January 2010

New Decade, New Knowledge

From our early hunting days millions of years ago to the proliferation of farming just ten thousand years ago to our modern-day "schizophrenic" treatment of animals, we humans have attempted to define and control our relationships with the creatures of the world for many a millennium.

To say the least, our history with animals is a complicated, dichotomous telling of reverence and fear and love and hate, and it is a well-studied tale by historians and anthropologists alike.

But, lately (as in the last few decades) our attempts to understand the many facets of human-animal relationships have been getting interesting in a much different way. Beyond the familiar historical and cultural knowledge is coming a whole new realm of science endeavors bent on researching our modern-day attitudes and behaviors toward animals, and their perceived value and position within the world.

Just to name a few: social, psychological, physiological, and even environmental studies exist today that are all exploring the complicated perceptions and treatments we hold toward animals. The situations we can study are vast and offer seemingly endless insights and even more questions. Prominent among these studies is a vigorous effort to understand two very basic questions of human nature: why are people kind to animals and why are they cruel?

Some other questions being explored among hundreds, if not thousands:

• Do we own our pets or are we their caretakers? What is the distinction and how do we treat our companion animals differently based upon it?
• Is empathy a naturally occurring behavior of brain function, or is it something we teach? How does culture and gender influence empathy behavior?
• Why do we abhor cruelty to pets, but often ignore or justify the far worse treatment of factory farm or research victims such as cows, pigs, rabbits, and mice?
• Is it absence of compassion or presence of cruelty in which children develop ambivalent attitudes toward animal abuse? Or some combination of?

The questions can and do go on: it will never be possible to completely understand our relationships with animals. Yet, as we move forward in 2010 and into the next decade, we as a society can use the growing myriad of research to help us better comprehend and respond to our many forms of human-animal relations. Ultimately, we can and should take advantage of the knowledge gleaned to more precisely, and thereby effectively, promote a message of kindness and caring to all living beings.

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