"Artists like cats; soldiers like dogs"
About this Quote
A throwaway aphorism with a scalpel hidden inside: Desmond Morris collapses two big institutions - art and the military - into two household animals and dares you to recognize the behavioral truth before you object to the simplification. Cats suggest autonomy, selective affection, territoriality, a kind of self-directed grace. Dogs signal pack loyalty, eagerness to please, trainability, and the willingness to run toward the noise because someone whistled. The line works because it’s not really about liking pets; it’s about which social contract you find tolerable.
Coming from Morris, a scientist best known for translating human behavior through ethology, the quip carries the cool authority of someone who treats culture as another habitat. He’s smuggling a theory of temperament: artists often depend on independence, contrarian instincts, and a tolerance for solitude; soldiers depend on cohesion, obedience, and trust in hierarchy. The comparison flatters and needles both sides at once. The artist gets the romantic aura of the cat - enigmatic, self-possessed. The soldier gets the honor of the dog - brave, steadfast. But there’s bite: cats can be indifferent, even predatory; dogs can be unquestioning, even reckless in their loyalty.
Its context is mid-to-late 20th century pop science’s urge to explain messy human identities with clean biological metaphors. Morris isn’t offering a taxonomy so much as a cultural x-ray: art and war recruit different virtues, then reward people for performing them. The real subtext is that preference reveals politics of selfhood - do you want freedom with friction, or belonging with rules?
Coming from Morris, a scientist best known for translating human behavior through ethology, the quip carries the cool authority of someone who treats culture as another habitat. He’s smuggling a theory of temperament: artists often depend on independence, contrarian instincts, and a tolerance for solitude; soldiers depend on cohesion, obedience, and trust in hierarchy. The comparison flatters and needles both sides at once. The artist gets the romantic aura of the cat - enigmatic, self-possessed. The soldier gets the honor of the dog - brave, steadfast. But there’s bite: cats can be indifferent, even predatory; dogs can be unquestioning, even reckless in their loyalty.
Its context is mid-to-late 20th century pop science’s urge to explain messy human identities with clean biological metaphors. Morris isn’t offering a taxonomy so much as a cultural x-ray: art and war recruit different virtues, then reward people for performing them. The real subtext is that preference reveals politics of selfhood - do you want freedom with friction, or belonging with rules?
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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