Many people who are good to other humans are often cruel to animals. And even those who claim to love animals are nonetheless capable of causing them pain. Indeed, a review of the experimental research literature showed that a third of violent offenders had a history of animal abuse, but so did a third of the members of the control group population. Hal Herzog, author of 'Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals', states: 'What is striking about animal cruelty is that most people that are cruel to animals are not sadists or sociopaths; they’re everyday people. The same individual is capable of great humanity, and great cruelty or indifference.'
HELEN LEWIS: Why has this election season featured so many stories about animal cruelty?… American political figures have long showcased their pets to humanize themselves —remember Barack Obama’s Portuguese water dogs, Bo and Sunny, and Socks, Bill Clinton’s cat? But the relationship between animals and humans keeps growing in salience as our lifestyles change. Domestic animals have moved from being seen as rat-catchers, guards, and hunting companions to pampered lap dogs that get dressed up as pumpkins on Halloween. Half of American pet owners say that their animals are as much part of the family as any human, and many of us mainline cute videos of cats and dogs for hours every week. These shifting attitudes have made accusations of animal abuse a potent attack on political adversaries — and social media allows such claims to be amplified even when they are embellished or made up entirely.
At the same time, we make arbitrary distinctions between species on emotional grounds, treating some as friends, some as food, and some as sporting targets. Three-quarters of Americans support hunting and fishing, and the Democratic nominee for vice president, Tim Walz, was so keen to burnish his rural credentials that he took part in a pheasant shoot on the campaign trail. Similarly, only 3 percent of Americans are vegetarian, and 1 percent are vegan, but killing a pet — a member of the family — violates a deep taboo…
Hal Herzog, the author of ‘Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals’, has been interested in how people think about animal cruelty since he researched illegal cockfighting rings for his doctorate several decades ago. He told me that the people who ran the fights, who made money by inflicting great pain on the roosters involved, “loved dogs and had families. But they had this one little quirk.” Politicians can trip over these categories—our deep-down feeling that some animals can be killed or hurt, and others cannot—without realizing it until it’s too late…
“What strikes me about animal cruelty is that most people that are cruel to animals are not sadists or sociopaths; they’re everyday people,” Herzog told me. A review of the literature showed that a third of violent offenders had a history of animal abuse — but so did a third of the members of the control group, he said… The Nazis dehumanized their enemies and humanized their animals, but Herzog thinks that the reverse is more common: Many people who are good to other humans are often cruel to animals. And even those who claim to love animals are nonetheless capable of causing them pain. Circus trainers who whip their charges might dote on their pets. People who deliberately breed dogs with painfully flat faces to win competitions insist that they adore their teeny asthmatic fur babies.
“These sorts of paradoxes are so common,” Herzog said… “What we see in animals… is a microcosm of the big issue of how humans make moral decisions.” In other words, illogically and inconsistently. The same individual is capable of great humanity — and great cruelty or indifference… In the end, arbitrary categories can license or restrict our capacity for cruelty and allow us to entertain two contradictory thoughts at once. We love animals and we kill animals. We create boundaries around an us and a them, and treat transgressors of each limit very differently. SOURCE…
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