Desensitisation in the Oppressed

Today I am not going to talk about desensitisation in the oppressors; that is a topic for another time, and one well-discussed. Today I am going to talk about a coping method in the oppressed, known by a few names: desensitisation. Self-numbing. Acceptance of place and submission. Dissociation.

What started the idea for this post was the thought, "Wait a minute. Some animals will let you do whatever to them. Some of them will yell at you and glare. Others still will just run away," in addition to reading some online articles of anarchist zines. Once again, I am going to work my magic and tie the suffering of animals in with its human parallel: the oppression of women.

As the coping method I named above is most often seen in those that have been abused, I began to wonder whether the submission that animals learned to affect had an effect on learning to trust humans again when placed in farm sanctuaries. Mind that this does not always apply; for example, abused dogs may not trust humans again. It is simply a generalised analysis of abused women and farm animals.

When you're abused all your life, you get desensitised and numb. I know this; when I was 15 and feeling nothing all of the time, my parents took me to a psychologist and got me tested. The results came out: I was a victim of chronic abuse. The source (traditional schools) is not necessarily important. What is important is that, to this day, I can shrug off or laugh at any insult you care to throw at me. This isn't a thicker skin; this is total numbness. While I'm recovering, I can barely feel anything but the strongest emotions -- love, hilarity, mania, depression.

I begin to wonder if that isn't how it is for animals as well. It seems like it would be; self-numbing is a pretty basic coping method. So when I look at those pigs biting the bars of their cells endlessly, I don't think they're miserable, I think that they're so numb that they just want something to pass the time.

There are lots and lots of variations of dissociation. For many women who are abused, dissociation of the feelings of abuse are separated from the abuser so that they can continue to love him/her. Pigs, I think, must dissociate the food with their abuser so they can continue to survive. Both are survival mechanisms; and, I would argue, they are one and the same. Both have similar dynamics.

The cycle of abuse boils down to "temporary peace, violence, reconciliation," repeat ad nauseum. In both cases, the abused is being "taken care of," supported emotionally , financially, or physically (with food). Sometimes all three. With abused women, being supported emotionally by their abuser is what it eventually comes to be -- they close up to their friends, they don't want to see anyone else, they are fed lies about their friends or their friends are fed lies by the abuser.

With the vast majority of farm animals, there is no one to emotionally support them. They cannot touch anyone, they can only hear and smell terror. Therefore I would suggest that there is a slight variation on their emotional support -- the emotional support is food. Pigs, to my knowledge, are fed all kinds of carbohydrates because they're cheaper, and carbohydrates are the only nutrient that facilitates the production of serotonin. So the pig may be getting a "high" in between bouts of misery/numbness when he or she eats.

If the pig or woman subconsciously associated the abuse with food/emotional support, they would not be able to function. They just.. wouldn't. It would be impossible for them. It would be impossible for any person, human or nonhuman, to function when your basic needs are associated with something or someone that causes you harm. They would starve to death, or they would emotionally shut down.

Now, since they're dissociating their abuser with vital needs, might that not make it easier to trust again? Often, the marks of trauma only begin to show after a period of safety (in its more extreme forms known as PTSD, which is common to all animals). I believe that this is also a coping mechanism. If someone, like the pig or woman, began to show signs of PTSD during the abuse, likely they once again wouldn't be able to function. Worse, they may be killed (not that farm animals aren't always, minus the very few lucky ones that make it to a farm sanctuary) by their abuser. The self-numbing, again, is a coping method: survive, and you will live to another day. Weakness will kill you.

By putting away the hurt for a little while, we can survive and maybe learn to trust again, perhaps someone that won't hurt us. The lucky pigs learn to trust again. The unlucky pigs are scalded alive in boiling water by their abusers. The lucky women get out and learn to trust again. The unlucky women are killed by their abusers.

But it is vital to remember: anyone that will willingly hurt you for no reason is an abuser, whether they like it or not.

That's all I have to say for now. Probably there will be a part two to this. Stay tuned..

On the Further Insufficiency of "Beings"

I made a point in my last post that the word "being" is not enough to describe an animal. It occurred to me later on that I did not sufficiently explain why that was, and I do like to have my arguments shiny and waiting for someone to come poke a hole in it.

The word "being" is insufficient for our furred, feathered, and scaled brothers and sisters; to my dismay, I realised that it did not accurately portray to the listener that animals are not our inferiors, but our equals; it makes a jab at it to say that animals are not things (which is the common representation of animals in our culture), but it stops short at disallowing the thought that they are our equals.

Human and nonhuman animals, as anybody whose mind is not firmly intrenched in bias will be able to figure out, are equal. For more reasons than one -- they have morality (as observed as social law), empathy, compassion, intelligence, a sense of time, self-control, self-awareness, and many other traits that we have previously only attributed to humans (a thought that is slowly and surely being debunked to include other animals). Granted, not all animals have each of these traits in equal measure -- but then, neither do humans.

The most telling aspect of this equality is that, without a speciesist bias one way or another, no one can decide what trait is better than any of the others -- if it's being able to communicate by smell, to find your way over thousands of miles of land, to plant sees in over 7,000 locations and be able to find each and every one, or to operate a machine (which, unfortunately for the human supremecists, animals can do as well). Thus, by virtue of there being no objectively better trait, we are equal.

But, to end that tangent, "beings" does not accurately portray this equality. Why is that, exactly? Primarily, because humans do not think of themselves as beings even though they may refer to themselves as "human beings". Allow me to illustrate:

Say you have a Formula 1 racecar. If you go around saying to everyone else that you have a "car", they won't think it's a Formula 1 racecar, and they will be surprised when they see it that it actually is one. However, if you call it -- say, a racecar, then they will immediately know what it is, and in greater detail than just "car".

Calling nonhuman people "beings" is like this. "Human being" is synonymous with "person" in this culture; if you take away the "human" part, it becomes meaningless and still inferior, though better than an object. However, if you call a nonhuman animal a "person" and a group of them "nonhuman people", you bypass this inferiority. "Persons", after all, are what our legal system is founded on; call an animal a "person" and you immediately disallow the thought that they are inferior by giving them the same status that a human has -- worthy of rights and freedom.

Ultimately, I think, nothing else will do. We must press for social equality for animals or be doomed to fail as a movement. If we accept the inferiority by animals, even by implications -- then why shouldn't anybody else use and abuse them as they wish?

Person/Thing Dichotomy and "Beings"

One of the reasons you will often hear me referring to animals as "nonhuman people(s)" is a social injustice that is often overlooked. It is present in every representation of a being that we do not respect; I have named it the "Person/Thing Dichotomy".

Feminists will know that there is a dichotomy in our society -- Trans activists will know that it is even more insulting than it is wrong. The dichotomy that these groups often focus on is the gender dichotomy of male/female -- that is, if one is not male, one must be female instead. Often, when the gender of one that has power is unknown, ze will be referred to as "he" rather than the gender neutral "they" or "she", with its accompanied implication of powerlessness. This is why I think Feminists need to listen the hell up and change their ways of representing their brothers and sisters in fur, feathers, and scales.

As a general statement, the Person/Thing dichotomy is only employed when the being in question is seen to be completely powerless (something which, luckily, women have never had to face). When the being in question is completely powerless, ze are referred to as "it"; they are objectified in far more severe a way than women have ever been. Even pornography cannot objectify a woman so deeply; at least the presence of her gender is recognised -- which, in all its power-playing chaos, is doubtlessly part of why pornography is seen to be arousing; you have control over an inferior -- this inferior that is so underneath you that she chooses to pose for you.

This, no doubt, is also why zoophilia is seen to be arousing; animals are wrongly seen to be so far inferior to humans that they are abject slaves. They are objects. And our language proves it.

When you refer to an animal, do you refer to hir as "he/she", "ze", or "it"? Think about this for a moment. Can you guess why many will get upset about you calling their companion animal an "it"? When you call an animal an "it", you are taking away that animal's very real self, their very identity.

"It" turns people (again, a category which includes animals) into mere objects. And objects, of course, have no wants, desires, needs or feelings -- you can do anything to and with them and they won't complain or object in any way. Is it surprising that our society wants to keep thinking of animals this way? If we admitted that they were beings like we are, we would have to admit that we are even in the slightest way similar to them.

And, after all, the first step to killing someone is to make hir into a thing.

This is how rapists and pornographers succeed. They turn the woman they are viewing into an object for mere consumption -- something we do to animals every day. They deny her feelings, that she could have feelings; they deny that she could in any way be like them. So again do we do this to animals; and, like women, one should not assume that they are inherently different lest one become as numb as that rapist and pornographer.

"Being" is not enough, either; I reject that word as an all-over noun for animals. Animals are not simply beings, they have selves and morality (as seen in social law) just as we do; we simply choose to ignore it. "Being" still allows any human to distance themselves from the animal -- as humans do not think of themselves as "beings". They think of themselves as people. And we have denied nonhuman animals that title as well for far too long.

The Disconnection Between Humans, Animals, and Reality

Once in a while I come across a feminist that is clearly either misguided or ignorant when it comes to animals. Intelligent, articulate, wonderfully brilliant and visionary women—but they simply do not understand when it comes to animals, and animals and how these animals' rights relate to their own rights as beings. Though it is in my nature that, once one great feat has been accomplished—the cognisance of the worthiness of women for, and personal self-actualisation—I expect more cognisance of the worthiness of other oppressions to be battled, I must break away from this and recognise that this is not a failure of these women alone, accomplished though they might be; it is a failure—and indeed, tenet—of our entire society.

We do not accept animals as our equals; not even as our sisters. I have heard feminists claim that "we are not animals.." because of a social norm of ours that is not seen in their society; I have heard them say that, no matter what, humans' problems are more important—fundamentally because they think that because we and our sisters live in different bodies, we are different at our core.

Now, to anyone that has studied biology, it's obvious that humans are animals, but even scientists will not allow any familiarisation more than that. You see it in every article about animal intelligence where we are forced to ratchet up our ideas of just how intelligent animals are; it is if there is a compulsion within these people to insert the words "rudimentary", "basic", "lower", and many other words that designate what is happening as lesser, as though these animals would find out and lose perspective of what is their "place" in life—or we would.

This I see as a basic disconnect in our everyday lives; we wake, eat, breathe, sleep thinking that we are the greatest of all beings, the crowning glory of Earth, the peak of evolution. And yet we are destroying our own planet, something no other creature does; we are enslaving and subjugating beings that, given enough time and friendly exposure, would be our friends—and who are our distant cousins.

I am forced to wonder—not unkindly—if these feminists see the status of women on Earth and, instead of making everyone equal, reach out to become better than someone else so that at least they have some status in the world.

But this does not work! One cannot exchange the oppression of one for another. To paraphrase, "while one is oppressed, none are free". And this is infinitely, intimately true for women, men, animals, people of all hair colours, skin colours, fur colours, eye colours, ability, and everything else that differentiates us from one another. If a woman is oppressed, the man or woman—even if that woman has a higher status—that loves her will be oppressed. We are oppressed when those that we love are oppressed, when they are treated as property; but for the human-animal enslavement, it goes deeper than that.

We put their flesh and stolen milk and eggs in our mouths, we ingest them; and by doing so we harm our bodies—not irrevocably, but we do so always, always ignorant of what goes on when we do this to ourselves; if we knew just how devastating it was, no man or woman would touch another's flesh or milk or egg, and they would not do so to their children.

Heart disease; osteoporosis; type 1 diabetes, to our children; type 2 diabetes, to all those we love; arthritis; gout; multiple sclerosis; lupus; breast cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer, and many more. It is truly amazing to me that we risk the lives of ourselves—needed by our loved ones—and the lives of our loved ones for nothing more than a particular taste.

Humans are—indisputably, when looking at the evidence—biological herbivores. It hurts not only billions of animals each year for us to consume the flesh, milk, and menstruation of others; it hurts us—and belies our words when we say that we need to stay alive for those we love.

Why do we assume that the flesh, milk, and menstruation of others cannot hurt us? I believe that at the root of this belief is the dichotomy of Dangerous/Inferior that we place animals in. If an animal can be conquered, subjugated, and enslaved, ze is inferior to us. If that animal cannot, ze is dangerous to us.

Clearly this is a human-centric point of view; but more than that, it is also a male-centric point of view, for it has been the same attitude towards women ever since we began agriculture and developed a hierarchy.

If a woman can be dominated, she is inferior; if she cannot, she is dangerous. And what happens to those that are percieved of as dangerous? They are either killed or, in these "gentler" times, ostracised. More sinisterly and rarely, their wills are broken, through beatings, emotional abuse, starvation, or rape; animals' wills, because they are too valuable a "resource", are broken through beatings, isolation, starvation, and the crippling pain of having their children stolen from them before their time.

Truly I do not call them our sisters because it is a useful rhetorical tool; they are our sisters not only in spirit, but in suffering as well. We may be taught that our suffering is not the same, but learning is not always correct; wisdom, however, is.

Psuedo-Progressives: Picking and Choosing What Oppressions to Hate

It fucking pisses me off that these idiots can call themselves "progressive" when they support oppression and slavery. And that's what it is -- because the animals are living for reason not decided by themselves, they are slaves. They cannot choose to have their own lives because they are controlled by someone not necessarily stronger than they are, just with more tools to hurt them.

We see this everywhere -- a lot of the time we get more flak from pseudo-progressives than from the right-wingers. The right-wingers, at least, are perfectly secure in doing whatever they want, and they're [i]ignorant.[/i] The psuedo-progressives have no such innocence. They know what goes on, they know the torture and horror and pain that these animals face, and they don't care. Worse, they have the gall to feel superior about torturing, raping, and killing these creatures; they have the gall to feel superior to creatures that would be infinitely more kind if they were only given the chance. These creatures would not harm us. These creatures would not cage, enslave, and torture us; and yet somehow, because we are able to do these things to them and see nothing wrong with it, we are "superior"?

Sounds scarily Patriarchal to me. "If you're strong enough to subjugate someone, you deserve to." I've actually heard this line.

And isn't that just grand. I see "progressives", "feminists" all participating in the same system they hate -- the system of "might makes right." If you claim to be better than animals, you damn well better act like it and not indulge in frivolous cruelty. And even then nonhuman persons are better than you are: they never indulge in frivolous cruelty. Even the cat, terrorising a mouse, has a purpose to the play; though the cat may be amused by this (and probably is), she/he is not trying to excuse his/her behaviour. Cats, I know, are notoriously matter-of-fact. They are what they are, so fuck you if you don't like it -- now pet me.

Nonhuman animals are morally superior ten times over to these knowing "progressives". They do not kill because they like the taste; they kill because they must eat; taste, while it may factor into the decision, does not make up the whole of the decision; their killing is purely necessary.

For humans it is not; it is detrimental to human health to produce and eat stolen flesh. I say "produce" as well because the slaughterhouse workers are horrendously abused in the industry -- and you claim to be for humans when you feed your children this decaying flesh? HAH. I laugh at your stupidity.

Stop calling yourself a "progressive". You are Patriarchal, anti-human, and illogical to boot. You put shame to the overrated glory of humanity.