I read the assignment as Coetzee ONE, meaning Coetzee, lesson 1. My apologies for the inconvenience, but my blog is about Realism, not “The Philosophers and the Animals”.
“Is the comparison of human beings to animals venal? Patronizing? A mode of false consciousness? A blasphemy? A necessary mediation?” (Garber 297).
Throughout Coetzee’s Lesson One: Realism, he characterizes humans as animals, ranging from goldfish, cats, lions, mice, dogs, ducks, and insects. One particular line I enjoyed was, “Flecks of gold circling the dying whale, waiting their chance to dart in and take a quick mouthful” (Coetzee 6). The comparison to animals gave the person their personality–their identification. Here, Costello is describing the media. Rather than portraying them as the cliche vultures pecking on dead flesh, she demonstrates how little actions, if done in mass quantities, can bring down the strongest and largest of animals. The media can tear anyone apart. “‘There used to be a time, we believe, when we could say who we were,’” but that time is now past, and Coetzee uses animals to identify ourselves (19).
But animals are not the only thing that Coetzee relates to humans. At one point, Costello’s books come alive. She describes them as abused, homeless pets almost. Or perhaps orphaned children, “What lay behind my concern about deposit copies was the wish that, even if I myself should be knocked over by a bus the next day, this first-born of mine would have a home where it could snooze…and no one would come poking with a stick to see if it was still alive” (17).
So I can’t agree with Garber. The way Coetzee compares humans to naimals and gives literature a humanized place in Costello’s life gives me much more inspiration and sympathy towards animals than Garber’s use of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Holocaust. I can’t relate to those events–I wasn’t a part of them. And they’re given so vivid and understood an image that if one were to go against that feeling, they would be an outcast of society. If Earthlings had not used the Holocaust as it’s fundamental comparison to animal cruelty, would the class have reacted with such a strong hatred towards animal cruelty? You’re supposed to hate the actions of the Holocaust, so if animal cruelty is connected to the Holocaust, it creates the idea that animal cruelty should be treated as the Holocaust. The problem with this is the automatic dispassion and alienation it creates with no analytical or intellectual backup. It is all based on emotions and correlation.
All of my nicknames are centered on animals–Cat, Kitty Cat, Tiger. I like it when I’m told I’m graceful like a dear, fast as a mongoose, sly as a fox. But of course there are the bad ones: blind as a bat, slow as a turtle, big as an elephant. Further more, the inversion can be made with humans and books. Such as, your face is an open book, etc.
“‘If Jews were treated like cattle, it does not follow that cattle are treated like Jews. The inversion insults the memory of the dead’” (297). This seems completely arbitrary. Any argument could be written this way. The validity of this argument is just as bad as the Holocaust comparison in Earthlings. Why use an overused analogy that automatically disconnects the reader from the subject? This, in my opinion, is much worse than the disnification effect (if such an effect even exists). This creates dispassion and alienation through morals and ethics rather than childishness/immaturity.
