More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

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Back in 1854, when humorist Seba Smith coined that phrase in  "Way Down East; or, Portraitures of Yankee Life” he probably did not have to worry about irate Internet messages from PETA members, because there was neither PETA nor the Internet. But lurking in this earthy, politically incorrect, aphorism is a valuable message for the 21st century.  

The 20th century, including as it did an unprecedented number of armed conflicts - including World War I, which acquired unintentionally ironic moniker "the war to end all wars” - demonstrated what happens when individuals, nations, faiths and philosophies follow the antithesis of the inclusive cat skinning style controversy. That being that there is only one way to skin a cat: my way. And if you try to skin a cat some other way, I, sadly, will have to kill you. 

Theodore Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, tried to warn us against this short-sighted view of the world in his lovely The Butter Battle Book, in which the Yooks and the Zooks swiftly approach mutual self-destruction in a war that hinges on a disagreement over the right way to butter one’s bread. Perhaps the book’s publication date, 1984, is coincidental, perhaps not. 

Still, it might be worth our while to follow this path of prescient chronology a little further. We have just rung in 2020. For many of us 20/20 is synonymous with perfect vision, the ability to see clearly. Perhaps it is not too much to ask, that as fellow passengers on what appears to be an increasingly rickety spaceship Earth, we realize that there are probably many different, perhaps even some painless, non-lethal, PETA approved ways to skin a cat. 

Obviously, my concern is not with cat skinning. Rather, I am hoping that in 2020 we can back away from the arrogant “my way or the highway” mentality that so ravaged the world during the last century and seems to have only grown more virulent in the opening couple of decades of the 21st. So, in that compassionate ecumenical spirit, let me wish you a happy, harmonious, and peaceful 2020.

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