On our modern 'empathy' towards animals, or not?

Dear Group,

I just looked at the "Cat Paw Prints" on a medieval document, which started me thinking.

I also read this article re. a zoo animals cesarean birth

A 100- years ago, most people would look at a hyena as a "dirty foul animal, only fit to be killed". Now we Ohh and Ahh.

I still remember "Clark Gable" shooting an Elephant (backdropped obviously) in a film, and there were no Boo's and Hiss's - as there would be today.
Perhaps John Ford was too powerful, or was it the zeitgeist of the '50's and earlier?

What has changed?

Yes, yes, I know fuzzi and seannie, you are but a small number of those who have to pick up the detritus of how humans 'actually' care about animals today. And only Felis silvertis catus in your case. Dogs/Horses/Do I have to list the whole animal Kingdom? or just Mammalia?

Have we become more, and I'm not even sure how to phrase it.
Gentler? Softer? Maudlin? Mawkish?

Do we actually care more about 'animal welfare', than say 50 years ago?

I suspect yes. But only in a "functional" sense - keep it from the eyes of....

I don't see any abandoned "kittens in the streets" (which I did see 50+ years ago.) Nor many stray animals at all. But I do live in a suburb which charges for that.

Your thoughts?.

Guido.

I suspect that empathy with animals comes with prosperity. More people have more time and money to think about animals as anything other than an economic necessity.

I was horrified by the treatment of the cats and donkeys in Morocco, for example. In some societies the number of cattle you own is measure of your wealth - they do not have names the way that my grandfather's dairy cows did.

Here in Perth, Western Australia, the Cat Haven answers all newspaper ads to find homes for kittens, collects the litter and finds homes for as many as they can, only euthanizing them with great reluctance. Those which are found homes are sterilised and microchipped so there are less and less abandoned 'kittens in the street". Thank goodness!

In my lifetime, I've seen a drift of empathy towards fellow humans shift to a greater empathy for animals instead. Personally, I think we should have empathy for both.

Why is there a perceived change in empathy?

It's not "politically correct", but I believe part of this is due to the devaluing human life in the last 50 years. If a person is just another 'animal', then there is nothing special about it, and inconvenience as well as monetary concerns can be the judge of whether a life is worth saving.

Think of all the cats and dogs that are discarded once the actual cost in time or money becomes apparent. My dh and I always searched for a rental that would allow us to keep our pets. We made the extra effort to find some apartment where our cats and dog were welcome. We did not "throw away" a pet because their needs made our lives a tad more difficult or presented an inconvenience!

There's a quote from The Thorn Birds about how we cherish those that we have less of (think endangered species) and think less of that which we have plenty. I can't locate it online, but it comes from a passage about a woman who is upset about the lives of the sheep on Drogheda, and she is answered "It's not worth getting upset about, Mrs. Dominic. Down in the city they don't know how the other half lives, and they can afford the luxury of doting on their animals as if they were children. Out here it's different. You'll never see man, woman or child in need of help go ignored out here, yet in the city those same people who dote on their pets will completely ignore a cry of help from a human being."

My 2 cents' worth...

...since you asked... :)

Some medieval people did indeed have some sort of love for animals, I am sure. But in general, I think it has to do with Maszlow's Heirarchy of Needs (don't know if I am spelling his name right). If we are focused on survival needs, we don't think about taking care of animals. As we get past those things we start "needing" things like companionship. entertainment, spiritual fulfillment - I would put pets in this general category of "higher things". So in medieval times, the people that loved animals or treated them like pets are treated today would be the people who were mostly restricted to the home (mostly women) or other shut-in kinds of groups (i.e., the insane, like Christopher Smart who wrote the beautiful poem about Jeoffrey the Cat) or very wealthy people (who have had pets for a long time).

Thanks anna et. al.

I had'nt thought about Maslow for many a year :-)

So far I get the feel (from the discussion) that 'prosperity' => 'empathy'.

We were NOT all that poor 50 years ago. Different values, sure, but NOT that poor. I still feel that something else has changed. Communucation?Attenborough :-)

Guido.

Well... there's vastly more cruelty to animals these days than 50 years ago. More than at any other time in human history. It's just hidden away in factory farms instead of out on the street.

Yep, sweep it under the carpet...

We humans are good at hypocrisy.

Yet when I was born there were 'only' about 3.5 Billion people living, often in extreme poverty, ie. Maslows lower rungs.

So today, is "factory Chicken farming" cruelty or just a 'cost' of us wanting a "chicken in every pot"? We have always, and will always, kill animals. But have we become more Humane in doing so?

It took an Upton Sinclair in his The Jungle 100+ years ago, to show us the cruelty, and he was only focusing on the Human cost!

Yes, the market tries to dictate expediency, but "hopefully" we Humans dictate ethics and morals. Recently, here in Aussi, we had a 'live cattle export ban' (and don't start me on that topic) because of some horrifying TV footage.

Sure, first world only, but (again hopefully) our 1st. world ethics flow through, through the dictate of economics.

Guido.

PS. I support/donate to, WSPA

#7 ... and I donate to the Cat Haven. It gets no Government funding and is run mostly by volunteers, with the Vets doing the sterilising at a much reduced fee. Anything is preferable to euthanasing kittens.. which they used to have to do by the hundreds.

And which at the RSPCA & Lort Smith they still do every year. By the Thousands,
unfortunately.

PS. Pinko, I also donate to a small "no kill, here for life" mob here in Melbourne. I just memtioned the WSPA, 'cos I was going to drop my donation until
they unexpectedly came out with their "live sheep export ban". Which for once seemed to do something?

Yes, there is always the question of whether to donate to a "small" group, or a national lot.

I think that as we begin to understand, on a cultural level, that humans are animals we slowly begin to invest less in the idea of ourselves as unique creatures which have greater value than all other life. This leads us both to value animals more and to value humans less. We haven't worked out the morality of it all yet, though, so the same person who wouldn't give a banana to a homeless person will spend a great deal on custom pet food.

Humans like humans. We prioritize our families, tribes and species. This is no different from other animals and it's not going to go away.

Humans are predators and omnivores. We will eat animals and raise animals to be eaten because that is our nature.

Humans are also biophiles. We love life and living things and we like to be surrounded by non-human creatures. Thus we have and will continue to have animal companions of various sorts.

We have always struggled with these conflicts inherent in our nature. The reason farmers don't name the chickens they will be eating is because a name signals that an animal is a companion and not food. There are uncountable stories of children who have suffered from treating a food animal as a pet and grieved when the animal was killed.

We must eat and we are predators, but we also love animals.

The challenge is to find a way to respect our nature and the nature of the other living things on this planet at the same time. At some level we know that animals that we eat deserve to live their lives as their nature dictates, which is why factory farms are so offensive to many of us. When we take animals to be our companions we know that we have agreed to care for them, and thus many of us are offended by homeless cats and dogs.

We are not (in the industrialized world at any rate) so poor that we must look at every animal we encounter as either food or a means to obtain food, but our cultures have not wanted to address the tensions inherent in our relationship with animals and so I do think that there can be a sort of reflexive cruelty - kind of like dehumanizing the enemy in war. People felt (and still feel) guilty about how many animals (including other humans) are treated, but also like to eat meat and move apartments without thinking about pets and use their money to pay for pleasures rather than to feed the dirty, crazy people on the street.

None of us can perfectly fulfill the conflicting needs of human nature and where the emphasis comes down for each of us different, but I think and hope that many of our cultures are becoming more honest about the conflicts and I think that we can move toward a point where we can feel compassion for all and treat all animals with respect for the natures of their species.