Soul-searching in The Year of the Pig

While looking at the news coverage of Chinese New Year this week, I spent more time than I usually do considering pigs — which granted is not saying a lot since pigs don’t crop up in my mind that often, bunnies and dogs being the animals that I have had as pets; gotten to know; cuddled with; understood; cooed at; and loved and appreciated most over the years.

I was, however, thinking about pigs quite a lot this week, past patterns notwithstanding, and I soon realized that part of the reason was that I could not resist clicking on any link or item featuring a cute pig emoji; and with the world having entered the Year of the Pig on Tuesday, there were many such items.

The Chinese New Year images weren’t all adorable pink piglets, though.

Peculiarly, the more I delved into timely pig pictures, the weirder and creepier the representation of pigs got, with gross boar heads on sticks and infographics about swine influenza soon taking over from the stylized happy porkers that had drawn me in.

The pig-surfing revealed to me what a confused, love/ hate relationship we humans have with pigs. We consider pigs both adorable pets and delicious meals; lovable characters (think Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web and the eponymous hero of the movie Babe) and frightening literary characters (such as Animal Farm’s Napoleon and the pig head on the stick in Lord of the Flies).

The same person who is scared to death of a wild boar might think little of welcoming a pot-bellied pig into her home — even when local bylaws prohibit the practice. The teacup pigs are just so endearing, at least until they reach their full size, which is decidedly bigger than any piece of reasonable tableware.

The truth is, human hearts and minds are equivocal about pigs — more so than they are about other animals, which tend to fall more neatly into an “aww” or “ugh” category. We can’t decide if pigs are disgusting slobs, infectious disease hosts, or lovable creatures that feel pain and joy just like us … until we make them into tasty bacon.

While it is possible that every one of these descriptors is true of pigs — indeed, these are not mutually exclusive categories — it’s curious how deep our feelings run in the very different directions.

The Bible itself declares pigs unclean, recounting in Leviticus God’s admonition to Moses and Aaron about swine: “You shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses.”

There is no equivocation in these words; the Old Testament is decidedly on the bacon-is-bad side of things, and Muslims held on to the prohibition.

But the very ban on pork itself may be a consequence of humans’ uncertainty about how to think about pigs. In a 1998 New York Times article, writer Dinitia Smith summarizes anthropologist Mary Douglas’s theory that pigs were deemed off-limits because they “did not fit conveniently into the Israelites’ definition of what domestic animal should be ….”

Smith continues: “Animals like pigs that cross over definitions, Douglas argues, that crawl instead of walk or swarm instead of fly, defied the tribal need to create an intellectual ordering of the world. Disorder of any kind … provided a frightening glimpse into the chaos of the universe.”

See? I’m telling you, our difficulty sorting out how we feel about pigs and what they mean to us is of momentous concern.

At least it was once, back when the chaos of the universe still seemed super scary.

The in-between nature of pigs — and their similarity to humans — is captured well by a quote, purportedly uttered by Winston Churchill: “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us equals.”

Writer P.G. Wodehouse’s portrait of a pig is similarly apt: a prize-winning Berkshire sow named the Empress of Blandings who is painted as both ridiculous (she “resembled a captive balloon with ears and a tail, and was as nearly circular as a pig can be without bursting”) and a creature that could hardly have been more revered and valued by the stories’ and novels’ most lovable character, the bumbling and wise Lord Emsworth.

If living through the Year of the Pig is anything like living in a P.G. Wodehouse book, then we could certainly do a lot worse.

The truth is, humans will never be consistent about pigs.

The animals remind us too much of ourselves, good and bad.

We accept and abhor them with the same degree of passion as the voice in our heads has — the voice that is so good at soothing us, and so good at viciously slicing at our self-esteem.

As our view of pigs goes, so goes our view of humanity.

Xin Nian Kuai Le.

THE TRUTH IS, HUMANS WILL NEVER BE CONSISTENT ABOUT PIGS.