Psychological conditioning, rather than simple evolutionary instinct, is a major factor in our modern Western viewpoint concerning baby human vs. baby animal cuteness. We must consider the impact a century of books, cartoons, movies, and teddy bears has on our perception of this matter. This programming begins at infancy before we are even conscious of it, familiarizing and humanizing creatures that our ancestors not far back in time would have slaughtered, eaten, or killed for sport without guilt.
There’s probably something to that. While pets are kept all over the world, there definitely seems to be a big difference made by culture. I imagine socioeconomic status has something to do with it as well. I’ve had friends, both continental European and from various other parts of the world, who thought American society, having so many pets so visibly, was weird and possibly a bit disturbingly neotenic. Working class folks and people from early-generation diaspora families seem to rate especially likely to be weirded by it, in my experience. One of my Somali friends found the fact that I keep a cat weird, and kept worrying she was going to bite her randomly (to be fair, reading cat body language is a skill not everyone possesses). They have cats in Somalia, of course, and she was raised in North America, but the position and frequency of pets in Somali culture is just not the same...it’s different enough that a lot of Somali people I talk to will profess that Somali people just don’t keep pets. Not because it’s a true universal statement, just because white American norms around pets seem odd.
Psychological conditioning, rather than simple evolutionary instinct, is a major factor in our modern Western viewpoint concerning baby human vs. baby animal cuteness. We must consider the impact a century of books, cartoons, movies, and teddy bears has on our perception of this matter. This programming begins at infancy before we are even conscious of it, familiarizing and humanizing creatures that our ancestors not far back in time would have slaughtered, eaten, or killed for sport without guilt.
There’s probably something to that. While pets are kept all over the world, there definitely seems to be a big difference made by culture. I imagine socioeconomic status has something to do with it as well. I’ve had friends, both continental European and from various other parts of the world, who thought American society, having so many pets so visibly, was weird and possibly a bit disturbingly neotenic. Working class folks and people from early-generation diaspora families seem to rate especially likely to be weirded by it, in my experience. One of my Somali friends found the fact that I keep a cat weird, and kept worrying she was going to bite her randomly (to be fair, reading cat body language is a skill not everyone possesses). They have cats in Somalia, of course, and she was raised in North America, but the position and frequency of pets in Somali culture is just not the same...it’s different enough that a lot of Somali people I talk to will profess that Somali people just don’t keep pets. Not because it’s a true universal statement, just because white American norms around pets seem odd.