My first question upon reading Haraway’s article is: Why not cats? Orreally, why not any other “companion species”? Perhaps it’s better touse the term “companion animal,” to ask this question, since given a”companion species” to humans, “one must include such organic beingsas rice, bees, tulips, and intestinal flora” (15). Leaving open sucha broad range of possibility certainly closes off our ability toreally find out what’s going on in any one particular relationship —this is the quantum problem of measuring devices. For comprehension,it seems that we must affect & therefore limit our subject. Whatthen, constitutes a “companion animal”? “Generally speaking,” writesHaraway, “one does not eat one’s companion animals…” (14). Though shegrants that the boundaries on whether “companion animals” like dogs”were and are vermin,” (14) may be the result of certain socialdeterminants (i.e. respect for dogs in early American Indiancultures), Haraway doesn’t present convincing evidence that her act ofchoosing dogs as the topic of this book is any more meaningful thanany other choice. It’s hard to overlook the economic implications ofwriting about a popular “companion animal,” such as dogs, against aless popular companion animal. Haraway’s interest in “the joint livesof dogs and people, who are bonded in significant otherness” (16)seems too convenient — there may the the most number of people withcompanion animals that are dogs, but does this aspect of the dog/humanrelationship make these relationships inherently meaningful? I thinkthat the Haraway’s book about our companion-relationship with ricemight produce some interesting results. Or her book about cows, sinceshe’d have to deal with the fact that a large portion of humanitywould rather consider them companion animals than Big Mac components.How much the better that this portion of humanity lies in anon-Western sphere of understanding.
Her proclivity for canines aside, I must say that I agree, in general,with many aspects of Haraway’s approach. I like that she wants totell a story — but if semiotics can be considered the study of thescience of all that can be used to tell a lie, then we must deal withHaraway’s anti-semiotic assertion of an objective truth in the form ofa neo-Catholic instantiation of truth in any sort of doctrine of realpresence. No jesus in my mouth, thanks. While Haraway comes rightout and says that “Species is about the corporeal join of the materialand the semiotic in ways unacceptable to the secular Protestantsensibilities of the American academy and to most versions of thehuman science of semiotics” (15-16), I get the feeling that she doesso to fend off criticisms by these groups, without explaining exactlywhy this “corporeal join” might be unacceptable, not to to mentionwhat such a “corporeal join” even is. I’m hoping this is another oneof those issues that’s worked out in the body of the text — such isthe risk of reading introductions. I think Haraway’s at her best whenshe’s insisting on “cohabiting an active history” (20) — when weattempt to understand ourselves through our companion animals, weadmit that there’s some variable we will never really know (thecompanion animal). This unknowing means that we are never finished —hence, any attempt to understand a whole self will fail. There’s ahole that’s never plugged, many holes, where self-meaning leaks outand into how we treat, think of, interact with, and imagine the mindsof our companions on this planet, and in this universe.