Author: Stevan Harnad

Not very deep, but certainly right. The trick will be to genuinely sensitize people to the hurts they inflict, knowingly or unknowingly, otherwise there will only be the pretence of empathy, practised as empty PC method-acting.

I have lately (far too late in life) become meta-sensitized on behalf of victims who are blind to the micro-insults yet suffer infinitely worse macro-injuries (“more than one way to skin a cat,” “squealing like a stuck pig”…).

If that triggered a reflexive smile then you are face to face with the real heart of the problem — and it is indeed about whether one really has a heart, nothing more, nothing less. It’s not called compassion when we care about ourselves or our loved ones. It begins outside that circle. And it encompasses every innocent being that feels.

In a variant on “we always hurt the ones we love”: We always revile the ones we hurt. Helps us live with ourselves…

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Matthieu Ricard asked a Montreal audience at ToHu. 29 August 2015:

Are you in favour of causing needless suffering to feeling beings?

Not a single hand raised. Most people are fundamentally decent. The rest is about sensitizing them to the fact that most of them are nevertheless unknowingly and needlessly causing unimaginable agony to countless innocent victims — as consumers of meat, fish, dairy, eggs, fur, leather, the commercial pet trade, and the animal entertainment industry (including zoos) — which grades continuously into the sadistic blood-sports (rodeos, bull-fighting, dog-fighting) that only the inhumane minority crave.

Êtes-vous en faveur d’infliger la souffrance aux êtres sensibles sans nécessité?

https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/hungarian-refugees-in-a-refugee-camp-austria-photograph-news-photo/82092139

Hungarian refugees, 1956

The excuses of Ambassador Odor are rank and all-too-familiar attempts to put a deceptive sanctimonious spin on the calculating and anti-social malfeasances of the Hungarian government.

Blaming the EU and the media for bearing witness to the Hungarian government’s heartless and reckless mistreatment of the refugees — instead of owning up to it and remedying it — is a signature tactic of Viktor Orban’s scruple-free regime.

Overwhelmed by an unexpected crisis not of their making?

The months of advance preparation in the form of a concerted nation-wide hate-campaign against migrants and the fortune spent on hastily building a makeshift razor fence whose only bloody victims are migrant wildlife — was that all done sleep-walking?

So that now, being “caught unawares” by a humanitarian catastrophe — with no government provisions whatsoever for feeding, sheltering, reassuring and registering growing numbers of exhausted men, women and children, not even a public address system that can tell the bewildered and frightened victims in their own language what is happening and what lies in store for them — what the Hungarian did (and didn’t do) was the only possible option under the circumstances?

The victims — repeatedly called “economic migrants” and not refugees in the Hungarian government’s lengthy advance propaganda campaign against them, well before they even arrived — are right now detained for days outdoors by police cordons in the rapidly dropping temperatures, with the only food, water, tents, medical aid and information being provided for them by individual Hungarian citizens and volunteer organizations, not the Hungarian government, which is busy building hate and fences, along with hastily dispatching its ambassadors with stretched, sanctimonious and legalistic excuses to the rest of the world.

Unable to stop the worldwide media from bearing witness, the only thing the Hungarian government wants to do now is to get the victims herded into refugee camps, out of the public view, where even Amnesty International has been refused admittance.

The Hungarian government reckoned well that (with the help of its own domestic media control) its hate campaign would further desensitize and brutalize much of the Hungarian populace. (The wonderful volunteer helpers are alas just a small and exceptional minority.)

But perhaps the leadership didn’t reckon with the effect this very graphic glimpse of the Hungarian government M.O. would have on the rest of the world, which, till now, had not been quite ready to believe that the alarm signals about what is going on in Hungary were not exaggerations.

For this entire refugee catastrophe was premeditatedly fomented by the Hungarian government — muscularly resisting the alien hordes, as the defender not only of the sovereign Hungarian nation, but the rest of Europe — fomented for three reasons that have nothing to do with either the crisis in the Middle East, or the vast numbers of resulting refugees invading “Christian Europe,” or the threat of terrorism (as they are being cynically spun):

The plight of the refugees was simply stoked in every way by the Hungarian government in order to divert domestic press attention from mounting government corruption scandals (so far just minor mysteries to the world press) that could threaten the government’s electoral base. Scare tactics plus a muscular guardian stance, stoutly resisting the alien hordes, in contrast, wins Hungarian votes.

But, just as an insurance policy, in reality the primary reason for fomenting the refugee crisis was so as to provide a pretext for introducing new police-state laws that will be adopted September 15, but will last long past the refugee crisis — laws that plan to (1) criminalize asylum-seekers, (2) call up the army and the police forces to “defend” Hungary against them, with deadly force if deemed necessary, (3) allow warrantless entry into Hungarian homes on suspicion of harbouring refugees and (4) prescribe lengthy prison sentences for those found guilty.

(Under the new laws, for example, the current PM’s arch-rival, the former PM, could immediately be imprisoned as he has been sheltering an average of a dozen refugees every night since the crisis began, as well as feeding them and providing medical care. The current PM has long been seeking — so far in vain, because the Hungarian judicial system is not yet 100% under his control — a pretext for imprisoning the former PM, dictatorship quashing democracy.)

Viktor Orban likes to cite the letter of the law to justify his every misdeed. So he re-writes Hungarian law as needed and cherry-picks EU and member state laws to fit the occasion, creating a Frankenstein patchwork out of the worst from everywhere, to which he can claim to be faithfully adhering to the letter, while stifling the spirit of all that’s intended to be good, honest and decent. His refugee atrocities are a paradigmatic example of this unscrupulous legalistic strategy.

Princeton University’s renowned constitutional-law expert, Professor Kim Lane Scheppele — who has been studying and warning about the Hungarian government’s abuse of its 2/3 majority to adopt an undemocratic constitution undermining human rights as well as checks and balances on government powers — has written an extremely sobering analysis of what the latest piece of legislation portends.

In a police state, there would no longer be any need to fear being voted out of power…

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/justice-home-affairs/hungarian-official-admits-campaign-generate-hate-against-migrants

“IF YOU COME TO HUNGARY, YOU CANNOT TAKE AWAY HUNGARIANS’ JOBS”
National Consultation on Immigration and Terrorism
Hungarian Government Posters, June 2015

It is by now patently obvious that the refugee “crisis” that Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban has artifically and systematically created had 3 goals:

(1) to divert attention from Orban’s many mounting corruption scandals,

(2) to re-assert and reinforce Orban’s populistic self-image as the nation’s protector against the invasion of the Turks and the exploitation by the EU and

(3) to provide a pretext for introducing police-state legislation for enhancing Orban’s dictatorial powers.

(The bonus of the new emergency right to break into the homes of people suspected of giving refuge to refugees (sic!) is that Orban will now at last gain the legal right to break into the home of his arch-enemy, the former prime-minister, Viktor Gyurcsany, whom he had ousted through dirty tricks and character assassination and who is now giving refuge to the refugees: perhaps Orban will even be able to do what he has so long tried, so far unsuccessfully, to do, which is to find a legal pretext for imprisoning Gyurcsany.)

This is the standard M.O. of psychopathic dictators, if they are not stopped by concerted resistance from normal, decent people.

What a huge difference between the psychopath whom the Hungarians twice elected — Viktor Orban — and the decent human being whom that psychopath ousted through demagoguery and character assassination: Former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany

Perhaps at long last the brainwashed Hungarian populace will now wake up to who is the decent one and who is the deceiver.

(The Orban propaganda machine will of course howl “It’s all a publicity stunt!” — Well even as a publicity stunt it would send a far more humane message than Orban’s shameful, shameless hate-mongering.)

HUMAN RATIONALISM
Wesley L Smith’s article, Animal Rights Zealotry Hates Animal Welfare (“Human Exceptionalism” in National Review) is full of unreflective stereotypes and over-simplification. Here’s a much more circumspect account:

Most people will agree (if they are not sadists or psychopaths) that it is wrong to hurt or kill a feeling organism unnecessarily.

(To disagree would be to hold that “it is fine to hurt or kill a feeling organism unnecessarily — e.g., for pleasure or profit.”)

Animal welfare advocates are working to reduce the suffering of animals who are being hurt or killed, regardless of whether it is being done out of necessity or for pleasure or profit.

Animal rights advocates are working to prevent animals from being hurt or killed unnecessarily at all. They feel that all animals (including humans) have the right not to be hurt or killed unnecessarily (i.e., that that’s what it means to say it’s wrong to do it).

The rest is down to what is “necessary.” Most people will agree that necessity has to do with conflicts in vital (survival or health) needs, as between predator and prey, or aggressor and victim.

There are extremists who hold that no animal (whether nonhuman or human, presumably) should ever be hurt or killed, under any circumstances. This is either like saying that there should not be any disease or hunger — or conflicts of vital interest — in the world (a commendable but utopian pipe-dream); or it is based on imagining that if they were attacked by a nonhuman or human aggressor they could or would or should not fight for their lives.

That’s all there really is to it, if you think about it.

Craig, W. J., & Mangels, A. R. (2009). Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(7), 1266-1282.

Harnad, S. (2013). Taste and Torment: Why I Am Not a Carnivore. Québec Humaniste 8(1): 10-13

People go to circuses and rodeos for “entertainment.” Many are hostile to any “killjoys” who want to spoil it. So, depending on their character, there are several familiar ways they resolve the “conflict”:

1. IGNORANCE OR DENIAL: “The animals are not suffering”
2. DEFENSIVENESS: “Those who demonstrate for animals are over-sensitive’” or “You should demonstrate for people rather than animals”
3. HOSTILITY: “Those who demonstrate for animals are self-righteous busybodies or aggressive extremists”
4. APATHY: “I don’t care if animals are hurt”
5. PSYCHOPATHY: “Animals are there for us to do whatever we want with”

Few people, there to entertain their children, are ready to say “I now realize it’s terrible and I will take my children home.” And virtually none of them will decide on the spot to become vegans — although of course everything that can be said about animals suffering for entertainment, which is unnecessary, can be said about animals suffering for clothing, which is also unnecessary, or for meat/dairy/eggs, which is also unnecessary, except in some impoverished or subistence environments. Only (some) medical research faces the troubling question of life-saving necessity.

So my own strategy has been just to silently hold up images that show the suffering, offering pamphlets to those who willingly take them, and answering questions if asked. Those who ask are usually in category 1 (ignorance or denial) and sometimes 2 (defensiveness). They truly don’t know, or don’t want to believe the horrors. And there is some hope that some of them will change their minds once they know — not on the spot, but eventually. I never argue, and don’t even enter into discussion at all with categories 3-5, because it is useless and it only provokes them to become more hostile toward animals, their suffering, and those who try to defend them.

I don’t know of a poll, but I believe (or at least hope) that although categories 3-5 are more aggressive and they are also the ones we notice and remember, the most numerous ones are categories 1 and 2 — decent people, with hearts, but unaware of the suffering — and that they are the ones who may later reflect and eventually change.

Saw a TV program about Dancing Bears
in Turkey.
Children are delighted
to watch these big, surprisingly light-footed beasts
do a jig
as their eyes roll lovingly,
almost passionately,
toward their human partners
(“Roms,” as gypsies prefer to be called)
holding the rope
that leads to their nose.

It never enters the children’s mind
that the dancing bear
could be anything but happy,
just as they are,
in watching it.
After all,
would their parents bring them
to watch a horribly cruel display
of torture?
could the gay rhythm to which they dance
possibly be that of unrelenting, excruciating tugs
to the nose-ring, tongue-ring, jaw?
and could what the bear goes through
in their presence
conceivably be only a small glimpse
of its agony?
Yes, they wonder
why the bear’s nose
has that funny curve,
and why its jaw is askew
and permanently agape,
and why its frothy breath
is crimson,
but they assume it’s just smiling.

So Turkey has finally,
officially,
banned the practice —
which has not made it disappear,
of course,
but has simply made it more profitable
to cater to a new demand,
in which the bear cub is duly purchased,
disfigured, tortured, displayed,
and then sold to animal-welfare activists,
who take it to a retirement farm
while the Rom re-invests part of his profits
in the next bear cub.
Supply and demand.
Market economics.

They say that the nose ring
the world has placed in the Rom people’s noses
is almost as painful as the bear’s.
But that’s hard to credit,
from the bear’s end of the rope…

(Version française suit ci-dessous)

The Debate “Should we stop eating animals? “Organized by the Quebec Skeptics at the Quebec Humanist Centre August 13, 2015 is easy to summarize:

Both voices for YES (Christiane Bailey, U Montreal, and Dany Plouffe, McGill U) argued that:

1. Eating animals is unnecessary for our survival or health

2. To breed, rear and slaughter animals causes suffering

3. We should not cause unnecessary suffering

So we should not eat animals.

(In addition, they added that if we stopped eating animals it would be better for the health of the planet and for human health.)

The two voices for NO (Cyrille Barrette, Laval U, and Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, U Montreal) argued that:

CB1: There are continuities and discontinuities in the Darwinian evolution of species: we should respect the differences and distances between species

CB2: Humans are the only species that is “altrusitic” and has the capacity to make choices and laws; pain is not the same as suffering; we should respect these differences

CB3: We evolved as omnivores; let’s continue to eat everything we evolved to be able to eat

J-PV1: Animals industrially bred and slaughtered suffer, but not that much

J-PV2: Whether they suffer too much to justify eating is a matter of opinion and free choice

(J-PV also challenged the degree of benefit for the planet if we stopped breeding animals to eat; he also cited the business interests of the meat industry)

There was no vote taken. Readers can draw their own conclusions from my summary. I think I have not omitted anything important, nor distorted or biased anything.

This Is What Humane Slaughter Looks Like. Is It Good Enough?

DÉBAT : DOIT-ON CESSER DE MANGER DES ANIMAUX ?

Le Débat « Doit-on cesser de manger des animaux ? » organisé par Les Sceptiques du Québec au Centre Humaniste du Québec le 13 août 2015 est facile à résumer:

Les deux voix pour le OUI (Christiane Bailey, UdeM, et Dany Plouffe, U McGill) ont soutenu que:
1. Manger les animaux (non-humains) n’est pas nécessaire ni à la vie, nie à la survie humaine

2. Élever et abattre les animaux cause la souffrance.

3. On ne doit pas causer la souffrance sans nécessité

Donc on ne doit pas manger les animaux.

(En supplément, ils ont ajouté que si les humains ne mangeaient plus les animaux ça serait meilleur pour la santé de la planète ainsi que pour la santé humaine.)

Les deux voix pour le NON (Cyrille Barrette, U Laval, er Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, UdeM) ont soutenu que:

CB1: Il y a des continuités ainsi que des discontinuités dans l’évolution darwinienne des espèces: on doit respecter les différences ainsi que les distances entre les espèces

CB2: Les humains sont la seule espèce « altruiste » avec la capacité de faire les choix et les lois; la douleur n’est pas la même chose que la souffrance; on doit respecter ces différences

CB3: L’évolution nous a adapté à être omnivores: Continuons à manger tout ce que nous sommes adaptés à manger

J-PV1: Les animaux d’élevage souffrent, mais pas autant que ça

J-PV2: S’ils souffrent trop pour justifier les manger c’est une question d’opinion et de libre choix

(J-PV a aussi contesté le degré des bénéfices qu’il y aurait pour la planète s’il n’y avait plus d’élevage des animaux de consommation; il a cité aussi les intérêts commerciaux de l’industrie de la viande)

On n’a pas pris le vote. Les lecteurs peuvent tirer leur propres conclusions à partir de mon résumé. Je crois que je n’ai rien omis d’important, ni rien distordu ou biaisé.