam, they're just trying to get food lol.

And even if they didn't care, because maybe all they've ever known is inside, that still doesn't mean that it's okay to keep them inside, is it? Imagine keeping a human inside from birth, and then claiming it's okay because they don't care about being kept inside.

And here you do the "what if you did this to a human" thing again. Amazing.

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