So for us Orthodox Christians it's Good Friday today and it'll be Resurrection Day (Good Saturday) by the time you're reading this. In the neighborhood where I live, a new (boisterous and with many members) family has moved in, who brought a live rooster a few days ago. They slaughtered the rooster today (clearly it'll be part of Easter Sunday's feast) and though I couldn't see it, I could hear it, and it was hideous. It was cruel. It messed me up and I can't think of anything else all day, so this is what I'll write about. Not the rooster- about cruelty.
What is cruelty?
According to the dictionary, Cruelty is behaviour that deliberately causes pain or distress to people or animals.
By that definition, perhaps the family that slaughtered the rooster weren't being cruel- their goal wasn't to distress the rooster, it was to kill it. However either they were inexperienced or didn't care to make it quick enough, and deliberately brought in a live bird to kill it when there's tons they can buy off the butcher, already dead. They (and I) could hear the rooster screaming and flapping its wings and they knew they would, and they were ok with it.
Is that cruel?
Yes, yes it is. Perhaps they're a lot more sincere in their cruelty because they do the deed themselves instead of going to buy the result of someone else's cruelty, but it's cruel because they inflict it on a living being without having to. They're not starving. They're not unable to get meat otherwise. They did it “for the tradition” or whatever else was going through their minds, since they do eat store bought every other day of the year.
So yes, that is deliberate infliction of distress on an animal, directly, and it's cruel in my book.
Now, I'm not vegan. I'm vegetarian, which means I do consume non-animal rennet cheese, eggs, and dairy. The dairy industry is a horrible hell for animals. Am I being cruel for having dairy?
Yes. Yes I am.
If I buy milk, eggs, and cheese from sources that are cruel to animals, then I'm also being cruel. I try my best not to, but when I can't, then I'm being cruel and there's no sugar coating that. I strive to show with my wallet that I want farmers and companies that at least show some decency to the animals that produce my food, but that doesn't mean I get to play holier than though with my choices. I'd love a balanced, symbiotic relationship where animals are not abused and are cared for while we ethically harvest some of what they produce for our own use, but I don't kid myself that is the case right now.
What I can say is that I would never slaughter an animal to eat it when I got other options.
What about humans? (no, I wouldn't slaughter them to eat them either. :P) I mean, what about cruelty between humans? Are we doing better on that front? Hell no.
Cruelty is something that imbues human society to the point that we are accustomed to it, habituate to it really fast, and learn to overlook it, especially when it's institutionalized. How we treat animals is only a measure of how we treat each other as humans.
Making someone distressed on purpose and with impunity is a show of power and that's how it codes. Bullying and bullies inflict distress and pain because it's a show of power and superiority which unfortunately doesn't limit itself to the school microcosm. The fact that often bullying goes unchecked, or is very inadequately addressed, is also an indication of how much society tolerates and low-key reinforces such behaviors.
“Why do you care, it's only a chicken” can very easily become “why do you care, it's just the janitor”. Concepts such as people being inferior and superior to each other also feed into this inherent cruelty that seems to be a kind of currency in our world. I've had experiences in the past where being kind was taken to mean “being stupid” and people were surprised when they realized that I (or my family) were not, in fact, stupid, and could metaphorically kick their ass when we find it necessary.
We're not cruel, except when we are- just like me and my dairy when I can't ethically source it, the others with the rooster, still others with bullying the kid who is “just the weirdo” or “just the poor kid” or whatever.
The big issue for me is when we just shrug and move on, rather than try to do something about it when we can. Could I have done something about the rooster? Probably not, I'm still wondering. I hate it, it haunts me. Can I do something about dairy industry animals? I think so, I'm trying. Can I do something about various forms of bullying? absolutely, I'm doing it.
But what I often hear is “that's just the way things are” and “that is the way of the world” and “you're blowing it out of proportion, it's just a ….” and that… that, for me, is the penultimate form of cruelty. The acceptance of it. Sometimes, even the celebration of it.
Anyway, cruelty when it's subtle or institutional, and how your characters react to it, is an excellent way to foreshadow your villains, or set up a hero's journey for your main character(s) to go on.
Here's to less cruelty in the world, sometime soon.
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On Cruelty
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 15, 2023
5 likes!
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TheJagged at 9:53AM, April 16, 2023
Animals eat other animals. Humans are just animals. Might be because i grew up surrounded by farms, i watched animal slaughters live, never bothered me. I find an odd beauty in taking one thing's life to sustain another. It's the very essence of life itself to steal someone else's carbon. That said, of course i don't condone torture. Purposefully mistreating animals is just... it feels so pointless. You're already taking its meat, why make it suffer for it. I think what makes human unique is not being able to be cruel on purpsoe, but to know it's wrong and do it anysay. Some animals are cruel to each other on purpose, but they have no sense of right or wrong. In a way it absolves a cat playing with a mosue until its guts hang out. What excuse do we have.
Tantz_Aerine at 4:53AM, April 16, 2023
Hushicho: Well, sometimes timing sucks. // Usedbooks: You're absolutely right. I'd say your eggs are free range, or better since your hens are pets. Personally I never buy my eggs from the store. I have them delivered by a farmer I know has his hens out in the open all day.
hushicho at 2:56PM, April 15, 2023
Cruelty can be through callousness or even ignorance, whether or not it's intended. I'm vegetarian myself and try to do my best to be as ethical as possible, but I feel very conflicted about this article's presentation and approach. It was exactly what I didn't need today. I am glad there is dialogue on this subject. I just feel completely blindsided by the frankly nauseating address of that situation. It didn't ruin my day, because arguably the day was already ruined, but it certainly did not make it any better.
usedbooks at 12:49PM, April 15, 2023
I looked up the definition for "free range" chickens a while ago. Because my chickens stay in a run most of the time due to city rules (and to keep them safe), I wondered if I technically had "free range" eggs. To backyard chicken keepers, free range usually means they roam around in open areas (rather than a pen). However, I found out the industry definition for the "free range" stamp on groceries can be satisfied by a tiny pop hole chickens can poke their heads out of now and then. Not roaming fields, not even a pen/run, A hole big enough to see sunlight sometimes. That's the "free range" experience of the grocery store egg layers. There's big money in stamping practically meaningless words on groceries, so people can feel better about buying them.
Tantz_Aerine at 10:08AM, April 15, 2023
Excellent points all around guys, I'm impressed and happy to read them all!
acricket at 9:06AM, April 15, 2023
The argument of the two definitions of cruelty makes me think about how intentional harm and neglect have different motives (or lack of), but can be equally damaging.
acricket at 9:02AM, April 15, 2023
It's interesting to me that we have similar dietary goals, but different reasons, or maybe, it really is the same reason, but a different perspective. I aim for a vegetarian diet like yours because it also happens to be better in terms of reducing methane and CO2 emissions. Emissions drive warming and pollution which are already destroying ecosystems (homes of animals, people, plants and bugs). I also avoid soy, as soy demand (its used in animal feed too) increases the demand for soya farms, which mow down the rainforest. So my take is less about individual animal suffering, but the big picture, destroying habitats for animals and people view.
marcorossi at 2:38AM, April 15, 2023
"Making someone distressed on purpose and with impunity is a show of power and that's how it codes" I think that making someone suffer as a show of power is cruelty in the strict sense, while having someone suffer in order to get an advantage (e.g. a slave trader) I would call callousness. Animal mistreatment in the food industry is callousness, not cruelty IMHO (I'm a vegetarian too). A few years ago I read the book "On aggression" by Konrad Lorenz and, while the final chapter has some limits (usual evolutionary psychology overgeneralising) on the whole I was impressed by it. It makes the difference between interspecific, functional aggressivity, and the intraspecific, social-instinct-motivated aggressivity. For some reason, a lot of people wrote inspired by that book but missed the distinction between the two kinds of violence, that is the core argument, and this made the book more controversial that it should be IMHO. Higly recommended.
Andreas_Helixfinger at 1:13AM, April 15, 2023
Sooo, yeah, cruelty is a complicated issue for me in these particular cases. But I guess the plus side is that at the very least I am conflicted about it and not blindly accepting of it. I can't be. I have to look at the dark side and at the very least acknowledge that it's there.
Andreas_Helixfinger at 1:09AM, April 15, 2023
It's a similar conflict I have with japanese Sumo wrestling, another sports element I've studied, which I've been watching matches of lately. A sport of ancient tradition that goes back centuries, that has a lot of cool estethic and cermonial flavour to it, and that also has a lot of problems attached to it. Sumo wrestlers suffers a lot of health problems later in their lifes due to the lifestyle that comes with Sumo. They have to come back soon to keep wrestling even after suffering grave injuries in order to keep their place in the ranking system. Beginner Sumos are often subjected to hazing and other forms of abuse in the training grounds, some which have led to outright assaults, and even manslaughter in one particular case, simply because they are at the bottom of the bussiness and it's considered acceptable within the Sumo world because it "toughens them up" etc etc. Sumo is not an uncruel sport, yet again, can't help but like it a bit.
Andreas_Helixfinger at 12:59AM, April 15, 2023
This is a very relevant topic for me right now. The complications surrounding cruelty has been haunting my mind a LOT lately, as I've been digging into various elements of sport as inspirational fuel for my new sports drama comic titled Psyflung. Elements like animal combat sports such as bullfighting or cockfighting. And as I study those fields I find myself in this self-conflicting state where I do condemn it, but also find myself allured by it at the same time. Allured by the sense of estethic and cultural significance that goes into both of those said sports. Bullfighting is a spanish tradition that goes way back into pagan times and cockfighting has been a cultural phenomenon in the Philippines even before colonial times. I look at these things and hear one part of me say "this is animal abuse! This is senseless, lethal violence done in the name of entertainment and/or tradition! This is cruelty!", but then another part of me says "but--I can't help but kind of like it in a way."