Selfie with Cat (01-01-20)
I.
Many thinkers in various disciplines, including philosophy, like to affirm a notion of otherness - or radical alterity, as Baudrillard describes it.
In other words, they wish to acknowledge the Other in all its difference and dissimilarity; as the alien non-self, which challenges the notion of a unified and universal identity and/or models of insular cultural narcissism based on such an ideal.
The ethical proposition is that the Other is both prior and in some sense preferable to the self-same; a transcendent element whose loss seriously impoverishes the world.
But my cat isn't having any of this; she happily attempts to negate the otherness of the world around her and make all things familiar and smell the Same. And she does this by scent marking ...
II.
Encountering any new object in her environment, Cat will immediately mark it with her scent and, in doing so, she's not not simply declaring her own presence, but, as I say, nullifying otherness. In other words, by rubbing up against something she effecively rubs it out; it's a form of erasure more than self-expression.
I like to think, of course, that when she jumps up on the desk and rubs her face against mine, she's being affectionate and that this is a form of social bonding, etc. But I'm also aware that she's attempting to rid me of my human stench (my odoriferous otherness), so that she can just about tolerate my presence in the room.
The famous expert on animal, and human, behaviour, Desmond Morris, can offer you some assurance (see Catwatching - The Essential Guide to Cat Behaviour).
ReplyDeleteYes, Cat is marking you with scent glands ("on the temples and at the gape of the mouth," and "at the root of the tail"). But when a cat does this it is "scent-sharing" - it is reading our scent signals. It is creating "shared family scents."
Afterwards it will taste the areas scented by us with its tongue.
"As with all rubbing-greetings, head-to-head contact is a feline method of mingling personal scents and turning them into family scents."
Sadly, the human sense of smell is so atrophied that the "feline fragrances are too delicate for our crude noses."