Future generations may look back on the widespread practice of 'pet' ownership as a primitive relic of a less enlightened time. The normalization of emotional bondage under the guise of care will likely become proof of a culture still wrestling with its impulse to possess everything it touches. The leash may ultimately be recognized not just as a tool of affection, but as a symbol of our species’ unresolved need to dominate what we refuse to understand. Until we dismantle the very idea that living beings can or should be owned, we remain spiritually shackled.
SLEIGHT OF MIND: In a country founded on liberty, it’s astonishing how deeply the culture of ownership persists—not just over property or capital, but over sentient beings. From human slavery to the domestication and “ownership” of animals, America has long fetishized control. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Deep South, where the echoes of slave plantations still reverberate through the picket-fenced yards of high dog-ownership households.
The Southern United States once legally owned human beings as chattel. The architecture of plantation capitalism demanded strict hierarchy: white over Black, man over woman, master over slave. That system was never fully dismantled—just rebranded. After abolition, systems of control persisted through Jim Crow, prison labor, and economic disenfranchisement. But the psychological framework remained: dominance, hierarchy, and control as cultural values.
Today, states with the highest historical investment in slavery—Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina—rank among the top in dog ownership. It’s not mere coincidence. The cultural logic of ownership never disappeared; it adapted. Where humans could no longer be legally owned, animals filled the gap. The dog became a symbol of loyalty, subservience, and property—a living extension of the owner’s dominion.
Much of Southern culture is steeped in fundamentalist Christianity. The Book of Genesis grants mankind “dominion over the animals,” a concept internalized and literalized across generations. Owning a dog is framed not just as a lifestyle choice, but as a fulfillment of Biblical authority.
This religious ethos elevates ownership to a spiritual duty. It’s not hard to trace a line from scripture-justified slavery to scripture-justified animal subjugation. The master-slave dynamic simply found new expression through the leash, the kennel, and the electric fence…
To own a dog is, in essence, to enslave a piece of nature. Dogs did not exist as they are today in the natural world — they are human-engineered artifacts. The domesticated dog is the product of forcibly altering the wolf, stripping it of its autonomy, its survival instincts, and its ability to evolve freely. Dogs are kept in a state of perpetual infantilization: dependent, obedient, emotionally needy. In this way, man created the dog as an enslaved version of the wolf—a creature of nature broken into a pet.
Owning a dog is not simply a companionship choice; it is a conscious act of capturing nature and rewriting its destiny for human comfort. The dog is frozen at the emotional age of a child, programmed to beg for praise, walk on command, and seek approval. Man didn’t just tame the wolf—he lobotomized it over generations, molding it into something loyal yet powerless…
Future generations may look back on the widespread practice of pet ownership — especially of animals bred into dependence — as a primitive relic of a less enlightened time. Just as we now view slavery, bloodletting, or child labor with moral horror, the idea of “owning” sentient beings may one day be seen as an archaic extension of our past dominion-based worldviews. What is now seen as affection may later be judged as infantilization, manipulation, and control.
As societies evolve toward empathy, sustainability, and interdependence with nature, the leash may ultimately be recognized not just as a tool of affection, but as a symbol of our species’ unresolved need to dominate what we refuse to understand. The normalization of emotional bondage under the guise of care will likely become a psychological curiosity to future historians —proof of a culture still wrestling with its impulse to possess everything it touches. Until we dismantle the very idea that living beings can or should be owned, we remain spiritually shackled—our hands gripping leashes that once held chains. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: