The ‘right’ breed standards are all in your head

I was researching whether there actually was more than one way to peel a banana to fact-check an article I was copy editing, and I came across this article by J. Howard Baker, an assistant professor of computer information systems and a guy who makes a lot of sense.

In the article, he describes what transpired in a class when he was talking about the concept of paradigms to students.

Paradigms, he says, are our mental models or beliefs, through which we view the world.

Baker says: “We get so used to our paradigms that we forget that we are interpreting everything we see through them all the time. We think we see things the way they really are. If someone sees the world differently, we automatically assume that person is wrong.”

He also says: “Assumptions are an important part of the way we see the world. The ‘I’m right’ assumption is one of the most frequently encountered assumptions in leadership positions.”

In the class, one of his students raised his hand and shared a childhood experience. When the student was a boy, growing up in a small tropical nation, he was taught the “right” way to peel a banana by his grandmother. In the United States, he came to find out that the so-called “right” way was something else entirely.

In fact, there is no right way to peel a banana.

This concept seems no less appropriate for standards of appearance, whether you’re applying those standards to horses, dogs or people.

There is no right or wrong way for people to look. People are born with a certain set of genes, and they grow up to look the way the genes say they will.

Sure, we give a little more attention to some looks over others, but even that is fluid. Bo Derek pointed out on a recent television interview that her set of features wouldn’t have been pretty in another time and place; she would have been a “wench,” she said. The very definition of attractive is changing all the time. It’s subjective, and “the right looks” don’t exist.

Similarly, there is no right or wrong way for a dog or horse to look. You can’t decide for animals what they should look like. You can’t put on paper a set of breed standards and force animals to look like what you think they should look like. Your beliefs for what is appropriate conformation are yours alone. Everyone else has a paradigm, and you don’t get to make your paradigm everyone else’s.

Let nature take its course when it comes to looks. Nature didn’t do so badly getting us where we are today. Why should humans, who don’t have such a great track record, be allowed to decide anything when it comes to nature.

It’s time to end breed standards. Let evolved thinking prevail.