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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Cat killing artists are found guilty.

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12:00 / 26.02.02

I think a certain amount of reaction here is down the the 'cuteness' of the animal concerned - and that, in turn, relates to how well its physical appearance and behaviour taps into our protective instincts. Cats and kittens, for example, have round faces with proportionately large eyes (like human babies), they exhibit 'emotions' we can readily identify (or approximate, anyway) and cry when they're in distress.

Fish and wasps, on the other hand, don't. They may well experience significant pain and distress but it's much easier to ignore. They're not like us, not warm-blooded...

I think we start there and retro-engineer a justification - either moral (they're less evolved creatures) or intellectual (their nerve endings don't work the same way) - for feeling much less outrage when we hurt or kill them.

The Damned Yankee

12:02 / 26.02.02

Then my cat would have probably eaten it. She loves tuna.

12:48 / 26.02.02

Re: the tuna:
Nice post, Haus, fits perfeclty to show your incredible sense of proportion. Let me do some of this, too: (this goes specially to all vegetarians around):
Why not extend our compassion to fruits and vegetables? They are live beings, sacred and all that, too. Why people don't get all teary-eyed when they open a pickle jar and contemplate the sliced remains of what once was a beautifull, living entity?

It must be an horrible joke that these lovely plants (and all the herbivore creatures that feed the carnivore, and all the carnivore that feed the onivore etc) are set in a exchange system that demands the extinction of a certain life entity so that another can survive. It adds to the cruelty too, that this system has been working for millions of year so per-fec-tly...

I know! Let's make a hunger strike, so whoever is in charge can do something about this issue and change our metabolic systems, so we can consume sand, or hair spray instead...

[ 26-02-2002: Message edited by: I'm Not Here de Jade ]

[ 26-02-2002: Message edited by: I'm Not Here de Jade ]

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

13:00 / 26.02.02

So tuna *are* less important than cats?

Because they are...more populous?
Less intelligent?
Less adorable?

Fuckin' speciesist. Any bloke comes near my beloved pet tuna and I'll skin him alive.

(needless provocation or attempt to raise the possibility that some of these distinctions, no matter how noble their outcomes, are simply arbitrary - you decide)

13:26 / 26.02.02

13:58 / 26.02.02

There's also a question of mass culling vs up-close-and-personal torture and killing. While both have the same ultimate effect, the one-on-one act of violence perceptibly more horrific to most people than trawling a net through the water and coming up with a load of dead bodies (rider: I'm not that sure how tuna fishing works).

In death, as all things, volume tends to desensitise. Reverse the situations, and many people would possibly feel more horror at the sight of someone sitting down, plucking a live tuna from a bucket, and slowly maiming it to the point of death, than if a bunch of feral cats in an abandoned tower block were systematically gassed.

14:24 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by The Haus Red:
(needless provocation or attempt to raise the possibility that some of these distinctions, no matter how noble their outcomes, are simply arbitrary - you decide)

Well, that was kind of my point, really. These distinctions arbitrary - or rather, based on 'cuteness'/tendency to evoke parental protective response. The less anthropomorphic, the less 'important'. We invent all kinds of reasons why it's okay to eat fish rather than dogs but, essentially, it's all down to adorability...

14:31 / 26.02.02

I don't think so.
Ganesh, picture this: Someone is holding a live tuna, shaking and trembling, gasping for oxygen. Then this person takes a long metal needle and slowly shoves it in the fish's right eye, so that it enters in one side and gets out on the other... wouldn't you be repulsed at the cruelty of this person, and of the act? I do. Perhaps it doesn't work the same way to everybody, but if I witnessed such an act, I would try to stop it. It's equally horrible!

[ 26-02-2002: Message edited by: I'm Not Here de Jade ]

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:33 / 26.02.02

Jade: but if this kind of thing is done on a massive scale, for your benefit (in this case, in order to provide you with food), and out of your sight, then you're fine with it?

Actually, I guess that *is* typical of most people's attitude towards the cruelty to or killing of not only animals, but also human beings...

[ 26-02-2002: Message edited by: Flyboy ]

14:33 / 26.02.02

Well, in that example, we're repulsed because we identify with the 'injury to the eye' thing. I really don't think we're that worried about the fish's welfare...

14:38 / 26.02.02

I knew you would be going for the eye thing, Ganesh. I stick to my opinion that it works on different levels to different people.
For me it's all "Shit, that's gotta hurt!" + "Innocent animal which has no idea of what's going on being abused by a human".
I AM ONE WITH THE TUNA, MAN.

And, Flyboy, since when eye-poking is a necessary step in tuna-based food production?

14:50 / 26.02.02

If apparently 'needless cruelty' is carried out directly in front of one, then it's relatively easy to get upset about any living creature being hurt.

Relatively.

My point is, we may not exactly be happy about a fish having its eyes poked out (or whatever) but we'd likely be happy enough to eat it. We's also be happier with the idea of the fish being hurt than, say, a cat or dog. Or even a marine mammal...

14:51 / 26.02.02

Not this "we's"...

14:52 / 26.02.02

Fine. You're the exception, Pedantic Fish-Boy...

06:21 / 27.02.02

i'm not sure it totally comes down to 'adorability'. fluffy animals do get a more emotional response, simply because they're fluffy, but i also think there's a element of relating to them. i can and have bonded with cats and other mammals. i have had wonderful relationships with cats throughout my life. i never have with, say, a fish, or even with smaller rodents i've kept as pets. therefore, if this thread had described exactly the same thing happening to a fish, i still would have been upset and angry and wanted the perps to have been imprisoned for a long time. it would have been on a more 'academic' level. as it was, i have been far, far more emotionally affected by the fact that it was a cat.

[n.b. - i do not eat meat or fish. and i've heard cows are skinned alive, as apparently the meat 'tastes better' that way]

The Damned Yankee

11:46 / 27.02.02

Conventional slaughterhouse methods for cattle generally consist of a sledgehammer (or pneumatic hammer) between the eyes, with skinning done post-mortem. Skinning them alive would be too time-consuming, I would think, considering how much beef has to move out of there.

13:47 / 27.02.02

You think someone actually checks to see they're dead?

It's fully automatic. Done with hooks.

07:11 / 28.02.02

Well at least the tuna are safe...

07:15 / 28.02.02

...for even more slaughter! Hooray!

07:55 / 10.03.02

quote:Originally posted by grant:
You think someone actually checks to see they're dead?

It's fully automatic. Done with hooks.

Having wacthed this process, I know that sometimes the animal is not dead. After the bolt through the skull has killed (or not) the animal, the carcass moves to a group of people with sharp knives who slice its throat as wide and deep as they can to bleed it. I've watched cows stand up at this point and try to escape, many with slit necks. Not many succeed in getting away. It's an understatement to say they feel their survival instinct strongly at this point. Then they get strung up and peeled with hooks from the hooves up...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

07:55 / 10.03.02

Not to mention the fact that the staff in these places are often treated pretty inhumanely too.

"How to Make the Country's Most Dangerous Job Safer"

Another reason to avoid fast food

(I'll try and find some more links that deal with the UK meat industry).

[ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]

Murray Hamhandler

13:32 / 10.03.02

So even though I doubt that the motive of these people went beyond "Let's torture and kill a cat", I have to say that, if their intent was to get people thinking about this stuff, they can consider their job done as far as I'm concerned. I haven't been able to even think about meat since I read that story. They've effectively broken the wall of cognitive dissonance which allowed me to pretend that shit just like what was videotaped wasn't going on with the animals raised for food. So I guess I'm a vegetarian now...
Arthur Sudnam, II

14:23 / 10.03.02

And I've stopped eating cats.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:51 / 10.03.02

And I've stopped eating abattior employees.

15:06 / 10.03.02

And I've stopped eating Mordant Carnival.

09:32 / 11.03.02

Well, given that they've accomplished their stated aim, I think rewarding them with several years in jail is a damn fine idea.

Also, I am resolved to be kinder to fish.

The Natural Way

13:13 / 11.03.02

Bod complained of pain. I am being nicer to him, also.

15:15 / 11.03.02

I now give money to fish whenever they approach me in the street.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

15:17 / 11.03.02

I am a more gentle and considerate lover with both cats and fish. And Canadians.

09:48 / 13.03.02

I skinned myself yesterday just so's I could empathise with other skinned beings.

09:48 / 13.03.02

I claim my right as an omnivore to keep eating all of you.

14:07 / 19.04.02

Sentencing.

"Anger and tears filled a Toronto courthouse moments after the man who made a snuff video of a cat killing got a 90-day jail sentence, to be served on weekends."

Also, in the bottom half of the page here there is a transcript of the videotape, as well as exerpts from the report by the psychiatrist who studied one of the men.

I've given this case alot of thought. While visiting my ex, the most passionate cat lover I know, she told me that she could see their point. After all, it's hypocrisy to punish someone for something that happens every day. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, but I decided to give her view the benefit of the doubt and take a look at it from that level (turns out she was hanging with people who were associates with the men who killed the cat at the time, and she has since changed her stance).

I could almost see the merit of this view if the people involved had taken it all the way. If they truly believed that the killing of animals for food is wrong, and that the practices of the meat industry are immoral, then shouldn't they have willingly taken the full brunt of the law? Instead, they're basically saying that because some people can get away with it, so must they. That's like saying that since the government can go to war and kill people and get away with it, and I'm opposed to this killing, if I were to slaughter a family I too should be exempt.

I do believe that they had an oppurtunity, repulsive as I find it, to make a statement. They could have said, yes, we're guilty, as guilty as the meat industry which does the same thing we did year after year. Instead, they panicked when their little thoughtless game started to turn on them, and gave up their convictions, convictions which they probably didn't actually have in the first place.

wembley can change in 28 days

15:41 / 19.04.02

Jesus christ, just reading that made my stomach turn.

Side note: my roommate's mum teaches little kids, and at her school they've developed a program where they try to identify potential bullies, and send them off to the animal shelter once a week so they can learn how to care for animals. This is based on the theory that bullies tend to start by torturing animals, and later move on to people. They do it because they haven't learned empathy, but working with animals in a caring environment helps them learn. I wonder if working in an abbatoir could deaden this kid's empathy. I know I've had to suppress certain areas of my brain while working some jobs.

01:25 / 17.05.02

I have a friend who saw a "film" over her University network that sounds like that tape. It was of a few men skinning a cat, all the whule hearing it mewing, where they proceeded to eat it as well. Could this be the same people, are the cases of cat torture rising?
I find humans the most terrible thing in this world. I dont think anyone can justify torture for any reasons, fuck art, but then we are beyond the natural world now aren't we? "super"human. I dont have anything against eating meat (although personnally I do not eat it) but torture isnt killing something for survival. I have trouble imagining a prehistoric hominid catching a cow and skinning it for his own enjoyment.
Someone brang up the subject of Lolita, comparing it to child porn. Child porn is depicting a child in a sexually stimulating manner, that is wrong, a naked child is not. Lolita was not child porn, it was a story which could happen in any era. If it were a true story, then it would be wrong. Unnatural.
That is what, in my opinion, defines something as "wrong", unnatural.
Torture is unnatual. I dont think even art can justify torture, ask anyone who has experienced it firsthand, and you'll find they wouldn't even wish it upon a cat (as if animals were beneath humans).

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:02 / 17.05.02

Cats play with mice. That's pretty tortury. And completely natural.

Do you have a definition of "unnatural" beyond "what I don't like"?

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