I think by discussing the Great Divide and noting how we, as humans, have separated the world into "animal/human, nature/culture, organic/technical, and wild/domestic," (15) Haraway is describing how human beings feel the need to make ourselves feel important and as though we are supreme.

I agree with Maddie that our lives as humans are inherently intertwined and that we cannot truly understand and relate to other non-human animals. However, I wanted to focus on the likeness between animals and humans. Haraway addresses this idea by presenting the illustration Meeting of the American Association of Lapdogs. In this illustration, the lapdogs are bothered by the influence of laptops. However, the likeness between the lapdogs and the laptops in this pun is that, from the human perspective, they both occupy space on one’s lap.

In their post, Marian said "we humans see ourselves as the "culmination" of evolution", and it really resonated with me. We, as humans, have been so socialized to see ourselves as the most advanced, most adapt, most "fit" species--the crowning jewel of the tree of life. This mindset is introduced and perpetrated in subtle (and all the more dangerous ways). Remember learning about evolution in high school? Many of us were shown the image of “the evolution of man”, a stooped figure slowly walking his way through intermediate species to a “fully evolved” man.

I agree with marian.bechtel and Purple Finch that there was a lot to read and absorb in this chapter. The point of this chapter is pretty much what we have been talking about in class on the interconnectedness of beings and our relationships with each other in our environment. I felt irritated while reading this chapter for some reason. I read about one thing, yet I'm living in another text. I felt annoyed because there is so much chaos (e.g.

Like Marian has pointed out, to look at things from Haraway's point of view, we must understand that we are implicated. Despite her obfuscation, I certainly felt implicated--although probably not at the point Haraway expected. I'm not sure if it's coindence or just another odd, spiraling complexity, but our dogs share a name. Cayenne, named after the pepper (in fact my Cayenne has already made an appearance).

A “first thoughts” post for Haraway is a bit of a misnomer for me: there’s so much (both academically dense and conceptually rich) in this first chapter that I hardly know where to start these “first thoughts.” I’m feeling a little intellectual overflow—lots of ideas bouncing around, some too slippery to catch onto without spilling in a new direction. Haraway’s and your (Purple Finch’s) words about Derrida and the little cat struck me, so I’ll float down that stream.

I agree with Purple Finch that I felt occasionally overwhelmed by all that was presented in this chapter - it felt like a lot to absorb. I ended up taking away from it the same sort of message though, that everything is interconnected, that we cannot be "objective observers" but all of our actions affect the ecosystem around us, and that our human-centric view of the ecosystem is not always right.