Page 31 - Fables volume 1

How the Cats Took Care of Complaints

society. I hope you can see, Mr. Bertrand, that the realization of all my
hopes—and, by extension, those of the late Mrs. Oliphant—would be
to give cats the means to survive with dignity in our own increasingly
undignified world. The strays and unwanted kittens brought to the
foundation provided the nucleus of that project seven years ago.”
Bertrand was taking it all in, understanding the words in a detached
way, as if he were reading rather than hearing them. Sharlena is the
sweetest cat in the world, he thought, and she likes me. How pleasant
it is to give her pleasure! He could not take his eyes from hers, could
not stop stroking her smooth sleek fur. The heavy warmth of her on
his thighs and the rolling waves of throaty vibration sent a strong
sensation of contentment pulsing through his body. Fiedler was
somewhere far away talking through the wrong end of a megaphone.
“…and then, starting with the repertoire of phonemes utilized by a
mother cat to communicate with her kittens, I built up a rudimentary
vocabulary, correlating it with observed reactions in the kittens here. I
now have almost a complete language with which to work. I call it
Felex. By combining operant conditioning with increasingly complex
phrases in Felex, I gradually induced the growth of an intra-feline
culture. Simply put, the cats can talk to each other and act upon the
meanings of their vocalizations. Unlike dogs, who, if given the power
of speech, would all become sycophants or demagogues, verbal cats
retain their independent balanced personalities. Whereas language
ultimately turned highly interdependent apes into aggressively
individualistic or mindlessly conforming men, it transforms self-
sufficient cats into a group cooperating intelligently on the basis of
enlightened self-interest.”
Fiedler paused to tamp down whatever was in his pipe. After
relighting it, he resumed. “In a sense, I am no longer a researcher, or
even an instructor. The cats educate each other and their offspring.
Newcomers who cannot learn Felex or will not submit to group
decisions are expelled. I am, in fact, responsible for placing those
unacceptable cats in other institutions; it is not a task I enjoy, but I
recognize the necessity. I also serve as their liaison to the outside
world—not, of course, as a translator or interpreter of Felex to
humans but as a source of information for the cats themselves. They
now understand quite clearly the nature of their plight:

30