Sadism

I feel like these readings bring us the closest we've ever come to one of our major questions of the course, the "if we were around at the time of the Holocaust, what would we have done" question. I was floored by the statistics presented in the prison experiments. "One third of the guards were judged to have exhibited 'genuine' sadistic tendencies . . . some [prisoners] were subjected to sexual humiliation, including sodomy." (Anthology 415-417) I honestly have no idea how to take this. Is it really that easy for us to succumb to such behavior? By simply giving us the ability to do so without repercussions? We all like to think that if we were placed in a situation like this, we'd be the exception. We would each be that one person that refused to continue electrocuting the "Learner". But we all have the capacity to do horrible things. In the words of the Joker, "All it takes is a little push." If you had asked me the Holocaust question a year ago, I without pause would've told you not to be an idiot, of course I would've done something. Now of course, I'm not so sure. What's more, the situation that the so-called prison guards were placed in is comparable to that of a Nazi soldier or even German citizen in the 1940s. They were told over and over again that they were better than the Jews, that they had every right to be abusive, that they deserved. After we're told something enough, we might just start to believe it. So would I have been the Prison guard or the disapprover?

This all relates back to animal ethics. It seems to me that the prison guards abused the prisoners for the same reason we abuse animals. "Animal abuse is basically a power-and-control crime." (Anthology 427) This reminded me forcibly of Elizabeth Costello saying, "We treat them badly because we despise them; we despise them because they won't fight back." (Anthology 159) The prison guards and the children were both given the opportunity to be abusive toward something that could not retaliate. This usually happens in an attempt to take out one's own trauma, pain, or anger on a "lesser" being. You lose your respect for the living being, which can lead subsequently to a lack of respect for life in general. People that fall into this category are known as psychopaths.

So we've reached the consensus that mistreatment of animals can lead to abuse of other humans, and generally to a lack of empathy. Could not such a mistreatment of animals be extended to the animals we eat, knowing the kind of trauma they endure during their confinement and eventual slaughter? We knowingly allow millions of animals to daily be slaughtered in the most hideous of ways, and we do nothing. We don't have enough compassionate for living beings to even change our diet. In this way, we are all sadists. We are all psychopaths. Would we have done anything as an onlooker of the Holocaust? Absolutely not. Most of us would probably have joined in.