Friday Cat Blogging

One of my favorite sections of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class dwells on the “pecuniary reputation” of certain varieties of domesticated animals. In short, Veblen argues that while they invest considerable effort cultivating the aesthetically worthy — which is to say practically worthless — qualities of domestic creatures, the leisure classes are less preoccupied with cats than with the breeding of racehorses, pigeons, or dogs. The cat’s flaw, predictably enough, rests in its utility.

The cat is less reputable than [dogs or fast horses] because she is less wasteful; she may even serve a useful end. At the same time the cat’s temperament does not fit her for the honorific purpose. She lives with man on terms of equality, knows nothing of that relation of status which is the ancient basis of all distinctions of worth, honour, and repute, and she does not lend herself with facility to an invidious comparison between her owner and his neighbours.

For a culture rooted in conspicuous displays of waste, the cat provides little “honorific” benefit. By contrast with the dog, whose character Veblen describes as “fawning” and “servile,” the cat refuses to flatter its master’s sense of authority, as Henry — pictured above — helpfully demonstrates.

For anyone who’s ever lived with cats, there’s a certain “no shit” quality to Veblen’s analysis, but I still take a lot of delight in knowing that the greatest American sociologist of the early 20th century was a cat person.