What is even more disturbing about this case is not just the nature of the abuse, but Harvard Medical School’s response: 'Harvard Medical School is deeply concerned about the personal attacks directed at scientists who conduct critically important research for the benefit of humanity.'
WAYNE HSIUNG: The philosopher Hannah Arendt, in her groundbreaking book Eichmann in Jerusalem, coined what is among the most fundamental concepts for those who seek to understand the great injustices of history: the banality of evil. In observing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the primary Nazi leaders responsible for the Holocaust, Arendt noted that Eichmann was a shockingly ordinary person, with seemingly no hatred for Jews or other victims of the Holocaust. He was, rather, motivated by the sorts of routine and bureaucratic desires that most of us are motivated by: the desire to fit in; the aspiration for professional advancement; and the belief that he needed to “follow the rules”…
Perhaps the most important implication of Arendt’s concept is that those who are fighting evil are not, primarily, challenging malice or hate. They are challenging the idea that evil is normal. But there is a sister concept to the banality of evil that may be just as important to rationalizing evil: the concept of “necessary evil.” Part of how a disturbing practice becomes “banal” is that it is rationalized as “necessary”…
The banality of evil, and the necessity of evil – over the last month because they have been one of the prosecution’s most important talking points in attempting to imprison us for challenging the systemic abuse of animals in factory farms. Smithfield argued repeatedly through trial that its practices were part of a normal part of food production – and that those who were trying to challenge them were part of an “anti-meat” movement determined to undermine Americans’ need to obtain food. The abuses we exposed – including starving piglets nursing on their mothers’ mutilated reproductive organs – were actually normal and necessary.
But these concepts have also come up in the context of a recent exposé by PETA showing that a researcher at Harvard Medical School, Margaret Livingstone, has performed disturbing experiments on animals, including suturing the eyes of baby monkeys shut. (Yes, you are reading that correctly.) That particular technique, which was made infamous by an ALF raid of a laboratory in California in 1985, was seemingly abandoned by vivisectors after it was exposed decades ago. But nearly 40 years later, PETA revealed in recent days that it continues. Be forewarned, the footage in this video is disturbing…
What is even more disturbing about this case, however, is not just the nature of the abuse but Harvard Medical School’s response: ”Harvard Medical School is deeply concerned about the personal attacks directed at scientists who conduct critically important research for the benefit of humanity… Research led by Dr. Livingstone continues to provide critical knowledge about vision, visual disorders, brain development and neurological disorders. Insights from Dr. Livingstone’s research in macaques have been instrumental in developing a clinical treatment for tremor, as well as for therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and a lethal brain cancer called glioblastoma that are now under clinical investigation”…
There are a few things I want to note about the statement. The first is that it focuses almost entirely on the fact that Harvard’s practices were normal and “following the rules.” It does not even acknowledge any of the facts of the experiments or the apparent suffering caused to a sentient being by suturing her eyes shut. Rather, Harvard simply tries to make the practice seem routine and acceptable by making a false appeal to authority – the approval of the USDA and an accreditation organization called AALAC. This is the banality of evil at work. “We don’t have to defend what we are doing because it’s normal and bureaucratically approved”…
The second thing to note is that Harvard makes the evil at issue seem necessary, by suggesting that the torture of baby monkeys is necessary to save human lives. The example that caught my eye, in particular, was Harvard’s argument that Livingstone’s research has been “instrumental in developing… therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and a lethal brain cancer called glioblastoma that are now under clinical investigation.” To oppose this research, in short, would not just be to oppose a “normal” practice but to oppose something “necessary” to saving human life. Livingstone notes in a personal statement that her own mother died of glioblastoma.
Recall what we previously discussed about the fallacy of necessary evil, and how it harnesses the best in us – our compassion – to induce us to support what’s worst in us. That is exactly what is happening in Harvard’s statement. “If you love your mom, you have to torture and kill these other mothers and their babies.” But, as before, there are factual and ethical leaps that are left unstated. Factually, how exactly does suturing a baby monkey’s eyes shut help save patients of brain cancer? Livingstone cites some speculative therapies for cancer, and states summarily (with citation to no evidence or data) that those therapies would not have been discovered without the torture of monkeys. But this falls short of the extraordinarily high burden of proof we usually require to justify violence against other living beings…
This is not science. It’s violence. Yet… Harvard researchers have insisted that this torture was normal and necessary. By now, hopefully you’re able to diagnose the rationalization process at work. I’ll write on a future occasion, more specifically, about techniques to challenge the doctrine of necessary evil. One key element is to turn the tables on the doctrine, by normalizing opposition to the abuse (rather than support for it), and by making the act of rescue (rather than the act of animal torture) necessary. (This is the entire legal theory behind open rescue.) But for now, I’ll say this. By far the most important thing to challenge evil is, well, to overcome complacency (both our society’s, and our own) with compassion. The banality and necessity of evil are insidious and powerful forces. SOURCE…
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