Eliminating Words of mass distortion

• I've always been interested in the words that are used to refer to the killing of nonhuman animals (animals), and why so many people object to calling it "murder." In an essay called "Murder, She Didn't Write: Why Can Only Humans be Murdered?" I argued that it's time to change the language we use for writing about killing other animals. It's well known that the language we use to refer to other animals can be used to hide or sanitize the often rather egregious ways in which we use, harm, and kill them. Words such as euthanize, dispatch, harvest, and cull are frequently used to refer to instances in which people with different motivations and intentions, kill healthy animals, usually "in the name of humans." (See also Johns and DellaSalab 2017).

I argued that it's about time these polite words are changed to the harsher word, murder, because that's what it really is. However, time again, others and I are told that only humans can be murdered, because that's the way legal systems view killing other-than-human animals. Thus, I was pleased to discover two essays in New Scientist magazine in which the word "murder" was used in the title to refer to nonhumans. The first, by Veronika Meduna called (in the print edition) "Murder most foul," centers on New Zealand's goal of killing all animals they call pests by 2050. The title of the online version of Medua's essay is called "The great extermination: How New Zealand will end alien species." What's important here is that the word "murder" is used in the print edition to refer to humans killing nonhuman animals.

The second essay, by Chelsea Whyte, is called "Chimps in gang 'murder' an ex-tyrant." While the print edition uses scare quotes around murder, the online title, with open access," is titled "Chimps beat up, murder and then cannibalise their former tyrant." Whyte writes, "The murder victim, a West African chimpanzee called Foudouko, had been beaten with rocks and sticks, stomped on and then cannibalised by his own community." It should be noted that these sorts of between group murders are extremely rare. Another earlier essay in the print edition of New Scientist was called "Chimp leader assassinated by gang of underlings." "Assassinated" is a synonym for murder.

An interview with Piers Beirne about his new book Murdering Animals

• "Theriocide—offers a remedy, however small, to the extensive privileging of human lives over those of other animals."

• Because of my interest in words used to refer to the killing of other animals, I was pleased to learn of Dr. Piers Beirne's (with Ian O'Donnell and Janine Janssen) new book called Murdering Animals: Writings on Theriocide, Homicide and Nonspeciesist Criminology. Beirne is Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Southern Maine. I asked if he could answer a few questions about his landmark book and gladly he agreed. Our interview went as follows.

Why did you publish Murdering Animals?

• This book is the outcome of my thinking over the past 20 years about the numerous sites at which we humans kill members of our own and of other animal species. I have always been a bit of a word freak and Murdering Animals begins and ends with the word “theriocide.” From the ancient Greek qhpíov (an animal other than a human) and the Latin cædere (to cut, fell or kill), theriocide is the term that I use to refer to those diverse human actions that cause the deaths of animals other than humans. Like the killing of one human by another (e.g., homicide, infanticide and femicide), a theriocide may be socially acceptable or unacceptable, legal or illegal. It may be intentional or unintentional. It may involve active maltreatment or passive neglect. Theriocides may occur one-on-one, in small groups or in invisibilised social institutions like factory farms and experimental laboratories.
  
  Source: Courtesy of Piers Beirne
  

Reactive Attachment Disorder

Definition

• Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is a rare condition of emotional dysfunction, in which a baby or child cannot form a bond with its parents or caregivers due to early neglect or mistreatment. The symptoms of RAD can mimic other conditions, so it is important to have the affected child evaluated by a specialist in order to get the correct diagnosis and treatment. Without treatment, RAD may persist for years and have a permanent effect on the child’s emotional development and adult relationships.

Symptoms

• Babies and young children with RAD appear sad, fearful, irritable, and listless, and don’t respond to being picked up or comforted. They withdraw emotionally, and are wary and watchful of other people because they lack trust and expect hostility or rejection. Children with RAD show no interest in playing games, interacting with peers or engaging in any type of social interaction. These children may have multiple disorders, display problem behaviors due to anger and control issues, severe anxiety, safety issues and very poor self-esteem. They may also experience developmental delays and have lower-than-average IQ scores.

Causes

• Infants and children whose basic physical and emotional needs are neglected learn not to expect normal caregiving and comfort from their caregivers. Although most children can ultimately develop healthy, bonded relationships in spite of early neglect, some cannot. The risk of developing RAD is higher than average in babies and children who have a mother with postpartum depression, live in orphanages and other institutions, live in multiple foster-care situations, are separated from parents for an extended period, or who have inexperienced or neglectful parents or caregivers.
• One study found that RAD is associated with changes in the brain's gray matter stemming from early mistreatment. Using brain scans to compare the gray matter of children with RAD to typically developing children, the researchers found significantly reduced volume of gray matter in the area of the brain known as the left primary visual cortex. This is the area of the brain that regulates the stress response to emotional visual images. Researchers suspect that the underdevelopment of this system early in life may cause problems with emotional regulation that result in more severe psychological problems later on.

Treatments

• A pediatrician or family doctor can refer you to another physician who specializes in diagnosing and treating RAD. More often than not, the symptoms of RAD lessen or disappear completely when the child is moved to a consistently supportive and caring family environment or to caregivers who are emotionally available to respond to the child’s needs. There are no therapies or treatments that can cure attachment disorders, but since children with RAD often have multiple issues, therapy and medical treatment may be advised to treat the co-existing conditions. In some cases, attachment-based family therapy (ABFT) administered by a licensed, experienced attachment–based family therapist can help children and adults heal damaged family relationships and strengthen the parent-child bond. Medication may be considered when psychotherapy alone is not effective.
• Note: Attachment-based therapy as described here should not to be confused with unconventional, unproved, and potentially harmful treatments that are also referred to as attachment therapy, which involve physical manipulation, restraint, deprivation, “boot camp” type activities, or physical discomfort of any kind.

I am a criminologist and so it is a matter of great interest to me why criminal law regards the overwhelming majority of theriocides as neither criminal nor abusive. For these deaths no one stands accused. No one is found guilty. There is no need for forgiveness.

All About Punishment

• An eye for an eye is one of the strongest human instincts, but reciprocating harm is not always the best course of action. Punishment sometimes works to condition people not to repeat misdeeds, and threats of negative repercussions can act as disincentives, but our ability to rise above our base instinct for revenge and judge each situation objectively and with an eye toward rehabilitation is one of the highest achievements of humanity and of civilization.

Guilt

• Guilt and its handmaiden, shame, can paralyze us––or catalyze us into action. Appropriate guilt can function as social glue, spurring one to make reparations for wrongs. Excessive rumination about one's failures, however, is a surefire recipe for resentment and depression.

The Nature of Forgiveness

• Most psychologists recommend mustering up genuine compassion for those who have wronged us and moving on from the past, instead of allowing bitterness and anger toward others to eat away at us. Although burying the hatchet usually brings peace to the soul, there may be some exceptions to that advice, such as a case of sexual abuse. Sometimes a victim becomes more empowered when given permission to not forgive.
• Equally, and perhaps more important, is learning to acknowledge your missteps and forgive yourself. Self-forgiveness is often the first step toward a more loving and positive relationship with yourself, and therefore with others.

Would you please summarize the scope of Murdering Animals?

• It confronts the speciesism underlying the quite different social censures of homicide and theriocide. Bookended by the questions “What is theriocide?” and “Is theriocide murder?” Murdering Animals criss-crosses the intersections of criminology, human-animal studies, art history, and the fine and performing arts. Its substantive topics include the criminal prosecution and execution of justiciable animals in early modern Europe; images of hunters put on trial, convicted and executed by their prey in the upside-down world of the Dutch Golden Age (written by with Janine Janssen, professor of dependency relationships at Avans University in the Netherlands); the artist William Hogarth’s patriotic depictions of animals in 18th-century London; and the playwright J.M. Synge’s representation of parricide in fin de siècle Ireland (written with Ian O’Donnell, professor of criminology at University College Dublin).

The sites of theriocide outlined in Murdering Animals are one-on-one cruelty and neglect; vivisection; hunting and blood sports; the destruction of wildlife habitat; the lethal trade in wildlife and animal body parts; state and state-corporate theriocide; factory farming; and war and militarism.

Source: Kreangkrai Indarodom, free downloads Dreamstime

What are the book’s major messages?

• There are two messages. If the killing of an animal by a human is as harmful to her as homicide is to a human, then the proper naming of such a death—theriocide—offers a remedy, however small, to the extensive privileging of human lives over those of other animals. This is the first message.

• There are two messages. If the killing of an animal by a human is as harmful to her as homicide is to a human, then the proper naming of such a death—theriocide—offers a remedy, however small, to the extensive privileging of human lives over those of other animals. This is the first message.

• Murdering Animals advances two particular claims about animal rights. One is that animals’ chief right and the sine qua non of all their other rights is their right to life. Actually, of course, animals have the right not just to any life but to their own lives rather than to some version of what we think their lives should be. At a bare minimum, this means that we are obliged not to kill them. Animals also have the right to be treated with respect. This means, among other things, that we must never treat them as property.

• The question of whether theriocide is or might be murder surely hinges on the well-reasoned construction of another claim, namely, that the animals whose killings are so described are persons or beings with irrevocable moral and legal rights. These rights are enshrined in the concept of legal personhood.1 If and only if animals acquire legal personhood does the question of whether they are capable of being murdered make sense. This is the book’s other message.

What Is Morality?

• For a topic as subjective as morality, people sure have strong beliefs about what's right and wrong. Yet even though morals can vary from person to person and culture to culture, many are universal, as they result from basic human emotions. We may think of moralizing as an intellectual exercise, but more frequently it's an attempt to make sense of our gut instincts.

Murdering Animals discusses three of the most pressing issues about legal personhood for animals. These are: (1) the criteria of legal personhood; (2) the species that merit legal personhood; and (3) the sort of justice that those convicted of killing animals with legal personhood will be served. All three issues are tough nuts to crack.

Why do you think there's been such resistance to using the word "murder" to refer to the intentional and often horrific slaughter of nonhuman animals?

• It is not so much that there is resistance to using the word murder to describe our slaughter of animals. It is more that we humans at present treat mass theriocide with denial, ignorance and schooled indifference. We prefer not to think about factory farms, for example, because they are bloody, messy, noisy and stinking places. Modern sensibilities dictate that they should remain socially and geographically invisible. Euphemisms rule here. Animals dissected and killed during vivisection are labeled “sacrifices,” “subjects," “objects,” and “products”. Animals killed by the military are called “collateral damage." Animals are “humanely” killed and “put to sleep” and “euthanized” in “shelters.” And there is “pest control” and “nuisance avoidance.” And so on, ad nauseam.

Sleep

• For many of us, sleep is the sweet balm that soothes and restores us after a long day of work and play. But for those for whom sleep is elusive or otherwise troubled, the issue is far more fraught. Most people, at some point in their lives, experience difficulty falling asleep. Other parasomnias—such as sleep apnea, night terrors, narcolepsy, and sleep paralysis—are surprisingly common. The good news is that treatment of sleep disorders is progressing rapidly, with new advances appearing every month.

Do you have hope that things will change in the future and it will come to be that nonhumans can be murdered?

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