Furry Children

Returning from abroad, it is striking how much Canadians seem to care about their pets. There seems to be an animal hospital, grooming salon, or pet store on every commercial block. A good portion of each WalMart flyer features products for pets. And people pamper their pets to what seems an absurd degree; walking them about in winter in little boots and coats.

You would almost think they were filling some unmet need...

Why such care for pets, at the same time there are so few children—and so many aborted?

It seems morally wrong to spend so much money and attention on an animal, when there are tents of homeless I the street—not to mention the conditions in poorer countries. It seems a perfect example of the principle of privatum bonum: evil consists in valuing the lesser over the greater good.

Consider walking your cosseted dog by a homeless encampment. You are making a statement: in your opinion, those people are worth less than a dog.

Excessive love for animals is not an indication of good character. Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian who apparently loved his dogs. Caligula made his horse a consul.

Narcissists love pets, and hate children. A pet can be fully owned; a child cannot. Perhaps for a time, but if they survive, they will grow up and leave your control. And come to criticize your deeds. Worse still, they are liable to outlive you. Better a pet: a pet is entirely dependent on you, and entirely in your power.

This is the dream of the narcissist: complete dominance over another being.

And if a narcissist does have children, they will treat their children the same way, or some of them. They will take the weakest, least impressive child as their pet, spoil them, and elevate them over other children largely in order to demean the strong ones. The strongest one, they will scapegoat. Either expresses their godlike power.

I say all this as myself a vegetarian and a pet lover. I do not mean to imply that all pet owners are narcissists. Often a pet fills a legitimate need for a lonely person, or one who missed the chance to have a child. Not to mention service catching mice, or guarding the home.

But when an individual starts to treat an animal like a human, and when a whole society starts to do so—alarm bells should ring.