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AMBIGUOUS ANIMALS So far we have considered the natural species system as the model of concrete diversity and order. In nature animals do not grade smoothly from one kind to another, but form distinct groups of very similar individuals. Between species there is a gap that the animals themselves—and we—can recognize. We are order-making creatures and the natural world is a fit place for brains that grow by observing the adherence to kind and the clustering ofkindsinto groups. The world of ideas and social relations, however, is full offuzziness . Our feelings, ethics, and morality are often gray with twilight areas and fleeting incongruity. Coping with such shifting concepts is an endless task, but we have confidence that behind the uncertainty the world is coherent—our optimism resting in the dependable reality of the master set of types, the species. Although we expect our abstract ideas to need constant clarifying and defining, we become agitated when the creatures seem not to fit the taxonomic system. Such incompatible animals shock us. The degree of our upset indicates that something more is disturbed than the plan of animal classification. Exceptions to the system threaten not only animal order but our basic model for order; more than that, those anomalies signify intrusion, some active principle of derangement and tumult, alarming forces of disorder and evil, much worse than flawed classification. People are so touchy about this foundation to a meaningful existence that ambiguity even in well-known animals sets off an anxious reaction. Even small details of an animal that remind us of some other form trigger our alarm. The ambiguity can arise in a number of ways: physically, like the dubious sexuality of the mule; behaviorally, like a flying horse in one's dreams; or even in habitat, such as the tiny "horses" living in the sea. Parallel to and part of this is a corresponding disturbance of language. The names of the animals or of their traits are loaded with tension. Like the animal, the terms may be obscene and are regulated by formal precautions or prohibitions—in short, by 76 3 The Margins of Our Attention 77 taboo. Even such familiar terms of abuse as "rat," dog," or "pig" are far more insulting than merely calling someone an animal, as they refer to an aspect of those animals that is unclear and therefore dangerous or dirty. The Margins of Our Attention That some aspects of an animal are equivocal while others seem perfectly normal reminds us that we actually think of animals as combinations of parts or traits. The animal figure is like a powerful magnet, drawing the child's attention. As he devours it with his eyes, he asks for and says its name. Both innately and by prompting, he learns to look for those traits by which it can be defined. He learns to scrutinize parts and to think of them separately. In this way we all become morphologists and anatomists very early. We see, for example, not only that birds have wings, but also the length of corresponding wing feathers or colorations of the equivalent bodyparts. In very similar forms we work from an abstract common model to which we add or remove those particular parts. They become psychologically detachable; each can exist in its own right, as much a part of the class "legs" or "wings" as it is a member of a species. The process of dissecting things and regrouping them by imagination leads to plural definitions for every species. Each animal is a combination of parts, but not only of physical form and appearance. We also "assemble" them by what they do, where they live, how they are related to each other and to people. By defining animals along a number of axes, sets of variables become available that can be used as grids for comparisons. Most of them are less precise than the anatomical features. Many societies classify animals according to their proximity to the human dwelling. From those at the hearth or about the household , outward to adjacent yards or pens, in stockades and barnyards , pastures and fields, to woodlots and distant, wild places, the animal kingdom has been dispersed through the centuries according to the patterns established by the village or farmstead and those surrounding zones of reduced intensity of human use. Distance from the hearth is synonymous with wildness. Distance from the hearth is also related to edibility; not only whether ani- [18.117.81.240] Project MUSE...

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