I have mentioned before the Australian podcast The Philosophers' Zone. Last week it was about dignity. This got me thinking. The interviewee said there are three types of dignity - I can't really recall - and that it may still be an infringement of a person's dignity if they don't realise that they are being made to appear undignified.
So I thought what about animals? Dancing bears and circus elephants; dogs in tutus and birds taught to say swear words. Does it add to the harm that they appear undignified? Of course, the real harms are being caught and captive or being cruelly trained or being too hot in a coat or whatever. But does it add to the harm?
Likewise, I have thought about mastery. So, when you do boxing or climbing or running... or indeed sawing down a tree or dragging a tree... and you feel that you have pushed yourself and stood up to it, there is an exultant feeling that I think is physical more than cognitive. but not just about endorphins... there's something about not just the effort but the body doing its body things well... if you see what I mean.
You watch a dog running. Or birds doing aerial acrobatics. Lambs leaping. There's a physical exultation that is a kind of raw bodily mastery. What if you are denied that?? That seems to be a harm.
It's not JUST the lack of freedom.
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