Fri 21 Sep 2007
Why does animal cruelty evoke more emotion than human suffering?
Posted by admin under Social Observation
[3] Comments
A few horrible acts of animal cruelty (and here) came to light yesterday that really had a number of folks justifiably enraged. I wholeheartedly agree that these acts were awful and should be condemned in every way possible. What struck me though was how much the first event stirred folks up. Recently a woman was kidnapped and held prisoner for a week of torture, rape and other abuse, yet there was little to nothing on this in my little view of the blogosphere. This poor dog was tortured and killed and it became a call to arms for animal rights. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t evoke this emotion, but what is about the kidnapped woman in WV that doesn’t evoke that emotion?
Perhaps part of the problem is that as a society we’ve become somewhat numb to the “if it bleeds it leads” aspect of traditional media. It is not that we don’t care, it is that we hear about it often enough and we become desensitized – “oh, there was another murder in some bad neighborhood”. Its almost come to the point that its shocking and surprising when we don’t hear about someone being shot or a bad neighborhood making progress towards safer streets. There is also certianly the case that we as humans have more control over our actions. We are capable of rationalizing the consequences of our decisions and therefore get what we deserve when things go wrong. But what did this woman really do wrong? I’m not sure, but it could have been as simple as stopping at the wrong gas station at the wrong time. In this small slice of time was she any less innocent than a kitten that wondered into the wrong yard?
The way we view animals or, I believe, more specifically in this case, the way we view our pets is the critical catalyst for the call to arms. We love our pets, they are a part of our family. I always make a point of stopping by the pet stores to check out the cats for adoption in the hopes that maybe we’ll get one more. Of course my wife is always quick to remind me about the cat to person ratio in any household and crossing the fine line into crazy-cat-persondom, but that is another story. The point is that our pets are in our homes, part of our lives and love us unconditionally because we provide for them and accept them as part of our family, magnifying their perceived innocence. So when some degenerate attacks one of these loved ones it is easy to project that offense to our little dependent house-mates.
The question now is how can we get that sense of outrage back in to the causes of human suffering? This is not to take anything away from how we jump up to defend our pets, but what does it take to evoke that same emotion in local instances of human suffering? What do you think?
For me, the reason I get outraged over animal cruelty is because animals are, by and large, dependent upon (and defenseless against) humans. They’re loyal, trusting, and devoted to their human “parents.”
When I hear of another human being who decided to take advantage of that animal’s loyalty and trust, and then abuse it for his or her own malicious entertainment, it sickens me to no end.
Meanwhile, when tragedy befalls a human being, I’m somewhat more desensitized to it because a) people have the wit and will to overcome some overwhelming odds, and b) people also tend to make bad choices and then lament what happens to them as a result.
Granted, cases like the rape / torture incident above seem to fall outside that realm. But in nearly every case of animal cruelty, those animals didn’t have a choice; they were doing what they believed was the “right thing,” and it led to their demise at the hands of someone who got a kick out of a power trip. The fight isn’t even fair, and THAT infuriates me.
I can point to a few factors, but one stands out most strikingly in the title of Justin’s post from yesterday: “Why I Hate People“. Obviously the title is not meant to be taken literally, but the reason why Justin, and many others, sometimes feel like we hate “humanity” is because of the evil things that humans do. I think we are not only desensitized because of the amount of evil we hear about on the news, but the fact that it is all committed by humans makes us assume a little guilt on everyone’s part.
You also touched on a related issue with the rationalization of consequences. A story like the one you linked to is so much easier to bear when we assume that the victim had done something wrong, even if it was just to ignore signs of danger. The fact that the victim in the CNN article “may have had a previous relationship with one of the suspects” releases us from projecting the violence onto our loved ones. In our minds, they would never put themselves in such a situation, and so we don’t need to worry about them. It’s how we emotionally protect ourselves, for better or worse.
When the victim is a child or an animal, we can’t rationalize any consequences to such an innocent victim, and we have no buffer against the painful truth. Buju didn’t do anything that my girls couldn’t have done. The cats in the Yahoo article could have been Bettie or Mo when they snuck out of my house to explore the yard.
I believe that you answered your own question in your posting. The reasons we get so worked up over animal cruelty is because of the unconditional love animals show us.
(Cats excluded, they just love themselves)
And as Justin and John made mention of their comments, you can at least understand (rationalize) human suffering.
It doesn’t have to be something as extreme as the rape and torture of the woman in WV. Think about Darfur, there is a genocide occuring there, but when was the last time you gave it a second thought? And why didn’t you? Is it because it (Darfur) is so far removed from where you presently are that it seems fictional or unimportant? Is it because the people there are so different from us?
I think another part of the answer comes from the culture we live in. We play video games where we dismember humanlike enemies. How much gore can you see before it doesn’t phase you?
At the end of the day, no matter how much I yell at them, grumble at them, ignore them etc. my dogs will still look at me with those eyes that tell me I am their world.
Maybe that’s why I am more bothered by animal cruelty than human suffering.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pull the wings off of some flies.