What is a horse?
My first attempts at writing this essay — which attempted to connect a story from ancient China to certain cultural phenomena today — were axed by Medium’s censorship team. At first I was frustrated by this, but I have seen the error of my ways, and have now written an essay that cannot possibly be construed to violate any terms of service. Thank you, Medium, for helping me learn and grow.
During the Qin dynasty, the eunuch Zhao Gao, originally a stableman for emperor Qin Shi Huang, ingratiated himself to the ruler’s youngest son, Huhai, while serving as the boy’s tutor. A politically ambitious man (some believe him the descendant of a fallen royal family, seeking revenge on the Qin), he encouraged Huhai to falsify his father’s will after the emperor’s untimely death, forcing the suicides of Huhai’s older siblings and putting the young man on the throne.
As might be expected, this caused some political turmoil. Huhai, now known as emperor Qin Er Shi, considered Zhao a trusted advisor during the purges and assassinations necessary to consolidate power, and in a famous display of loyalty, Zhao brought an animal to the court and arrested or executed those officials who did not affirm that the animal was a horse.
This seems like a simple test to pass — why not just call a horse a horse?!Well, some stubborn people seemed to insist that the animal was a deer.
True, the horse had antlers, so perhaps even you are wondering, “Could it have been a deer?” But Zhao was a wise man — the young emperor certainly thought so! And Zhao had, after all, been a stableman at one point. Was he not an expert on what a horse is?
We should always trust the experts.
This was, it turns out, a very effective way to find out who the new emperor’s allies were.
Now, you might wonder, “But was it actually a deer?”
Let me be unequivocally clear, for any censor at Medium looking for an excuse to suspend this article: it was not. It was definitely a horse.
What we call ‘deer’ and ‘horse’ are, in fact, social constructs. The two animals have much in common; it is not at all difficult to see why a deer could, in fact, be a horse. They share a common ancestor, after all, and speciation is a spectrum, you know. It would be utterly impossible to draw the line at the generation where one group of four-legged, hoofed animals became ‘horses’ and another became ‘deer.’ If a boundary is ever blurry, does a boundary even exist? Obviously not!
And the fact that we ended up riding one and hunting the other? The result of hegemonic power structures, which have decided horses are for riding and deer for hunting and which assigns species to the animals at birth.
They have different genetics, but we wouldn’t want to succumb to the evils of biological realism, as the fascists do. Though the animals cannot speak, who is to say that some deer don’t identify as horses, or vice versa? We have no reason to say Zhao did not have a veterinarian perform species-affirming surgery on an animal declared deer at birth, allowing it to present to the world as the horse it always knew itself to be.
Zhao, I see now, was impressively progressive. We might say that he was the first practitioner of Deer Theory.
Now, some people — I used to be one, before Medium helped me see the light — use this story to suggest that Zhao was testing people, to see who would deny obvious reality to remain in the emperor’s good graces, and who would not. They insist the horse was actually deer. Such people, however, are equinophobes, and should be dismissed or silenced out of hand. Zhao had the right idea on that one.
Obviously, this story has no parallel today, so I don’t know why I even wanted to write about it! I suppose it’s just a neat little tail from antiquity about classification, and how things are what powerful institutions say they are, and that dissenters should be silenced, and allies praised.
Lincoln once asked “If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does it have?” And when someone said five, Lincoln said, “Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.” But Lincoln didn’t consider that if those in power call it a leg, and if calling it a tail gets you censored, fired, or killed, then obviously it is a leg. We all agree on this, right? Right, JK Rowling?!?! Good.
I’m not sure why I wrote about this. What could it possibly have to do with anything today? It’s just a neat little tale from antiquity, about classification, and how things are simply what powerful people and institutions say they are, and that dissenters should be silenced and allies praised.
Zhao would later conspire to assassinate Qin Er Shi, and is often credited for bringing about the downfall of the Qin dynasty.
But that’s a deer of a different color.
