Cats

First of all, I want to say that I am very much a cat
person. Dogs are okay, but cats are very definitely my pet of choice. They are
much better to cuddle up to, much more suited to relaxing with, and by and
large have an elegance and faux-independence which I find very pleasant to be
around. Unfortunately my flat is just too small and too close to a main road
(and too rented) to make it an adequate feline domicile, but someday I will
live somewhere suitable, and I look forward to sharing my space with a cat.

However, I have a minor issue with cat owners and,
specifically, with photographs of cats. It is simply this:

Cats are not cute.

It is not in the nature of cats to be cute. They are
elegant, (mostly) dignified, inscrutable, and almost without exception
eminently strokable. They are also venal, vicious, and amoral and utterly
self-absorbed. They are not cute. To me, “cute” implies love, harmlessness, the
ability to reciprocate affection, and possibly a certain helplessness. And big
eyes and furriness. And often an oversized head, but the physical options
aren’t important right now. So, let’s go back to the behavioural stuff:

1. Cats do not “love”. Except inasmuch as it will get
them food. That’s a fairly shallow and contingent type of love. In a human or a
dog, such behaviour would be despised. If you doubt this, consider what happens
when you put a cat in the same room as a small child. Many dogs can be trusted
with children. Most cats, on the other hand…
2. Cats are not harmless. They have claws. And use them.
Mostly on their owners (see point 1).
3. Cats do not reciprocate affection. They like being
stroked. They have no idea you like it too. You are just a feeding stroking
machine, and if you stop feeding or stroking, you will be dumped instantly.
Catch them young, and you can train them to accept a little bit of manhandling,
but that’s about it.
4. Cats are pretty helpless. I concede this. But you try
telling that to a cat (see point 2). And since they are in denial about it, it
doesn’t count.

So, since cats don’t conform to any of my ‘cuteness’
criteria, I contend that they are not cute. And since cats are not cute,
photographs of cats are, logically, not cute either. This is doubly so when you
think about their physical characteristics. The default cat expression is
Inscrutable, which they only swap for Pissed Off. They have hairy bottoms. They
are impossible to train to any useful activity (fetching slippers, putting up
shelves, etc) , which either makes them independently-minded (non-cute), or
stupid (also non-cute).Their default activities are Sleeping, Pooing, Hunting,
and Playing with Maimed Things, only one of which could be considered remotely
cute, and every single animal in the world does that, even the really really
un-cute ones.

What I find worrying and suspicious is that photos of
cats have multiplied and spread on the basis of this ‘cuteness’ myth. Sometimes
I wonder whether the internet is a cat invention to get more photos of cats
transmitted into outer space.

Anyway: with this piece of indisputable logic, I hereby
excuse myself from having to coo over pictures of other people’s cats. QED.

Actually, having written all this, I went to the bother
of actually looking up a definition of cute, and I may have to eat my words,
because one of the definitions of cute was ‘obviously contrived to charm’. This
sums it up rather well, I think. Cats have done very well out of contriving,
rather obviously, to charm. Also, don’t forget they carry a virus which makes
them smell attractive and depresses your ability to judge danger.

And I just realized I posted this to the message board. That's gonna get me into trouble...