Concern for Animal vs Concern for Humans in Modern Society

Something odd occured to me earlier today. I was sitting in the back seat of my family’s car this afternoon when my father spotted a dog along the side of the road which had been struck with a car and killed. This lead him to mention, with obvious disgust, that he had seen a large turtle a few days before which had also been struck and killed, and that its position on the road made him cme to the conclusion that someone had obviously swerved to hit it.

I found myself filling with anger towards the individual that did this, probably the angriest I’ve been at someone I did not know personally in quite some time.

Now, my point in making this thread isn’t to make some statemenrt about animal rights or anything of that sort. Rather, its the thought that followed this anger which I found interesting.

I realized that I had heard any number of stories about humans who had been murdered, raped, etc, and not once had I become this angry. In fact, these stories (be they on the news or whatever) had very little effect on me.

I’ve noticed similar responses from other people.

So, here’s my question: Why would someone be inclined to become more infuriated at the murder of an animal than the murder of a human being?

One of my first thoughts is that it might be a case of simple desensitization. We’ve all witnessed numerous “fake” murders via the modern media, and heard about numerous real ones from the same source. However, you almost never hear about similar animal deaths. Probably because they’re deemed less “dramatic” or “important”. So maybe this had lead to a desensitization to the deaths of other human beings, but not to those of animals (particularly “cute” animals).

Any thoughts? Other theories?

Yes, I think desensitization is mostly the explanation.

It could also be that cute animals (more so than other humans) are seen as undeserving of violence, especially human violence.

Violence in the wild…? Violence between humans…? Violence inflicted by a human on a helpless animal…? Perhaps it appears intuitively wrong because of the huge discrepancy in power and the clear malicious intent. At least other humans can try and defend themselves, but a turtle…?

This kind of violence may intuitively seem like the worst kind because it shows a complete and utter lack of mercy/empathy (though some would argue that it’s silly to empathize with a ‘stupid’ animal). If I kill another human being, I might be able to somehow justify the action (though it may be immoral).

If I go out of my way to kill a turtle… how can this kind of act be justifiable? The only other alternative is that killing a turtle is not considered true ‘killing’. Perhaps the lack of ethical reasoning is disturbing.

I find these commentaries very interesting and would like to respectfully ask whether you are vegetarian. Here’s my point: we become infuriated when an animal who lives and breathes in the outside free world crosses the street and some jerk hits it and it dies. Yet, we certainly are not all that infuriated (else I’d see a lot more public lobbying and a lot more vegetarians and vegans) that we, as a society, literally breed animals past any healthy or humane point, keep them confined in dirty, painful, crowded cages or other confined spaces (e.g. chicken feet grow into the wires becoming permanently and painfully lodged, cramped spaces such that they break their necks, but remain alive… cows and pigs in one stationary position within bins such that they grow painful sores) - most often to the point of creating mass anxiety and insanity among the animals (e.g. chickens pecking each others eyes out), etc only to eventually be put out of the misery that is the lives of factory farmed animals (the main producers of eggs, dairy, and meat in the U.S.) when they are finally killed. And if you think that being hit by a car is mean, imagine the experience that cows go through in being stunned with an electric gun, then hung upside down alive and having their throat slit until they bleed to death… not to mention how painful and frightening the experience of being transported to their death.

THIS is what we should be infuriated about. But instead we are contributors. We eat THIS meat and THESE eggs and we drink THIS milk. How can we fret about some poor little free turtle hit by some jerk, when millions of us sustain and encourage these daily acts of horrendous torture so that we can enjoy a cheap burger.

This is the type of hypocrisy that I cannot understand.

Let’s get angry at the real sources of cruelty - especially when its something we can actually do something about!!! (As opposed to hiring a detective and hunting down said turtle killer)

No, I’m not a vegetarian, but I certainly see your point. In fact, hipocrisy was half my own point.

I’m trying tounderstand why I should feel so infuriated about an incident like this when there are so many greater forms odf cruelty (to both animals and humans) that don’t seem to faze me (and others) at all.

I like Femphil’s explaination that these kinds of acts seem to lake any real justification. Perhaps the cruelty inflicted on animals in the process of being raised for food seems more innatedly justified than cruety inflicted “just to get off”.

That said, be honest now, which of these statements bother you more:

“Kitten drowned by owner” or “Baby drown by mother”?

“Puppy struck by car” or “Child struck by car”?

To me, for some reason, the former choices seem to hold greater sting, and that unnerves me a little.

I want to counter your argument that food is a justification for that kind of animal abuse and killing. We have plenty of non-animal alternatives (and if we are talking about factory farming then we are talking about a society that certainly creates enough nutritious and varied non-animal foods). I think we would actually have to say that gustatory pleasure is justification for the abuse and killing of hundreds of thousands of animals.

So now we are left with:

Hitting an animal on the road to blow off steam or get a kick out of it
and
Systematically torturing and killing hundreds of thousands of animals out of gustatory habit or pleasure.

I believe that both are unjustifiable evils and that the latter is, while equally unjustifiable, a greater evil in magnitude and scope.

Therefore, If the factory farming still isn’t infuriating you as much as the guy hitting the turtle for fun, then justification can’t be what’s pissing you off.

Perhaps its something else? Perhaps the randomness of killing something peaceful and beautiful? Perhaps you find animals to be more peaceful and beautiful than humans?

I dunno. Just throwing thoughts out.

This is quite amaizing question. This could be one of the most interesting questions I have heard lately. So why do we care about animals being run over and why do we not care about rape and brutality and war in Iraq and all those dead human creatures?? The only answer that I have been able to come up with for that question is that people watch too much television and do not think. Noone thinks anymore. You turn on the news and some queer says ‘5 soldiers died in Iraq today’ and then 3 seconds later he says ‘moving on guys…the Cubs won their game today’ and 3 seconds later he says ‘Some girl was raped in her apartment’ and then 3 seconds after that 'there was a fire in south county. Many literature and fiction writers spend entire novels adressing this particular issue that I bring up here. The biggest problem in the modern world is that nothing lasts anymore. In the past when someone told you news you remembered them for a few days but now 3 seconds on some television screen and we are moving on to something else. The dead soldiers, the raped girl, the burned down house, they all get replaced by the next NEW piece of news. It gets to the point where those 5 dead soldiers are not humans but simply numbers that are part of a statistic and them dying means nothing to noone unless its your personal family. Noone really gives a damn about others in the modern world. Just those little 3 seconds and we are moving on to some new subject. I see people on this website, including myself, trying to find meaning and find the purpose in life and we all look for something long-lasting if possible but in the modern world nothing lasts anymore. “Nothing lasts forever and few things last long” . That is my quote about the modern world right there.

As far as the animals are concerned, the animals are not human. You don’t hear too much about them. They dont often make it on the news. They don’t have rationality. They don’t have free will like humans. They don’t destory the rainforests. They don’t rape eachother. They don’t fight world wars with eachother. They don’t brutally beat eachother unless its some act done by the nature instilled in them or unless it is really really necessary for their survival. It could be jaleousy almost. Because even though as human beings we have the bigger brain, we don’t use it propperly. We kill and rape eachother and animals don’t act as stupid as we do when it comes to that. That could be one reason. When you think of the general house animal you think of something sweet, cute, and friendly and you don’t want to hurt that innocent creature. Human beings aren’t innocent anymore because they have sold God and his word for stupid pieces of green paper,sex, and drugs so noone really gives a fuck about em. Noone thinks anymore. People die and its just like a number nowadays. ITS A FREAKIN LIFE BUT PEOPLE TREAT IT LIKE ITS SOME KIND OF LOTTORY NUMBER ON TV!!

To conclude, I don’t know the answer to your question but I do know that what you brought up is true and that its shocking and scary that it is true.

Mole, I think you misunderstood me or I misstated. I wasn’t trying to say that the modern slaughterhouse environment was justified by the fact that we eat the animals afterward, I was trying to say that we tend to percieve it as a justification.

Personally, I don’t think that simply eating something justifies the torture that it was put through beforehand. So why am I not a vegetarian?

That’s where this loops back to my main question, and connects to the point that Violhence made. The kind of conditions you talk about do make it on the news, and do get targetted by the media, even if not as frequently as the war in Iraq and other human tragedies. So maybe its possible that we have become desensitived to this as well.

Hi Nugen,

I know you didn’t mean to justify it that way. I just meant to give a bit of a logical challenge. I meant perhaps food IS a real justification for slaughter. In fact, I think it is. If I had no food, I would kill an animal and eat it. What I wanted to argue was that in this particular case, food is not the justification because we can have food (and plenty of it) without killing animals. Therefore, the justification for slaughterhouses, in reality, is just gustatory pleasure.

I wanted to then challenge your notion of why the turtle killing made you cringe, and yet you are not a vegetarian. You mentioned perhaps it was lack of justification.

I wanted to both challenge the idea that the slaughterhouse was more justifiable and at the same time point out that (perhaps) you still were more pissed off by the turtle than the slaughterhouse.

If that’s the case… If you are still more pissed off by the turtle than the slaughterhouse AND you agree that one is not more justifiable than the other AND you agree that the slaughterhouse is a bigger overall evil, then what are you left with?

You are left with still being more pissed off by the turtle being hit by some asshole than the reality of the slaughterhouse.

I’m not judging your feelings at all. I just find it fascinating because I see it all the time, everywhere. I know so many people who are furious at someone throwing rocks at flying birds but who have no problem with eating meat.

I don’t know the reason for this seemingly hypocritical reaction. But its interesting. No?

We react based on our experiences. With all the various mechanisms thrown at us in our lives, we only experience small bits of the overall truth of each mechanism. Then, we react and attempt to rationalize these reactions and point fingers. The anger reaction and the sympathy reaction are from two completely different sources, yet we somehow try to cram it into the same logic equation and expect to come out with a rational number on the other side of the equal sign…

Unless you are holding the ever-elusive universal equation, hypocrasy is unavoidable… And if we do have the universal equation, hypocrasy may be necessary.

Just a thought…
braces for a slappin’