The Professor and His Dog
Or The Canine Deconstructs His Master
Photo by Taylor Kopel on Unsplash
“Nobody’s got any loyalty anymore. Friendship doesn’t mean anything to most people. Anybody and everybody will dump their friends at the slightest hint of an online pogrom.”
Professor Heinz couldn’t stand watching his counterpart speak. With every dripping syllable, the man’s lower lip trembled like a great wobbling walrus. His skin glowed like melting wax, or butter. Beads of sweat glistened on the fellow’s forehead. His shirt already showed damp patches near his armpits and along his chest and back. And was that a bit of snot? Oh my, was he? Yes, he was. He was using his sleeve to wipe his nose midsentence. Did he ever look in the mirror? Seriously, his rolls of fat shook when he emphasized words.
“Professor Heinz, are you listening to me?” the pompous bore demanded. Admittedly, Professor Heinz had tuned out the last sentence or two. “Did you hear what I said?” he went on, “as soon as anyone puts one foot wrong on Twitter or Facebook these days, all of their friends denounce them. Not a single one stands up. Not one says, ‘I won’t say anything bad about my friend behind his back.’ No, it’s, ‘I never knew he was a racist, sexist, homophobe, fill-in-your-epithet. I utterly condemn whatever he said. It was unconscionable,’ they love that word – unconscionable – ‘and I apologize for ever being friends with him.’ Everybody’s so concerned that deplorableness might rub off on them by association that they’ll tarnish a friend rather than their precious reputation. It’s disgraceful.”
How had this man ever convinced the university to give him tenure? I mean, he was practically spitting on the first row of students as he shouted his screed. And, speaking of unconscionable, the idea that some board had deigned to give him a distinguished chair in political economy? Professor Heinz hadn’t gotten an endowed chair yet.
“Thank you, Professor Jonson. Your time is up. Now we turn to Professor Heinz. You have five minutes for your rebuttal, Professor.”
“Thank you, Jemma,” Heinz said to the moderator. “Now, let’s start where you left off. Someone gets canceled on social media. Your friend. What do you do in that scenario? Well, I for one would rather not be on the side of, in your words, ‘racism, sexism, homophobia,’ and we could no doubt add, ‘transphobia, ableism,’ and various other transgressions, would you agree?”
Professor Jonson nodded.
“Well, I would rather not be on the side of toxicity. I wouldn’t remain silent when someone actively harms members of minoritized communities. Even if that person is a person with whom I have been friendly. Even if that person is my so-called ‘friend.’ Besides, I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who professes racist or homophobic things. Of course, I’d call that out. I would rather speak out than refuse to condemn hate out of some misplaced sense of false loyal-“
“False? How can you-?”
“Professor Jonson, you interrupted me, so I can interrupt you back. I respected your time, please respect mine.”
The man nodded apologetically, no doubt deciding to play up his gentleman persona.
“Anyway, I do say false. Too often, loyalty seems to simply be cult of personality. It’s power-worship or worship of authority. And – make no mistake – the subjects of that loyal following are all too happy to ditch their followers as soon as they’ve used them to their purposes. Loyalty typically flows one way. That’s why I say false. Now, I will give you a chance to respond, seeing as you look unable to contain yourself much longer.”
“I beg to differ. The example you give – cult of personality – is false loyalty. But not all loyalty is false. You are entirely correct that, too often, powerful men and women see loyalty as fealty owed to them by their followers, rather than a relationship of equality requiring reciprocity on both sides. Perhaps we would say that problems can arise when loyalty is unevenly distributed, or out of excesses of loyalty. But that is not to take away from the fact that – properly understood – loyalty is a beautiful thing and one of the finest virtues man can demonstrate.”
“Just man?”
“Pardon me, man and woman. I believe we got off on the wrong foot. My example was poor. I did not mean to defend racism or sexism. People ditch their friends at the slightest provocations. It doesn’t have to be any -ism. It could be anything. It really feels like loyalty no longer exists in the Internet Age. Loyalty is one of the very bedrocks upon which civilization itself rests. And were we to forget the need for the bedrock because we have advanced so far as to make it seem anachronistic, or even unnecessary; were we to attempt to do away with it because we feel we are too civilized to have need for it, we do so at our peril. For we tear at the very foundation we stand upon and if we tear too much we risk the building’s collapse.”
“Civilization, you say? I see. But would you not admit that much of civilization has involved uneven power structures that unfairly disadvantaged certain peoples? Setting aside those -isms, for the moment, as you requested. Because I might add that what you call civilization might be said to be utterly caught up in every sort of -ism. But setting that aside, would you not say that civilization has created profound inequalities and inequities? That is why I say that loyalty always runs one way. The ruling class rarely has much loyalty for the people they step on.”
“You misunderstand me. Suffice to say that, though I agree disparities exist, I do not share your view of civilization and we are not going to come to an agreement on that tonight – it is beyond the scope of our debate. Rather, I’d like to move back to my original point. I did not want to talk about uneven power dynamics, because loyalty is quite often loyalty among equals – I might go so far as to say that it can be, at least to some degree – equalizing, but that, too, is getting far afield. What I mean to say is that in my original example, we are talking about friends. You and your friends are not in an uneven relationship in which one of you has the upper hand. Friendship, almost by definition, gives you equality. What do you say, now? Your friend, your friend, transgresses some taboo. Do you join the pile on or stand with him? Or do you at least refuse the urge to publicly condemn him? You can, of course, reprimand and reproach him in private.”
“Well, I, for one, have always felt that friendship had to be conditional. You choose your friends and you can un-choose them. I don’t want to be friends with someone who’s racist or sexist or-“
“Forget that. Forget the racism and sexism. Assume your friend did something else.”
“James,” Professor Heinz said – intentionally using his colleague’s first name. “You interrupted me again. However, I take your point. And, no, I can’t say I do think I should be obliged to defend my friend simply because we like each other or hang out together. I’d have to know what he said. I can’t defend a hypothetical. What if he said something I don’t agree with? What if people thought I agreed with it or thought it was okay for him to say it if I said nothing? It might be important for me to condemn it in fact because I hang out with him. Other people might feel threatened.”
“Do you admit of no fellow feeling? Nothing higher in friendship than ‘liking each other or hanging out together?’ You think friendship is conditional? I suppose we can argue that one. But is loyalty conditional in every case? What of family? Those ties are – by their very definition – unconditional.”
“Well, family is also something that should be conditional. If we’ve made any advance in the last half-century, it has surely been in our lifting of the taboo against no-fault divorce and nontraditional familial arrangements, couples who decide not to get married, open partnerships, and so on. I mean, talk about uneven and exploitative power structures. But come, this is something we will never agree on either. You’re a family man. I think the nuclear family is an outdated institution whose time has come and gone – if it ever existed.”
“Family an outdated institution? And what of love? I suppose you would deny that loyalty is a demonstration of love? That love demands loyalty? That loyalty is a proper outflowing of it? That a loving relationship requires loyalty?”
The moderator cut in at this point to ask those students who had come in late to sit down. “I remind you that we are gathered tonight for the seventh debate in our 2022 Faculty Debating Series. Tonight’s topic is, ‘Loyalty in the 21st Century,’ and our speakers are Professor Eugene Heinz, lecturer of critical studies in the sociology department, and Professor James Jonson, distinguished professor of political economy in the government department.”
There was some subdued clapping and scraping of chairs against the floor. Heinz looked over at his counterpart. He beamed with that broad, pompous smile he was so fond of. Quite a contrast – Heinz thought – between the two of them. Jonson’s fat face, complete with a worried mustache that he thought so handsome, was half again the size of Heinz’s thin one. They were the same height and age, but Heinz was rather thin and a bit stooped, whereas Jonson oozed clumsiness all over the place and took up more space than he needed. His yellow complexion jibed sharply with Heinz pale one.
The moderator nodded at Professor Heinz that it was his turn to start speaking.
“Where were we?” Heinz asked, “something about love? Well, I can’t very well claim to be against love – that’s a sure way to lose an argument. But I can say that, too often I see the demands of love placed more heavily upon one party by the more powerful party in the relationship. Too often I see the sentiment of love exploited by crass manipulators – which, I would add, to go back to your earlier point about some powerful people not cutting the throats of their supporters, includes virtually everyone in power – because cynicism just runs deeper for those who ‘double down on integrity.’ They just think it will pay them more in the long run. But, to return to love, if we are using that term to mean sexual desire, then I would say that humans should obey their natural impulses. But, come, in 2022 does anyone believe that love can last a lifetime? We all grow bored and move on. Some do it in the open. Others go behind the back of the person they claim to love.”
Professor Jonson ignored the bit about integrity. He’d given a course entitled, “Doubling Down on Integrity in the Twitter Era,” last semester.
“I wasn’t talking about sexual love. What of the love between parent and child? And family loyalty?” he asked.
“Family loyalty? Filial piety? Talk about exploitation. You sound like the third juror from 12 Angry Men.” Privately, Professor Heinz thought his counterpart looked like the third juror, too.
The moderator interrupted to quiet a conversation that had broken out in the back of the lecture hall. She then took the opportunity to remind everyone to silence their cell phones or turn them off. “If your personal device goes off and interrupts our speakers, we will remove you from the room,” she said.
Turning back to the front of the hall, the moderator said, “I apologize. Professor Heinz, I believe you were saying something about the loyalty one owes to one’s family? Could you elaborate, please, on your comments just before we got cut off?”
“Thanks, Jemma,” Heinz said with a smile, “I am happy to do so. My esteemed colleague posits that there is such a thing as filial piety, or duty or obeisance obeyed a parent by their children – no doubt even long after those children are grown?”
How it grated on Professor Heinz to call his counterpart ‘esteemed.’ He thought he did a good job of hiding that, though. Jonson nodded and Heinz continued.
“Well, certainly, when children are young, they must obey their parents for they depend on them – being themselves weak and powerless. I would posit that – once again – we are discussing an uneven power dynamic here. I would go further as to say that in most cases when I see or hear someone demanding ‘filial piety’ from their offspring, that piety runs one way. It is exploitation. Are we really so far removed from the Roman pater familias? It may not be written into our law that a man can rule his household with such autocracy that he can legally murder his grown children and receive no punishment, but some people wish that it were.”
Professor Jonson started to speak, but Heinz cut him off. “I will preempt the argument you will no doubt make at this juncture. How can the relationship be exploitation if the bond goes both ways? It might be said that parents sacrifice far more for their children than their children ever can repay. Money, time, health, etc. Surely from a purely economic – or not even that – from a standpoint of self-interest, it would be better not to have children. So how can the relationship be exploitation? Well, I would posit that this, too, is exploitation. The child comes into the world and immediately demands unconditional love and support and sacrifice from its father and mother. Forcing them to set aside their own desires. You, no doubt, believe this is a good thing. Well, I do not. Setting aside questions of the beginning of life, I might go so far as to say that the child’s existence begins with a tax – an attack – upon the body of its mother. It takes and does not give back. It takes its very life from her life.”
Professor Jonson looked appalled, so Heinz let him respond. He felt some satisfaction that he had gotten under his colleague’s skin.
“Is that how you see it? A child is subtracting its life from its mother’s? Do you really believe relationships – all relationships – are so zero sum? How can you? Do you not admit of anything like unconditional love? You presuppose the world to be far colder and harsher than almost anyone imagines it to be. How could anyone want to live in such a world?”
Professor Heinz felt that he had gotten under Jonson’s skin. He smiled as he responded, “No, I firmly believe that love should and must be conditional. Given and withdrawn only when it serves the interest of both parties.”
“How cold. How unnatural.”
“Natural? You are the one – not me – who claims to prefer civilization to barbarism. And yet you turn to nature as if it were good? Is that not a contradiction, I wonder?”
Jonson was taken aback for a moment, but he recovered himself. “I suppose I would say that not all that is natural is good, but neither is all that is natural bad. Likewise, with civilization. I suppose-“
Professor Heinz cut in, going in for what he felt was the kill. He had found the fatal flaw in his opponent’s argument.
“We agree on that much. But I suppose what I see as progress – throwing off the shackles of tradition and sentiment – you see as decline. And I suppose what I celebrate in nature – instinct and materiality – you believe dangerous. Well, here is what I think is dangerous. If bondage – what you call unconditional love – is natural, I say it is animalistic. And I go further as to say that loyalty is base. It is dangerous. It is a passion that eschews reason and can easily destroy progress. Unconditional loyalty is the stuff that erects hierarchies. It is how weak minds rally to strong ones and set them up as authorities. We began this talk by asking what form loyalty should take in the 21st Century and whether it really still existed. Well, I would say that it’s an open question as to whether it ever existed or whether it is, in fact, a construct. But I would go further than that. I would say that the question we should be asking is whether – in the 21st Century – loyalty should still exist. And I would say that while you have so unconvincingly argued that it should, I remain unchanged in my position that it should not.”
Professor Jonson looked astounded. His mouth was partially open and he looked askance at his colleague. Professor Heinz had left him flabbergasted. But to Heinz’s annoyance, not at a loss for words.
Earlier, Jonson had spoken loudly and even pounded his fist on his podium – like an ox. Now he spoke gently, almost quietly. He looked very nearly sad.
“Do you really feel that? Do you really have no love in your life? Do you really have no attachment, no ties – to family, to friends? Have you cut yourself off so completely from your fellow man as to believe that loyalty should die upon the altar of modernity?”
“Now you’re just appealing to emotion,” said Professor Heinz with the satisfaction of knowing he had won the debate.
“Thank you, professors,” said the moderator. “Our time is up.” She turned to the audience and asked for a round of applause.
On his way home from the debate, Professor Heinz stopped by the cooperative to pick up another bag of dog chow. Maybe he was getting older or maybe it was getting heavier. He wasn’t sure. When the cashier rang it up, Heinz raised his eyebrows at the amount. This stuff was getting expensive! “It’s just dog food!” he mumbled, “must be the supply chain.”
As he left the parking lot, it occurred to him that he should have brought up patriotism. That would have been another good line of argument on which to discredit his opponent. After all, Professor Jonson was one of those boorish people who hung a flag outside his house every morning. He probably saluted it and said the Pledge of Allegiance, too. Fine stuff, to be sure. Professor Heinz thought through the different avenues of attack. Loyalty being the stuff to feed the troops – the fuel that piped in poor boys for cannon fodder in foreign wars. And, ah yes, with the rebirth of nationalism in the last half decade across the world, Heinz could easily have gone on the attack about the horrors of the 20th Century coming back into the 21st. Yes. He kicked himself mentally for not thinking of it.
When he got home, he decided to leave the bag in the car. He was too tired to carry it in tonight. Maynard had enough food to last a few days – the professor could carry the new bag in tomorrow morning.
He fumbled with his keys in the dark. He knew Maynard would be waiting at the door to greet him. Supposedly, cocker spaniels could hear cars coming from blocks away. When he opened the door, he was greeted with a friendly frenzy of barking. Maynard ran up to him and jumped against his leg – somehow the dog had never figured out that his master needed to actually be able to get inside his own house without stumbling. ‘Or maybe,’ thought the professor, ‘this was just Maynard’s friendly ribbing at his master’s increasing lack of balance – another subtle dig at my age.’
It never failed to amaze the professor how – no matter how many times he left for work and came back in the evening – Maynard was always excited to see him. The professor was sure that no human could summon that level of enthusiasm every single time. He crouched down and let Maynard lick his hand. Then he scratched the dog behind the ears.
“Good boy,” he said. He could have sworn Maynard grinned at this, as if he could understand the words. Maybe he could. They said dogs were smart. Certainly smarter than most of his colleagues.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I know you are. Good boy. Just let me get inside for a minute and I’ll fill your bowl. Good boy.”
He hung his coat on the rack but kept his shoes on. In a few minutes, he’d have to take Maynard outside for a walk. Otherwise, the dog would have to relieve himself sometime in the middle of the night.
As he filled Maynard’s food bowl, his dog ran in circles in the kitchen, chasing his own tail. Somehow, he managed not to slip on the linoleum floor. Professor Heinz smiled. He remembered when Maynard had been a puppy and he would tear from one end of the small house to the other. He would come running into the kitchen at full speed and slide across it, scrambling and scratching like crazy to grab some traction.
After the professor and his dog had both eaten, they went for a walk. Professor Heinz didn’t bother leashing his dog. Maynard would follow him everywhere. It was cold and growing late and the professor was tired and he wished he were already in bed, but he carried the doggie bag dutifully and waited for Maynard to do his business. After which he’d look up at his master and wag his tail, waiting for some stamp of approval. As if urination and defecation were feats to be proud of.
When his dog finally went, the professor wondered what he’d been feeding Maynard recently. Professor Heinz was going to have to start carrying multiple bags.
After the walk, Professor Heinz carried the doggie bag back into the house and tossed it in the garbage. He was tired and he hoping Maynard was, too. Otherwise, neither of them would sleep.
Maynard slept at the foot of his master’s bed. The professor didn’t like the hair in his bed, but he liked the companionship. “You’re just my foot-warmer, you know,” he joked with his animal, “I could sell you tomorrow and buy a space heater. You better be nice to me. No more waking me up in the middle of the night because you got bored.” Maynard stuck his tongue out. It was uncanny how that animal could react to language in ways that almost made sense.
Sunrise was around six. Shortly thereafter, Professor Heinz awoke to a tongue licking his face. He looked at the clock. “Twenty more minutes, Maynard,” he mumbled and tried to turn over. For ten minutes he tried unsuccessfully to ignore the head nudging his back. Finally, he groaned and got up. For once, he’d like to sleep in on a Saturday.
He took Maynard out into the yard for the morning constitutional. The dog looked expectantly at him, but he stayed on the back porch.
“No, we’re not going for a walk. We’re going to the park later. You wouldn’t want to tire yourself out now, would you. Do your business and come back inside and I’ll fill your water bowl and your food.”
Really it was Professor Heinz who didn’t want to tire himself out. The dog would be fine. Maynard set up a howl, indignant that they weren’t going for a walk.
“Maynard, be quiet. People are trying to sleep.”
After much protestation, the dog did his duty – so to speak – and followed his master back in. Actually, he didn’t follow him, he cut in front of him in the doorway, almost tripping the professor in his race back to the food bowl.
After breakfast and coffee and a newspaper (which Maynard attempted to eat), they went to the park. Professor Heinz let his dog roam free without a leash. He always came back. If the professor didn’t see his charge, all he had to do was put his fingers in his mouth and whistle and immediately a brown streak would rip across the park and crash into his legs.
As the professor tossed a stick, and then a frisbee, and then a tennis ball, hundreds of times, he contemplated his relationship with his pet. Every time, without fail, Maynard would run to the frisbee, or ball, or stick, grab it in his teeth and race back to drop it at his master’s feet. Every time, he panted with joy and waited for the next toss. It didn’t take much to satisfy Maynard.
It was funny. After the professor had brought home Maynard as a puppy, it hadn’t been more than a week before the dog had taken a shine to him. Ever since, Maynard had stuck by his master, defending him against squirrels and all manner of perceived threats, and growing morose whenever they spent longer than a day apart. The professor could do no wrong. No human could be this forgiving. Not that the professor did things that merited forgiveness. No, perhaps forgiveness was not the right word. Perhaps it was lack of judgement. Or lack of condemnation. Hmm.
The professor knew that Maynard was devoted to him. The dog asked nothing in return.
On the other hand, the professor shelled out hard-earned dollars on food, lost sleep when he had to take Maynard to the vet, and picked up his excrement. So maybe it wasn’t nothing.
Grudgingly, the professor had to admit that, deep down, part of him liked making these little sacrifices. He could never summon the kind of enthusiasm Maynard displayed – seemingly neverendingly. But the professor did feel a stir inside him when he saw the animal. He felt satisfied seeing the satisfaction in his dog. And, as silly as it was, he really did feel safer when he watched Maynard defend him from jaybirds and other nonexistent threats.
Morning grew into afternoon and, though he was hungry, the professor was content to continue throwing a lacrosse ball (he’d discovered that with a lacrosse stick he could throw it farther – meaning Maynard had to spend more time running between throws), because Maynard never seemed to grow tired. As he watched his dog run towards him with the ball in his slobbering jaws, he felt a thought start to come into his head. He wasn’t sure what it was. It was odd. Almost as if…
But then the dog was there at his feet and dropped the ball for his master to throw and the thought disappeared. For the rest of the afternoon, as he tossed the ball and waited for his dog to retrieve it, the professor tried to get it to come back. But he couldn’t. It lay just beyond his grasp. As though it were denied to him by his own mind.