the character of a cat

[hfojvt]

I found a box of treasure in my house tonight, a bunch of my books - Asimov, Simak, and also C.S. Lewis' "The abolition of man" which I decided to skim through what he calls "the Natural Law" when I came across this quote:

'He who is cruel and calumnious has the character of a cat' (Hindu, Laws of Manu)

So I thought I would run that by the cat lovers here. Are they accurate about the character of a cat - cruel and calumnious?

Ironically enough, the next example he quotes says:
'Slander not' (Babylonian Hymn to Samas)

Did they slander cats?

[Lindacooks]

1. Nope - here's a more accurate representation.

The dog: Oh boy! It's morning! Let's go out in the yard! My favorite! Kibble! I love it! My favorite! The kids! Lick lick kiss! My favorite!

The cat: Even though I have tried to carefully gauge the human being's intentions, it seems as though they have managed to slip medicine into my food once again. And, as I have noted before, my portions of food is decreasing inversely proportional to the amount of furniture I destroy. Further observations as events warrant.

[hfojvt]

4. Or how about?

Dog - oh boy, free food, and high in sugar too! I could really go for seconds, or for a walk or car-ride.

Cat - Well, there is another pile of that slop. Sigh. I suppose I will have to eat it if I cannot catch anything this morning. Bet I can catch that dustball - cha, and there's a fly - whack! There WAS a fly. Yep, I still got it. Better make sure the claws are still sharp. Whoops, vacuum alert, I'm gone - zing!

[Lindacooks]

9. Very nice!

LOL

[SoDesuKa]

2. Some People Don't Like Cats

Some people are turned off by cats and what they perceive as cats' aloofness. Personally, I don't think cats are aloof, they just enjoy being cats. People who don't like cats impute all kinds of motives to cats, like snobbery. This is the first I've heard that cats are thought to be cruel and calumnious. I certainly don't think it's true. This is a smear.

[hfojvt]

3. on the face of it, now that I look up the word calumny

it means "slander". How could a cat be slanderous even if it wanted to be? Cruelty is pretty hard to avoid when you are a hunter, and cats are infamous for toying with the mice they catch.
Dogs are perhaps friendlier because they really do not like to hunt. They would rather just wag their tails and have somebody give them a meal, although they do enjoy a chase, they really prefer a chaise.

[BuelahWitch]

5. Well, they could break something and blame it on the dog

Wouldn't that be slander? ;-)

[Patiod]

6. Mine bit me this morning at 4am, because she wanted tuna

Waking me from a sound sleep.

So no, cats are too evil to be slandered.

[WePurrsevere]

7. Not most I've known

We have a houseful of furbabies both cats and dogs (used to do rescue work, now it's just an occasional "dump" :mad: ). Each has their own distinct personality much like humans with some being very friendly and sweet and some a bit more aloof.

IMO to make a blanket statement saying all cats are cruel, haunty, etc would be like some folks saying all Democrats are liberals and anti-christian and all Republicans are ultra-conservative fundamentalists. ;)

Perhaps a more accurate quote would be from Mark Twain. "If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve the man but deteriorate the cat."

;) :D

[AlGore-08.com]

8. Keep in mind that the Laws of Manu were written in 1500 BCE

And are a religious text, trying not be disrespectful, I say that there are three reasons that cats might be seen negatively by the author:

1.) Cats might have been only semi-domesticated in India at that time. The scenario for how cats were domesticated is thought to be that human settlements brought steady populations of rodents; wild cats started hanging around human settlements for the improved hunting; humans realized that wild cats killing mice and rats was a big help, so they encouraged the wild cats to hang around with occasional gifts of food.

These kinds of cats would be feral cats, and would treat humans with a healthy amount of fear and caution. So pretty much the only time you would see a cat is when it was killing some of the rodents you attracted, or when it was eating food you left out for it as rapidly as possible and then running away from you in terror. If you accidentally got too close to a feral cat you were feeding, it would freak out, hissing and puffing up and attacking you if it felt like it had no other choice.

2.) Cat body language is much different than human or dog body language. Cats communicate whether they're hostile to other cats through eye contact. If a cat stares into the eyes of another cat with its eyes fully open, its challenging the other cat to a fight. The second cat signals that it accepts the challenge by returning the eye contact with its eyes fully open. If the second cat doesn't want to fight, it looks away and/or half closes its eyes. Even when there's no desire to fight, cats show that they have no aggressive intentions toward another cat by blinking, looking at each other with half closed eyes or closing their eyes and yawning, and/or not making any kind of direct eye contact. (All their non-aggressive interactions involve body language: they twine tails, groom each other, etc.)

Humans and dogs, on the other hand, show lack of aggression by looking unblinking into another set of eyes. Cats have to spend a lot of time learning to trust a particular human before they can override their instinctive reaction of "OH MY GOD THAT HUGE ANIMAL IS LOOKING RIGHT AT ME AND CHALLENGING ME TO A FIGHT I'M GONNA DIE RUN AWAY!!!!!!".

That is why cats always want to cuddle when we're reading or working on the computer or doing something else that requires us to focus our eyes on something besides the cat - - any time we're not looking at them directly, they read it as "I am so comfortable with you I'm completely ignoring you - - let's groom and twine tails and purr and roll up into a ball and sleep". And that's also why, when strange people are introduced into a cat's environment, the cat will seem to seek out the person who likes cats the least to rub up against and try and sit in their lap. The human who likes cats will often be looking straight at the cat's face, trying make eye contact, but the human who hates or fears cats will not look at it at all.

To many people who do not know cat body language, cats can seem cold and ungrateful.

3.) Many religious texts contain negative references to the religious texts and symbols of rival religions (or religions that were at one time rivals). There may have been an earlier religion in some part of India were cats had some important ritual significance, and the negative image of cats in the text is one of the few surviving clues to that struggle of ideas.