Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets

by Yi-Fu Tuan

Is it cruelty or playfulness to breed a variety of goldfish with dysfunctional bulging eyes? Was it an urge for dominance or benevolence that led ladies of eighteenth-century England to keep finely dressed black boys as their pets? Can we be said to abuse a plant when part of our pleasure lies in twisting its stem into the shape of an animal? This is a provocative book about the psychological impulse to “make pets”―to tame and control inanimate nature, animals, and other humans. Yi-Fu Tuan has amassed a wealth of evidence to show that the human urge for domination―even in the cultural and aesthetic realm―has exhibited itself repeatedly through the ages. He contends that we fail to understand the true nature of pleasure, play, and art unless we put power as well as affection somewhere close to its center. When we view the beauty of a man-made landscape, we tend to forget that it was often initiated as an exercise in power; in the case of Louis XIV’s Versailles, for example, 30,000 soldiers had to labor day and night to bring water to the arid palace grounds. In the same way, the creation of topiary art and bonsai can be viewed in a dual as a playful, pleasurable activity or as a deliberate reminder of our ability to command and impose. Our relationship with animals is another vivid example of our inclination to control. Tuan contends that cruelty to animals is extremely breeding animals for aesthetic purpose and training them to perform are not only favored hobbies but examples of delight in willful manipulation. The abuse of power is also seen in the treatment of those human members of a household who become patronized as pets. Children, women, servants, and entertainers have been at different times both highly valued and severely controlled―trained to approach the obedience of inanimate matter or mechanical toys. Dominance and Affection is likely to change the way we look at ourselves and our “pets.” If it is sobering in the questions it raises about human nature, it is also irresistible in the nature of the varied and fascinating material it lays before the reader.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Animals, History

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 1984

About the author

Fu Tuan (Traditional Chinese: 段義孚, born 5 December 1930) is a Chinese-U.S. geographer.
Tuan was born in 1930 in Tientsin, China. He was the son of a rich oligarch and was part of the top class in the Republic of China. Tuan attended University College, London, but graduated from the University of Oxford with a B.A. and M.A. in 1951 and 1955 respectively. From there he went to California to continue his geographic education. He received his Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[Peacegal · Rating 5 out of 5]

What does it mean to be a pet? Pets are a condition of disposable income and comfort. A pet is coddled and pampered, but ultimately has no rights of its own. A pet can be bought, sold, given away, and even killed by its owner. This fascinating and truly unique book looks at animal, plant, environmental, and human pets.

The desire to manipulate nature into pets seems a uniquely human trait which remains constant throughout time, place, and society. Seemingly anything can serve the function of a pet—the author argues that some adults even treat their children more like lifestyle accessories--that is, pets. If this argument sounds too harsh, just look at the entertainment magazines. A celebrity who is fading or has suffered a tarnished reputation can redeem herself by having a bayybee. Suddenly, she's in the headlines again and prior transgressions are forgiven. The child can be passed on to a nanny and only trotted out when the star has a photo op. One needs to only visit a family restaurant or other public place to see that some parents see their young children more as pets or trophies than as growing human beings that must be taught to function in society.

The author isn’t afraid to “go there” and discuss what most of even the more radical animal rights groups will not—the subject of animal pets. We all love pets, but is their condition justifiable? Like Bonsai trees, most pet animals have been so molded and sculpted away from their original form that they are hardly recognizable. The author uses fancy goldfish as an example, which have been bred to be so malformed that they may have difficulty swimming. For example, the Telescope goldfish is so hobbled by its strangely protruding eyes that it can swim into objects and become blind. Fancy pigeons, too, have been stretched and compacted into such bizarre forms as to defy belief. But of course, dogs are the pets with which we are most familiar. There are dogs whose snouts are so pushed in that they have difficulty breathing. There are dogs whose eyes protrude so much that they are constantly weeping fluid. There are dogs with so many skin folds that they are prone to nasty skin infections. The English bulldog is so bizarrely formed that she must deliver her pups by Cesarean section. The health and comfort of the animal takes a backseat to what humans consider beautiful or interesting.

Beyond the bodily forms of the pets themselves, their dependent condition ensures they are at our mercy. People treat their pets with the same wide range of behaviors with which they treat other objects of property, such as cars. Some are loved, pampered, and looked after with great concern. Others sit outside in all weather, are never given any sort of preventative or diagnostic care, and then are disposed of when they get to be too much of a hassle. The author states in the text that the majority of Americans keep their dogs for 2 years or less. It would be interesting to see if this is indeed still the case. It certainly is with the fighting breeds, which are a highly liquid asset, both because of the animals’ own unpredictable behavior and the young, transient owners most often attracted to these breeds.

Like any good nonfiction read, this book is filled with little facts the reader will take away and ponder. We get a sense of the beginning of the circus show when we read of the trained wild animals that preformed in the gladiator rings. We also read that It was sometimes argued, by the Eastern church for instance, that animals were the incurable depraved instruments of Satan.

[cait · Rating 4 out of 5]

are dominance and affection always united? can't they exist separately and just sometimes overlap?

[Deiwin Sarjas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember adding this book to my list because I was interested in the history of how dogs and cats have been transformed from wild beasts to domesticated pets. This is not what the book is about. The book is more an exploration of why humans would make pets in the first place. And how the same powers play out in other areas, like our relationships to plants and other humans.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for M.A. in Animal Studies. Foundational work in thinking about humans' relationships with animals, but I don't know that all such relationships are necessarily marred by the dominance and affection paradigm

[Mahender Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book which explains nicely why and how human being tame, domesticate and dominate other living beings, plants and fellow humans.
But consequences of these activities are not discussed in detail.

[Emily Yang · Rating 4 out of 5]

前半本关于人类改造自然的章节非常难看，堆砌式的论证，好吧世上一切都关于支配和权力，so what？后半本讲动物，人类以及亲密关系开始变得好看，最后一章读得抖m眼泪汪汪：“绝大多数人——我们大多数——并不反对自己是“物件”，只要此物受人赞美……顺从中有甜蜜，被支配中有愉悦，尤其是随支配而来的是同权势者的亲密和有形的奖励，包括权势者表露感情的姿态。”

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved this book

[Nathaniel Raymond]

Engaging and challenging collection of essays exploring the relationships between people and places, plants, other people, and animals, and the expressions of power that occur in those interactions.

[a duck · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The effects of the exercise of power are everywhere and appear at different scales. In large and complex societies, perhaps the most striking effect is the transformation of nature. Forests are cleared and swamps drained to make way for human habitations. Trees are chopped down and rocks hewn to provide the raw materials of manufacture. Animals are harnessed to human service, consumed as food; their hide, fur, or feather are made into artifacts."

Yi-Fu Tuan (geographer, University of Wisconsin-Madison) presents an interesting study of the domineering relationship between humans and their pets. This book outlines the impact of human dominance on animals and nature, examining the way we forcibly modify animal anatomy and behavior, landscapes, and water. While the title may imply this volume is a study solely of animal pets, Tuan also analyzes our relationship to other forms of nature and wilderness (including gardens and fountains) as well as other humans. Two chapters are in fact dedicated to children, women, slaves, dwarves, and fools. His analysis of power relationships among all of these subgroups presents a fascinating read, but at times felt too disjointed and wandering.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome connections. Its very fun to independently discover feminism yourself in the 80s and describe sexism with the same engaged distress just applied to bonsai or goldfish bred to have huge eyeballs. Very incisive descriptions of common attitudes. Suffers from an utter failure of imagination- a lot of people use collaborative attentive care to navigate power imbalances thoughtfully and relate as peers despite minor or extreme differences in circumstances every day and have a lot of fun doing it :-)

[Scott Sargent · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book.