Brian Thornton on training otherwise tame pets to kill for
sport and butchering cattle:
I've participated in the latter, and I have to tell you, half
the time the cattle didn't even know they were dead. There's
a reason that a group of mindless people are frequently
referred to collectively as
"cattle." Smart, they are not. They never know what's coming
to them, and they have a pretty good life up to that point.
More to the point it's done humanely.
***************** There are at least some subtle
contradictions in the cow and pit bull discussion. Pelecanos
praises the passive and harmless nature of his half breed pit
bull, while the very same nature in a cow is likely to evoke
disgust. So do we value this passivity or despise it? The
answer lies between the pages of noir. Noir glorifies
struggle, stripped of any moral content, as a bare knuckle
existential celebration of life. Thus, the pit bull's easy
ways are only admirable in light of its propensity towards a
raging savagery. The lovable exterior is a thin veneer
masking a killer. The cow is so overwhelmingly docile that it
just don't get no respect. And when it does erupt into a
dangerous animal, such as in a bullfight, it gets respect. So
what on the surface appears to be an admiration for a passive
nature is deconstructed to reveal a reverence for
savagery.
The above is my pomo interpretation of the privileged passive
binary over its agressive opposite. Hope you had your hip
boots on.
miker
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