Reblogged:Sheltering From a Loaded Question

The Objectivism Meta-Blog Discussion
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Miss Manners offers a happy dog owner advice on dodging shaming attempts disguised as small talk:

[E]very time someone asks about our new puppy, they want to know what shelter I got him from. Many people are horrified to hear I would even consider anything outside of a shelter. I don’t want to go through the three-year story of our search [for a dog breeder] every time this comes up, but I am scared and almost embarrassed to admit I didn’t adopt.

I guess we can add normalized bullying to the sins of harms pets and endangers livelihoods to the consequences of the crusade against pet breeding.

While I vehemently disagree with Miss Manners’s mention of Immanuel Kant as some kind of moral exemplar, I otherwise agree with the advice below, with one proviso:

[Y]our dog is smart enough to know not to give a stranger a stick when experience tells him it is going to be used to smack him.

Instead of telling the stranger that your source was a backyard breeder, say you found your puppy through a friend of a friend – or whatever characterization you can invent that is technically true. At the same time, emphasize the other truth that your new family member was, just like a shelter animal, in need of a good home.

Then change the subject…

The proviso is, of course, that you are not interested at that moment in fighting back against this latest example of performative bullying dressed up as a moral crusade.

For those times that one is interested in fighting back, it is fine to indicate (as the letter writer can) that there are, strangely enough, breeders who take good care of their property; or (as I have), that there can be good reasons to seek out a breeder, ranging from allergies to preferences); or to become informed about the damage this cause is doing in the name of being humane to animals.

For those who do engage: The bullies might become more circumspect the next time, and people more innocently involved (and who actually care about animals) will perhaps become more careful about how they help animals and whom they view as allies in that endeavor.

– CAV

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Gus, you failed to engage with the two essential questions. The first is the propriety of moral evaluation, the second is the obligation to respond “cooperatively” to an ostensibly informational question. Let’s review the first point first.

Moral evaluation is good, Ayn Rand says so. They should morally evaluate your actions, just as you should morally evaluate their actions. It is even proper to announce your judgment. This could lead to clarity regarding their moral code. You might learn, for example, that the person adheres to a self-sacrificial moral code to the effect that “acting progressively” is an infinitely higher value than “gaining personal value”. Then you can evaluate the extent to which you find any value in knowing that person, perhaps you are really soulmates, but hopefully you will better understand how this person is a disvalue to you.

Now let’s move to the presumptuous presumption of “cooperativeness”. I will start with the premise that a lie (“we got him from the city dog pound”) is not a morally proper response (Judith actually disagrees). Every question constitutes a demand on the addressee, what right do they have to even make such a demand? In a morally-proper society, demands on another person require justification, to merit being chosen. Which points us to one solution: reply with “Why do you care?”, or “What business is it of yours?”. There are many variations on the MYOB response, all of which explicitly draw attention to the rudeness of making a demand on another person. The response can be framed as a factual (true) assertion, such as “I see no reason to respond to your interrogation”. The interrogator has violated a fundamental social rule, the MYOB rule, and it is morally proper to point out this appalling transgression. With any luck (it would actually be unreasonable to expect to get lucky with such a person), they might apologize for their presumptuous incursion.

Another class of responses is to answer uncooperatively: say something that is not clearly a rejection of their intrusion, but is still true. Why would anybody ever ask such a question in the first place? The worst reason is that the interrogator is acting as a moral gatekeeper. Why make the worst-possible assumption, instead make the more likely and more-generous assumption, that they are hoping to find a dog shelter so that they can get a dog of their own. Then the more useful answer would be whatever you know about dog shelters. Therefore, “There are lots of dogs on Petfinder”, or “The local pound has a lot of dogs”. Of course, if they respond saying “You didn’t answer the question that I asked”, i.e. they didn’t read between the lines and understand that you don’t want to answer their question, then they have upped the ante and you should resort to the response of my preceding paragraph.

The problem here, and this is endemic with Miss Manners and all of her ilk (most of whom are vastly worse than the Martins), is that they are generally trying to indoctrinate society into embracing self-sacrifice. In this instance, her suggested response is probably a lie (there is not a shred of evidence that the breeder was a “friend of a friend”).

Furthermore, since the premise is that all dogs should come from a rescue shelter and no dog could remain un-neutered, it is an ineffective lie. You literally admit that you got the dog from a breeder and not a shelter. I think her answer is the worst possible, because she tries to make it seem like you can have your cake and eat it too. You cannot resolve the contradiction. Either you have to accept that your values are useless and you should live according to the moral code of your inferiors, or you have to grow a pair and fight against this horrible altruistic code. They do not respect you to the point of minding their own business and they feel entitled to ask rude questions, why then are you not granted the same right? Very simply, because by their code, you are the most unimportant being on Earth.