(04-26-2017 11:53 AM)General Stalin Wrote: Disgusting behavior, but this touches on something I've always been curious about. It's slightly off-topic but related:
Why do people (today) value the lives of animals so much more than their fellow man? Is it simply because animals are inherently seen as "innocent" because they do not have the same brain capacity as humans?
I can't speak for everywhere in the world as I'm not that well cultured, but at least here in America we see a lot of rampant misanthropy where most people, particularly younger people, feel constant disdain for other humans and this is projected in their value for non-human life over human life.
I'm not saying that this particular scenario is a great example as obviously there is something wrong with these two individuals killing a dog tied to a tree, but I'd be interested to hear ideas on the phenomenon of the pets > people sentiment.
I think your diagnosis is more or less in the right direction. Brain capacity has something to do with it, however it is not because animals are not aware of the meaninglessness of existence while humans are, an idea often passed around here -- something like that is too obscure and esoteric and immaterial for most people. The main reason that people see animals as more innocent than humans, as I have long believed, is the inherent and demonstrated difference in
capacity for evil: in their primitive sentience animals are not capable of true evil -- animals can be ferocious and bloody, but to be truly evil one must have the
conscious, deliberate intention to inflict suffering -- especially suffering for the pure sake of it. Thus only the human being with his conscious agency is capable of evil, while animals only act on their genetically pre-programmed instincts and mindless reactions.
It's also commonly believed and felt that an animal though ferocious doesn't torture its prey; and torture for the pure joy of it, in all of its varied and highly developed forms, is something only humans are capable of: animals kill to survive, whereas humans can kill and torture for creative entertainment and excessive ambition – a mark of great evil and ingenuous perversion and a product of our highly developed consciousness and intelligence.
Dostoevsky put it nicely:
Quote: “By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow,” Ivan went on, seeming not to hear his brother's words, “told me about the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of a general rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage women and children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences, leave them so till morning, and in the morning they hang them—all sorts of things you can't imagine. People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it. These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children, too; cutting the unborn child from the mother's womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before their mothers' eyes. Doing it before the mothers' eyes was what gave zest to the amusement. Here is another scene that I thought very interesting. Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. They've planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby's face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the baby's face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn't it? By the way, Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say.” – The Brothers Karamazov
This general image of the difference between men and animals in popular consciousness will not change even if you present a few select animal species that are capable of humanlike cruelty.
Yet it’s also true that we are also capable of goodness, and of greater goodness than any other animals are capable of. Both in our intention, and in our ability, enhanced by technological progress. The range of possibilities encompassed by human capacity is incomparably vast. But all too often people focus on the evil side, and there is a reason for that.
Because men are capable of technological progress, they are capable of inflicting suffering in greater degree than any animal ever will –- a fact which has been graphically demonstrated by recent history. Technological progress has been associated with the two world wars, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki –- the advanced weapons deployed in them which are capable of destruction in whole different plane from before, the devastated cities, the massacres and piles of human corpses, the concentration camps and gulags, the cold-blooded and dehumanizing experiments on humans, etc – nightmarish scenarios which have been deeply instilled into Western consciousness. The two world wars and their aftermaths traumatized the West, their impact on contemporary ideologies is enormous and underestimated. Because of a focus on the two world wars in the teaching of history in the West (assisted by photos and videos and sensory stimuli which have not been possible before), and the Holocaust Industry's incessant drumming on the atrocities committed by white people, human capacity for technological progress has come to be paired with great capacity for atrocity and destruction. And with the advance of mass media and the Internet, negative news (which sells better than positive news) and the graphic proofs of human cruelty have been constantly presented to us day to day. A deep suspicion of technological progress and the goodness of humanity has been drilled into our minds through education and all forms of media. The nuclear bomb has become the prime symbol of human technological superiority.
Another factor is the belief that animals have a harmonious, reciprocal relationship with nature, whereas human presence with their technology and bottomless greed is a disruptive force which unsustainably exploits and corrupts this natural harmony. It’s easy to forget that only human technology can save the Earth from astronomical natural disasters like crashing meteorites, or resurrect extinct animals – but this has not happened, it remains an abstract possibility which is far less noticeable – and thus far less felt - than the concrete and widespread damage that humans have inflicted on the environment. People process the concrete and sensuous with much greater ease they do the abstract. It’s a fact, a widely and deeply felt fact, that human have driven countless species to extinction, whereas the extinction of humanity is an abstract possibility, and will remain so for an indefinitely long time. And for people who have devoted some time to studying the fascinating richness and variety of the species that humans have eliminated, it presents a great tragedy, and the evil of humanity.
Also, in peaceful times like ours it’s easier to sympathize with the weak and innocent than with the strong. We tend to be more sensitive in times of peace and affluence than in times of war and poverty, plus sympathetic response is inversely proportionate with power perception. Animals are weak and innocent compared to mankind, especially technologically enhanced mankind. And even though they have no rational, conscious agency, as sentient beings they are capable of suffering. Just as children earn sympathy more easily than do adults, so do cute animals provoke sympathy more strongly than a man with a gun would.
All those factors have conspired to foster a hatred of humanity and fear of progress and the future that we are seeing everywhere now.
I was talking in a more general term. There is of course also the special place dogs have in human society, the linkage between animals abuse and psysopathy, which all play a role in this particular case and which I won’t go into, since others have detailed it.
You can see all sorts of animal cruelty which are accepted as normal in China (at least until recently, and in greater degree than would be in the West). They have a different education policy, which focuses on portraying the crimes and atrocities of other nation against them, designed to foster nationalism rather than cynicism. Classical Marxist education also glorifies the progress of technology and man’s dominion over nature – the materials which surround and embody man. It also emphasizes the qualitative difference between man and animals, and would have none of the ‘animals are people too’ thingies.
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