The Art of Being Superior

1383: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

Human beings have always been 'advantage takers' and 'inferior bashers' whether in the name of racism, speciesism, snobbery or cruelty.  We are hardwired in favour of being against equality.  It's little wonder then that we treat animals as inferior to us.  It makes it that much easier to exploit them.

    

If we want to understand this attitude (especially with regard to animals) we only need to look at the way most of us treat people who are different to ourselves.  We practise separation on them.  We avoid becoming too close in case we have to 'go in hard' on them later.  We don't admit to this of course.  In fact, we might even appear benevolent towards them if only to mask our contempt.  Perhaps it's because we don’t trust people who are different to us.  We consider them not worthy of getting to know and this allows us to dislike them.  It brings us round the circle of letting us think of them as 'non-equals' which brings us back to separation from them.  We 'half-heartedly' get to know strangers.  We endeavour to help them, but not in too generous a way.  They feel this withheld approach and consequently feel patronised.  They feel they're being kept at arm's length, so they apply the same treatment to us until we feel rejected by them!   This lets us complete the circle where we feel justified in separating from them.  And so it goes on!        

In our cocoons of separation, it’s more comfortable not to integrate. We’re so used to ‘practising separation’ on other human beings when it suits us, that we have no trouble doing the same thing with animals.  We believe them to be 'brutes' and therefore less sensitive to pain, which allows us to exploit them or feel no pity for them.


Separation beliefs are integral to hierarchical systems.  The ones on top see those below them as inferiors.  And all humans (but for a very few) see animals as inferiors.  With anything (or anybody) inferior, we apply  different treatment from that lavished on our 'nearest and dearest'.  We do so because of the unlikelihood of there being any negative repercussions.