Scrumping

643:

Can I take what isn’t mine? As kids we lived near orchards and at the end of summer the trees were laden with apples. We’d go out scrumping when the sun began to set. The idea behind ‘scrumping’ is, of course, theft.

             Kids scrumping apples from orchards is the benign end of theft. Perhaps we’re outraged by some thefts but less so by others. Quite apart from moralising about theft, we can look at it simply in terms of ‘getting away with it’, weighing the pros and cons of getting caught.

So, what is it that is so deeply attractive about theft? Perhaps it’s that we like a bargain and stealing is better than a bargain, so it’s not easy to pass up an opportunity. Cycling past an orchard, what an opportunity - all those apples just lying around.

But it still comes down to stealing what isn’t mine – that’s what we’re looking at here. It could be apples or stealing what belongs to animals – we take it if it’s easy. And animals are easy. They’re docile, imprison-able, biologically impelled to produce useful products for humans – it’s so easy to see them merely as an investment opportunity, especially since they always produce what we want however badly we treat them. Is it any wonder that humans steal from animals? Why wouldn’t we?