Deliberate cruelty

Hi All

Deliberate cruelty is something very rare in nature.  Animals kill to live or even kill to propagate their own DNA as is the case with lions when they kill another’s offspring when taking over leadership of a pride.  Humans however are on many levels deliberately cruel— to each other and to other creatures.  Why?

Lets look at an example first before attempting to answer that.  On my travels I met many humans who were deliberately nice and caring to their fellow creatures but lately there have been many reports of deliberate cruelty out there and I would like to get to the bottom of it.  For example, in Taiji, Japan where fisherman routinely kill dolphins and whales while the rest of the pods, mostly juveniles or even babies watch on and listen.   Then they take the young back out to sea and dump them, knowing full well that they will suffer, not only from the shock of seeing and hearing their parents and relatives die a slow death but also because they won’t be able to survive on their own; they will starve or die from shock and broken hearts or they will fall prey to sharks.  Any which way you look at this practice, it’s a deliberate act of cruelty!

I woke up this morning thinking about why the people in Japan would do this?  What popped into my head was interesting.  The word that appeared was ‘competition’.  The Japanese love tuna, it’s their favourite and most prized fish.  It makes millions on markets worldwide.  It’s also one of the most rare fish now with 90% of it overfished.  Dolphins eat tuna fish, which means only one thing to these people:  They are competing with dolphins for their favourite food.  What goes on in Taiji and other places in Japan every season is  a way to eliminate the competition and a money-maker as well.  Selling dolphins to theme parks around the world is a way to make millions in the process.  But they not only kill the competition and profiteer, they are deliberately cruel in the process which brings me to my answer.

Very small children are often cruel and sometimes deliberately so.  They are unconscious, lack empathy and awareness of other’s emotions and feelings.  They want what they want without a thought of anyone else in the equation.  Many grow out of that being taught to care and share by their parents and they become upstanding, caring citizens.  But many don’t and they stay in that mode for life.

We seem to have entire countries of humans,  with some exceptions amongst them as always, who are no more developed than toddlers.

It’s a freighting thought but if you look at all the cruelty being dished out across this planet by so-called civilised grown-ups who are capable of creating technology at the highest levels, including the technology to kill more deliberately and efficiently, I wonder how many real adults walk this earth?  Obviously, this doesn’t just happen in Japan and not just to dolphins or whales.  It happens to dogs and cats in Korea and Thailand and China.  It happens to wolves and coyotes in the USA.  It happens to elephants and lions in Africa. It happens to tigers and bears in Asia.  It happens to Kangaroos and dingoes in Australia. It happens to seals in Canada and Namibia and recently in New Zealand. It happens to a lot of sharks worldwide!  And it of course  happens to many humans all over this planet.  Not only are these creatures killed for food and medicine or survival but they are often killed for pleasure and personal gain in a very deliberately cruel and uncaring way.

I can only conclude that the people who commit deliberately cruel acts against fellow humans or animals, whether for profit or gain, hatred, competition or just to have the upper hand, are no more evolved than a 2-year-old child who has not been taught to be kind by his or her parents.  Respect for other life is something that needs to be passed down to children.  If the parents weren’t taught how to be compassionate or empathetic towards other life, children will not learn it either.  The result is entire nations of mostly uncaring people on the survival level.  No matter how sophisticated their level of  academic education and technology maybe, they will always be a bunch of toddlers running the show.  The only way to change that for humans is to wake up and assess their true level of evolution—I don’t mean the technological kind— and grow from there in a conscious way.

Yours,

Lahni

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One thought on “Deliberate cruelty

  1. Tanya says:

    Beautifully written, well said and I believe, true. Not right. Surely we have evolved enough to take a good look at ourselves and change. Our leaders…psychopaths. All of this could be banned and stopped if the guys at the top just gave a damn.

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