The New York Times, January 8, 2014
David Brooks: As is well known, the world is divided into two sorts of people: those who divide the world into two sorts of people and those who don’t.
Gail Collins: I demand equal rights for those of us who divide the world into three kinds of people. At this moment I am working on just such a — um — trialism.
David: Not to get theological on you, but I believe the word you’re searching for is Trinitarian. Putting that large subject aside, I am a chronic dualist. I believe in Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between hedgehogs and foxes. I believe in David Riesman’s distinction between inner directed and other directed. I believe in Matthew Arnold’s distinction between Hebraic and Hellenistic. I believe in Nietzsche’s distinction between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. I think all dualisms are true. How about you?
Gail: Well, there’s Republican and Democrat. However, dueling parties is sort of an American thing. I have been watching that Danish political series, “Borgen,” lately and the Danes have a ton of parties. You can be Liberal or Radical Liberal or Danish People’s or Conservative People’s. Or, according to the series, you can belong to a weenie group that appears to consist only of one cranky young woman who used to be a squatter.
That seems more common than our dual system. What do you call it when you divide the world into a dozen pieces?
David: A full out nuclear exchange.
One of the nice things about being right-leaning is that I never watch Danish political dramas. Come to think of it, if you had to identify yourself on the basis of the above dualisms, how would you do it? I’d say I’m a fox who wishes he were a hedgehog. In other words I wish there were one all explaining theory of the universe that I could really sign up for, but I just haven’t found it.
Gail: I like the stories about the lion and the – something else. Lamb, mouse, amoeba – there are a lot of stories about the lion and a little weakling animal that turns out to be pretty canny. Then the moral is always that everybody can get along. Except in the case of the lion and the cobra, which I believe is an old Sinead O’Connor album.
David: Unless the lion were Aslan, I’d go with the wisdom of the serpent and the virtue of the dove. But back to dualisms: I used to be other-directed until I started reading the comments section under the columns; now I’m more inner-directed. I’m Hellenistic, but I should probably be more Hebraic. And I’m an Apollonian who probably should have been more Dionysian when I was young.
Gail: Wow, David, if we keep this up I’ll be forced to tell you about my lost youth as a Goldwater girl.
David: But I didn’t come here for a full set of confessions. I came here to bounce another dualism off of you. Do you think politicians are divided between cat politicians and dog politicians?
Gail: I have no idea, but I do know that readers love it when we talk pets. I’m already living in hope that during the next presidential cycle, we’ll discover that one of the candidates tossed a cat out of his dorm window, and I will get to mention it endlessly.
David: What if it’s a Democrat? Do you promise?
I don’t mean that some politicians own cats and others own dogs. That distinction is well known. In politics, owning a dog is practically obligatory for presidents while owning a cat is discriminated against. If a president even owns a cat (Lincoln, van Buren, McKinley, Carter and Clinton did) they usually keep the cat in the background. Presidential dogs are much more famous. I’m not sure you could get elected these days as a person who owned a cat but no dog.
Gail: This discussion makes me wish Rudy Giuliani had done better with his presidential aspirations. Then we could talk about his grand crusade against ferret owners.
But you were worrying about the lack of famous presidential cats. What about Socks Clinton? Although I am forced to avoid pronouns when discussing Socks because I have no idea whether Socks was a boy or a girl. Which I guess makes your point.
David: Come to think of it, this is a grave injustice. Why should we be discriminating against cat owners in this way? Why are there not marches and Supreme Court cases? I’m suddenly filled with righteous indignation. To the barricades!
Gail: David, once long ago I was on book tour and wound up at a reading with several other authors, all of whom wrote cat mysteries. That was the only time I’ve run into this much feline enthusiasm. But I know you speak for many Americans.
David: And I say this even though research suggests that Republicans are more likely to be dog people while Democrats are cat people. Nine of the 10 states with the highest rates of dog ownership voted for Romney. And this is despite a certain dog on the roof episode you may have heard about. Meanwhile, four of the top five states with the highest cat ownership went for Obama (Vermont, Maine, Oregon, Washington).
Gail: I’m thinking we’re just talking about empty states versus crowded states. That’s my longstanding theory about what underlies most of our politics. If you’re in a crowded state you appreciate the role of government, and if you’re in an empty state you tend not to see the point.
If you’re in an empty place, you would definitely want a dog for hunting and guarding purposes. But if you’re in, say, a studio apartment in a 20-floor condo building, you might be thinking cat.
David: I have no data on this. In New York, you see tons of dogs, but I guess that’s because hardly anyone takes the cat out for a walk. More discrimination!
Actually, my distinction is this. Some politicians have dog personalities and some have cat personalities. For example, Bill Clinton has a dog personality: eager to befriend, occasionally socially overenthusiastic. Barack Obama has a cat personality. He is a more self-sufficient, a little aloof, not pack oriented. Of presidents over the last hundred years, I would add both Bushes, L.B.J., J.F.K. and F.D.R. to the dog category.
Gail: I do remember L.B.J. picking up that beagle by the ears. Some of the presidents you named seemed to suffer from a short attention span, which I would definitely say is a dog thing.
David: I put Carter, Nixon, Coolidge and Wilson in the cat category. Eisenhower was a cat personality who put on the appearance of being a dog personality.
Gail: Eisenhower seems more like tanks versus golf clubs.
David: I say all this having read Nicholas Wade’s review, “What Your Cat Is Thinking,” in the paper earlier this week. He notes that while dogs have been domesticated for eons, cats are still essentially wild. According to Dr. John Bradshaw, the author of “Cat Sense,” cats regard humans as larger nonhostile cats. Dogs have adapted to life with humans and respond to human cues as if humans are humans. Cats have less highly evolved social behaviors.
Gail: I have finally figured out how to divide this in three! Guinea pigs. Right now I have a dog, but in the past I’ve had some really good experiences with pet guinea pigs. They do tend to squeal a lot and are totally fixated on short-term rewards. So guinea pigs can be Congress. Or maybe just the Senate, while the House is more hamster-y. Same behavior pattern, just harder to hear the individual squeaks.
David: Guinea pigs are too independent minded for Congress. I’d go straight for lemmings. Very angry lemmings.
Of the looming presidential candidates, Biden is definitely a big dog personality. Governor Christie is, too, but he’s got a louder bark. Personally, I could be persuaded that America needs a big, friendly dog in the White House, someone who is open toward everyone, no matter how rude people are. I’d like to see a politician who could win the country over with love and licking, and an endless capacity to fetch.
Gail: You’ve completely ignored Hillary, who I remember talking with great enthusiasm about her dog. His name was – or I guess still is – Seamus, the same as the Romneys’ Irish setter who got carted to Canada on the roof of the car.
I had intended never to bring Seamus up again, but now I’m thinking maybe the pet theme should be less about dualism and more about the perfect circle of political life.
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