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.

Singer

Once again, we return to the Holocaust comparison. And once again, I have no idea how to react. This is such a charged and complicated analogy. Originally, my argument was that the comparison was insulting and degrading to the cultural group it references, namely the Jewish population. However, that doesn't necessarily hold up when the man making the argument is, at least culturally speaking, a Jew. "we do to God's creatures what the Nazis did to us."(Anthology 300) Us, not them. The fact that a Singer can make this claim signifies not that the analogy compares Jews to animals, but that it compares animals to humans.  Most people are made very uncomfortable by this comparison. I myself, having grown up in a conservatively religious community, was always taught that animals were beneath us. They might be cute, but they were still put on this earth for our benefit. The Bible taught us this. Within this context, to the devoutly religious person it would seem blasphemous to believe otherwise. "Man may not be more compassionate than the Almighty, the Source of all compassion." (Anthology 322) However, I would remind anyone who takes the Bibles words at face value that it was written by humans, for human benefit. People naturally would not want to condemn a practice they found necessary. So personally, I think this is complete bullshit. "I asked myself why should God, the Creator of all men and all creatures, enjoy these horrors? . . . "They too have souls, they too are God's children." (Anthology 300, 309) In this way, the holocaust comparison is no longer insulting to humans, but it does shed light on our views of animal inferiority, that we would consider a comparison of us to them insulting. Life is life, and should be respected. I personally believe that God intended this. And whether you are religious, or not, no one should blind themselves to suffering, or think themselves superior and therefore allowed. That is the true measure of this analogy: that "might is right" is a despicable sentiment.

however. my issue is not with the comparison itself, or how well it holds up to scrutiny. For all intents and purposes, the violence committed on the Jewish population during the Holocaust (arguably for all of history), and the truth of "Might is right", is the most closely related situation to the current meat industry that we have at our disposal. However, the fact remains that it is inflammatory.  I agree with Bee's argument wholeheartedly: that a successful debate is created through the unemotional exchange of ideas, rather than insults (even if they're unintentional). No one wants to be told that they are a Nazi. There is no possible way to hold a coherent or productive argument after this comparison is made, because it would make anyone naturally defensive. Therefore, there has to be a better way to make others understand that animals are being tortured and that it should be stopped. In practice, I cannot honestly tell you what I think this would accomplish. I doubt everyone would stop eating meat altogether, Frankly, nor would I if I could kill the meat myself, in a more humane way (I won't go into all that). But perhaps some stricter legislation could be passed. Perhaps we could return to a more local form of subsistence. But the avenue by which this is accomplished is not through a comparison to the Holocaust. Unless a person is already receptive to the argument, it will just piss them off. I hope one day everyone experiences that "momentous intellectual breakthrough of recognizing the species barrier as morally or rationally untenable." (Anthology 316) But it's probably a long way off, and this isn't how we get there.

Carnism

A few years ago, I was hanging around my living room with family over Christmas break. My sister was home from school, lounging on the couch opposite me, when she asked my dad for some milk. He looked at her, nonplussed. "How old are we, college girl? You're closer to the kitchen than I am." (All this very jokingly of course, he's the opposite of rude) To which she replied, "But I don't like to see the milk poured. It grosses me out."At first, I looked up in complete disbelief, and then burst into laughter. My dad just walked away, shaking his head at such a strange idiosyncrasy. 

Looking back on this instance in light of these readings changes it completely. "We know that meat comes from an animal, but we choose not to connect the dots. And often, we eat animals and choose not to know we're even making a choice." (Anthology 380) This is precisely what my sister was exhibiting, simply on a higher level. Not only was she unconsciously denying the knowledge of where her meat was coming from, but those animals' byproducts as well. Of course I would never accuse my sister of doing this purposefully. Not only that, but I'd never thought I was doing the same thing with meat until recently. 

So for the past few weeks, I've been attempting to become a vegetarian. I'm sure those of you who've gone through this before will understand when I say that it has been extremely difficult thus far. When you break a bone, you never realize how much that tiny bone was used until it hurts every time you move it, or its wrapped in a cast. The very same goes with transitioning from a largely meat-based diet. I had NO idea how much I actually ate it, and how hard it can become to find other options. I've found myself eating PB&J's in my room more and more regularity. Not only that, but it's made me feel somewhat ostracized from my friends, here and at home. I try to subtly suggest restaurants that I know have more vegetarian-friendly menus, and try to avoid talking about food as much as possible. Now, I'm somewhat afraid to go home for spring break, because I know my friends there won't understand. I've found myself making mental concessions for what I will and won't eat. "It is easier by far to conform to the carnistic majority than eschew the path of least resistance." (Anthology 388)

I realize, however, that I'll never be able to go back to eating meat as I did before: carelessly or without scruples. "Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will . . . be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society." (Anthology 403) I'm not quite at a stage where I see animals' faces in my dinner plate, but I can't just see meat either. I hope I can get used to it soon.

found this while searching "ignorance". Not completely relevant, but I thought it was funny. 

Feb. 27 Best and Worst

So these best and worst blogs are rapidly becoming a place to vent or complain, so I'll try and keep that to a minimum. The worst of my week was feeling incredibly stressed about school an the future in general. Of Course. Again. I got a test grade back for Biology that was terrible. Granted, most everyone else's were also terrible. But this is a plan II, non-major Biology course! This should not be the class that ruins all of our GPAs. Seriously, what the hell? I would be less angry and more determined to do better if I felt like this was an isolated incident, but it seems to me like there's not a whole lot we can do to predict how well we do on those tests. I studied, knew the material well, but forgot to include a few things that she believed were key that I evidently did not. So obviously, I felt incredibly powerless and in no control of the outcome of this course. For a Plan II kid, this is a nightmare. What's more, there's also been the usual identity crises, seeing too many options and not having an answer yet for what I wanted. I feel like I've defined more where I want to go, but don't know how I get there. And I am constantly fighting between the passionate and practical aspects of my personality. The two are so dichotomous that I feel like I have to choose one side if myself just to pick a career. So these "crises" have increased in frequency and intensity as time has gone on, to the point that I'm almost constantly close to a breakdown. One thing I have realized though, is most of being unsure is simply wanting to be a part of something challenging, something that really tests my limits. And something I feel I'm good at and am valued as a part of. Which also makes me terrified that I made a mistake in choosing to drop music as a major. Should I have stayed in and done Music Business? The very thought has lately put my stomach in knots. It's a lot harder to transfer back into Butler once you've transferred out. I just miss being good at something at something, that feeling of confidence that it elicits. And I'd rather work harder and not have to decide than to specialize. Hence taking 18 hours. So basically, I'm tired, stressed, and in serious need of a break from reality. Or just some perspective.

All that being said, the best of my week actually came as a direct result of these frequent panic attacks. It all sort of came to a head last night, in the midst of a debate between Music Business and Computer Science. I realized that I had fallen back into a habit I'd gotten into in high school of obsessively fixating on anything I couldn't control, or any mistake I might have made. Right now, I'm doing everything I can, and these questions I have can't be solved by beating my head against a rock. And I'm doing it over and over, expecting a different result: insanity. I'm literally driving myself insane. So I finally said, "Dude, chill the fuck out." And suddenly, I did. Once I allowed myself not to worry, I stopped doing it so damn much. That, accompanied with actually getting enough sleep, has led me to a completely different outlook. Suddenly I realize again how lucky I am to be here and doing the things I'm doing. For crying out loud, this is a damn good school and I'm doing some badass things: Plan II, the Oxford Program, Texas 4000, even the Broccoli Project. And no one can succeed who has never known failure. So, I'm doing my best to stop killing myself, and the world has changed. I'm a better friend, son, brother, boyfriend, and I'm happier in general. It's crazy what letting go and having a little faith can do. So that's that, and I'm moving forward. Finally.

Coetzee Part III

There is no doubt in my mind that poetry and literature in regard to animal rights can illicit extremely emotional responses. Literature, especially novels, require a certain investment of time and attention that is not necessarily present when watching film. That is to say, it usually requires less energy and focus than does a novel or poem. Therefore, when one takes the time to read a novel or even a poem, they tend to have gotten more from it than they would have an ordinary film. The purpose of a film, generally speaking, is to entertain. Most get nothing more from them than that. Literature, however, because of the investment involved, yields real comprehension. We are forced while reading to interact with the material and place ourselves among its subjects. When we are put into the mind of a narrator, we are usually prone to empathy. Furthermore, the affects of a novel usually have longer-lasting affects. We think about them for a long time after we've read them. There are many exceptions in film, of course, but the general movie-goer is looking for an escape from reality. As this escape is absolutely impossible when watching a film on animal rights, people will tend to ignore those, or get up and leave. Those who read animal rights literature have actively sought it out, and usually are already open to its ideas. Why else would they be reading it? So intellectually, we are engrossed in the subject and will retain more of the information.

But we aren't looking for a high retention rate here, we're trying to elicit an emotional response. Not only that, but our goal is to affect large numbers of people, as quickly as possible. It's not enough that they know the information, they have to be moved to act. In my opinion, we have no greater medium today for conveying or eliciting emotion than film. Sure, I felt a tinge of hurt while reading Disgrace, especially throughout Lurie's interaction with the young dog. "Yes, I am giving him up."It hurt to see those words, and also to realize that everything Lurie went through seemingly wasn't enough. And those words will probably stick with me for a long time. But the images I saw in  Earthlings will stay burned into my memory forever, whether I want them or not. And I can't accept what I saw passively either: I am overcome by the need to act and somehow change the situation. It's the combination of images, rhetoric, and music that caused those emotions. Prior to the invention of film (as in movies), poetry and other literature were the main source for information, entertainment, and persuasion. But now, the average person reads much less than they watch t.v. or see movies. While this is obviously unfortunate, we have to know our target audience and, as that's the entirety of humanity, cater to those preferences. It's a simple truth that film as a medium is more broadly accessible to a modern audience. The uneducated man may not understand that "Hughes [is] in a line of poets who celebrate the primitive and repudiate the Western bias toward abstract thought."(Anthology 144) More than likely they would not have read Blake, Lawrence, or Hemingway, and so would have no context. But force anyone, educated or not, to watch Earthlings, and they will walk away extremely affected. In this way, the fact that reading takes a greater investment is both its advantage and disadvantage. It's much easier to not read something than to push images of hacked and sawed dolphins from your mind. So I would say that film is the first step, and literature is the next. Let multimedia be the door through which they enter the subject of animal rights, and hopefully they will move from there to poetry and literature. All too often have I done just this: seen a film that sparked an interest, and done the subsequent research. From there they can read Kafka and Rilke and Coetzee. Then they can better vocalize their emotions, with more evidence for their claims. But if we are to persuade the general public of this cause, the first step is to hit their hearts, and that will start with film.

P3- Marney

The woman shoves me firmly through a wood and wire gate into what looks to be a fenced-in yard. I look around warily, attempting to find some context for where I was and why I was here. I’d been on my own for a long while. The bad-man had just opened the door to the fence for a second, to let his other dogs in, but that was all that I had needed. I dodged beneath his meaty legs, pelted down the alley and out of the neighborhood as fast as I could. The bad-man called angrily after me, but I ran so fast that his voice was barely more than a whisper of the wind. He may have tried to come after me, but he was too slow. I was too quick for him! Finally I was free. Free from the bad-man’s harsh words and even harsher blows. The wind blew my ears up, my tongue lolling whimsically out of my mouth. For the first time I could ever remember, I was happy. No more would I be hurt, beaten, starved or otherwise abused. And I could fend for myself. I knew I could. I had to.

It lasted this way for a few days before the pangs of hunger began to sink in. I scavenged from trashcans when I could, but anyone who caught me would shoo me away, sometimes kindly, others with exasperation. So I would try to catch an occasional rabbit or squirrel, but they were too fast, and I quickly lost interest in them. I could drink water from puddles when it rained, but I ran out of places to look for food. I became emaciated, my hair matted, nose cracked and dry. At times I almost went back to the bad-man. Almost.

One day I ran a little farther into the wild than I ever had before. I could barely do more than trot I was so hungry and tired, but I’d spotted a small rabbit and followed it as quickly as I could. Now I’d lost it, had no idea where it had gone. A pitiful whine escaped me. I finally shook and collapsed on the side of a dirt road, unable to walk any further. I was frightened, and utterly alone. My eyes began to feel heavy and droop. I was so, immeasurably tired. Maybe a quick nap, and I could find the rabbit later. Just a nap was all I needed!

I woke, panicked by the realization that I’d fallen asleep. Suddenly, I realized I was being carried. This was terrifying, and I did the best I could to protest, give some sign of a struggle. But I couldn’t; I could barely move, much less escape once again from who I was sure was the bad-man again. He was going to punish me for my escape, chain me so that I could never do so again. How had he found me?

I spent the next few days recuperating in a small house, in the corner on and beneath a blanket that smelled unmistakably of other dogs. To my utter surprise, it hadn’t been the bad-man who found me after all. It was a female, with firm but careful hands and a calming demeanor. She fed me, had washed me, and I slowly regained my strength, a sense of my former self. For a while I didn’t trust her. The only humans I’d come in contact with before had hurt me, or ignored me completely. A part of me still worried that she was fixing me up so I could go right back to my owner. She knew my name somehow: Marney. So she must have known the bad-man too. But he never came around, and slowly I began to trust and even to love the woman that had taken me in.

And now she places me in a large yard, messy and overridden with other dogs. Strays, just like me, I suppose. They came toward me in a writhing heap, dust and fur a cloud in their wake. So here it was. This was the bad-man’s punishment at last. I roll over onto my stomach, a gesture of supplication. The dogs sniff at me for a moment, a few stare a little defensively, and they all disperse. Suddenly I was just a part of the pack. I could run and play and sleep and eat whenever I wished. For the first time, I feel something akin to peace. But is this a home forever? It’s so much better than what I’ve had before, but still there is no one looking just for me. I wanted to know what it was like to be truly loved. I shake this feeling off and run to join the rest in the shade of a tree. 

A few weeks later, I sit under the very same tree, and watch as a group of people I’d never seen before open the gate and ease themselves cautiously into our yard. They spend some time greeting the dogs that meet them there, but I am too content in the warmth to follow suit. One of the males, the tall one, comes over to my and squats down by my side. He scratches my ears and moves on. I like him. So when he sits down on the porch, I walk over to his side and hop into his lap. Maybe he likes me too. Maybe he’ll take me home?

I sat down on the front porch of the SARA Rescue Farm, and one of the multitudinous dogs I’d met that day: a slender, black and brown female whom I was informed was named Marney, walked cautiously over to my side. “Hi! Hi sweetie!” I said, hoping she would understand by my tone that I wasn’t here to hurt her. This fear was short lived, as she immediately came up and put her front paws in my lap.  At first I was simply stunned. I had assumed all of these animals would be somewhat shy of humans, especially of tall males like myself. Yet she seemed perfectly at ease in my presence. Simply looking for someone’s attention. And with Marney, her propping up on my lap wasn’t wild or jarring and did not seem to come from an overabundance of energy. She wasn’t hopping up and down or licking my face. She just wanted to be there with me. I have a dog at home, Huck, who does this exact thing. Perhaps that’s why I was so taken with Marney. It seemed: polite. “Would you mind scratching my ears, please?” I imagined her saying. “Thank you so much.”

I sat with Marney for about twenty minutes. After three of four of those, she decided there were other pressing matters that warranted her attention, and began to walk around the porch of the small house within the fenced-in yard. She sniffed a cushion, nuzzled around for a stray bit of food, and would come back every now and again for me to give her another scratch. Never once did I hear her bark or growl at anything, but it wasn’t for fear of any of the animals. From the brief window of time I spent with her, Marney was matter-of-fact, completely at ease, and a fabulous communicator. All in all, she was one of the most immediately likeable dogs I’d ever encountered. It made me wonder how she ever could have ended up there. Was she given away? Surely not. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be rid of her. Yet here she was.

I called her over to me, and did my best to look into her eyes, looking for some sort of connection. What made this so difficult was my tendency to project what I thought she felt onto her, rather than truly taking in what I found. The image that I got from her overall was simple loneliness. She was surrounded by hundreds of other animals but had no one looking out for specifically her. Just as a human being would feel if they were alone in a crowded room. I left a melancholy sensation in the pit of my stomach. Then I tried to imagine my way into her history: what events could have led her to SARA and to the personality she developed. Interestingly enough, my dog Huck, whom she so reminded me of, was rescued from a similar situation. We rescued him from a pound when he was already about 18 months old, an age comparable to Marney’s. Is that where she was, in a pound? Or possibly Huck had been in an abusive home prior to this and his subsequent adoption, and as such so was Marney? The thought sickens me a little. Their personalities may have originated from a need to please an angry or vicious owner, to keep themselves unobtrusive and out of the way. That being said-- and going on the assumption that Huck and Marney are from similar backgrounds-- there is hope. Huck has been in my family now for about four years. Although he still is extraordinarily polite and sensitive to his owners’ feelings, he also expresses the kind of carefree joviality that one can only hope all dogs get to feel. He runs and plays energetically with our other dogs, and lets loose of round of booming barks when he sees you get out of your car. Maybe one day Marney will get to experience this same range of emotions.

But that’s just it. She and Huck may be similar, but he is in a loving home, and she is not. At this point in her life, she most likely has no idea what it’s like to be given regular and undivided attention. As fantastic as the people at SARA undoubtedly are, they simply do not have the time or resources to meet every single dog’s needs. I feel that many people must think when dropping off unwanted animals at a rescue such as this that the animal will be in a better place. While that animal may have its most basic needs met—food, water, and shelter—there is still a great need in that animal for individual affection. Not to mention that it is nearly impossible to tend to every animal’s health needs on so large a scale. A dog may get taken to the veterinarian when sick, but it would most likely take much longer to notice than if it were in a private household. Marney needs to be adopted by a loving family, and soon. She deserves that kind of affection, and in return, that family will receive one of the most amicable and sensitive dogs I will ever meet.

WORD COUNT: 1789. Sorry.

Appendix:
Link to Video- Marney
P3A
Images

Earthlings Part II

My experience while watching the second part of earthlings was somehow very different from the first. That first day, I was affected equally by everything that I saw, and my emotional responses were due to shock and gradual accumulation of similar feelings. In contrast, the second day I swung back and forth between two extremes. In some instances, I found myself numb, resigned, and overall less connected with the suffering I was witnessing than I’d been a couple of days before. In others, I found myself upon what seemed like the very brink of my ability to hurt and feel, which was overwhelming and almost unbearable.

The instances in which I was less connected with the suffering I was watching were during the fishing clip and in some areas during the segment on animal testing. The fishing segment, unlike what had been shown previously, attempted to make you hate commercial fishing more because of the health risks it could place you and others in than for the animals themselves. “Just remember how much irretrievable waste and contaminated sediments are dumped into our oceans.” (Anthology 209) This is obviously a legitimate argument, as was the issues brought up about overfishing, but my ability to connect with the creatures themselves were inhibited because I was worried about myself more than them. I felt selfish for thinking this way. But it’s difficult to empathize with a fish. I find it much harder to put myself into the place of a fish than I do with another mammal. Their minds and lives are so alien to our own that it seems nearly impossible to imagine life as a fish.

The emotions I experienced during the animal-testing segment were extremely stratified. One of the worst images I saw during the film was one of a Chihuahua that had undergone testing. It had stitches of some kind in its head, looked starved and neglected. But when the cameraman looked at it, the dog wagged its tail feebly, believing it was finally about to get some attention. My eyes stung and then fogged over, and I had to look down for a minute to regain my composure. I fail to see how testing on a dog would be necessary for the cure of human disease. Not only that, but much of the testing done is solely for cosmetic purposes. We are literally willing to subject another being to a life of torment so that we can look good when we go out. That is despicable. However, the breakdown with animal testing for me is that some of it might actually be necessary. Trauma experimentation on baboons? No. Infectious disease research? Possibly. I don’t know. I’d like to say there was a better way, but what is the alternative?  So here I felt numb and resigned, and ashamed for not having a better answer.

The defining moment of this film for me, the one that has changed everything, occurred during the segment on the fur trade. “WE SEE A CHINESE FUR FARM WHERE AN ANIMAL IS SKINNED ALIVE. ONCE THE SKIN IS REMOVED IT LAYS IN A BLOODY HEAP; ITS EYES STILL BLINKING IN SHOCK.” (Anthology 215) The fox was skinned alive. How dare they. How fucking dare they. I couldn’t take that. It took everything I had not to jump up, to scream, to leave the room. It was beyond cruel, beyond reason and comprehension.  And we are allowing this. “There is complicity.” I had to go home this weekend, and when asked by my family to explain why I’d elected not to order meat at a restaurant, the very memory of this image left me almost speechless. I couldn’t even tell my mother and sister, and when I explained this to my father, it was in barely more than a choked whisper. Because telling someone else meant acknowledging that what I’d seen had actually occurred, that it wasn’t just some horrible dream.

 Knowing how little at this time I can do to change this horrific truth makes me feel more helpless and angry than I can express. But seeing these things did change my perception, rip the veil from my eyes. I can no longer ignore it, and now feel that it is my moral obligation to actively try and change this. Yes, right now there’s not a lot I can do. But I can make choices that do not condone this behavior, and I can try to tell others about what I saw. (not like the PETA people) And someday, there will be something more I can do.