The Psychological Aspect
«Now I can contemplate you in peace: I do not eat you any more.»
Franz Kafka, looking at fish in an aquarium.
«Simply through it's physical action upon the human temperament, a vegetarian
way of life would influence the destiny of humanity in very positive way.»
Albert Einstein
Applying violence to so-called domestic animals under intensive production conditions
and in slaughterhouses affects the psyche of people, especially of children.
As this is known since a long time, in Swiss slaughterhouses the killing is
done at 5 a.m. and the animal industries are taboo. If there were not some persistent
animal protectors, time and again pointing out the problems, the majority of
the Swiss population would barely know of their existence. As thoroughly as
can be managed, the antecedents of the steak on the plate are suppressed.
As a vegetarian, you don't need to feel guilty when you see a rabbit or a cow.
And you don't need to suppress your feelings for animals. In this way, the relationship
between Man and animals takes quite a different dimension than it possibly can
with meat eaters.
Most children have a natural aversion against eating something from a killed
animal. Usually they get accustomed to it only grudgingly. Often they get into
conflict with their feelings, since these are opposed to the sayings of their
parents (eat the meat so you will be big and strong!"). More often
than not they decide to follow their parents (in fact, being dependent on them,
they don't have not much of any other choice) and thus have learned to mistrust
their own feelings or to suppress them. In some case this can even lead them
to secretly and finally unconsciously hate their parents, for instance when
they are forced to eat their own rabbit. As such hate must itself be repressed,
yet stays active, it is very likely to be projected upon other people. At adult
age, in practically all cases all such incidents are completely repressed, liable
to becoming conscious again only in exceptional situations. With sensitive persons,
this (originally self-imposed, but later not resolved) repressivity can lead
to hefty psychic disorders[1], as e.g. the psychologist G.L. van Dalfsen discovered
in many of her investigations.
Children are taught early that different kinds of animals must be treated in
very different ways (cats and dogs are to be hugged, pigs are to be killed and
eaten). Since children have a much more close relationship with animals than
most grown-ups, it is not surprising that they apply the same type of arbitrary
distinction to human races (dark-skinned people do not rate as high as fair-skinned
ones); of course this extends easily to locals versus aliens.
But there is a positive feedback to the psyche through meat consumption,
which I would like to mention, too: meat eating can boost the self-esteem of
the consumer (which usually happens unconsciously), since for the mere desire
of his palate it was deemed sensible to kill a living being capable of suffering.
This gives more sense to his own life. This is especially interesting, of course,
for people suffering from some kind of inferiority complex (which unhappily
is very common in industrial countries). Yet it would be better to treat the
psychological causes than to pamper the symptoms.
Obviously these correlations are never analyzed scientifically - why should
they, with no one prepared to do anythinga bout them anyway, the turnover of
meat industry being much more important (it creates jobs"!). Maybe
this also stems from the fact that the decision-makers, usually themselves being
meta-eaters, at the same time belong to the group concerned by the decisions
to be taken, which makes them prefer to suppress these issues altogether, delicate
already within their own self. On top of this, nobody likes to admit an error
committed for decennia.
Another group of persons should not be forgotten here: those people working
in the meat industry. It would be wrong to think that they do not have psychological
problems out of having to kill the animals; by the way, this ugly work is usually
shifted on to foreigners. In the slaughterhouses, there are tensions and quarrels
nearly every day between the workers about who has to do the dirty job of killing.
It is practically impossible to practice in this profession without losing the
compassion for the animals and viewing them as nothing but suppliers of meat.
This happens necessarily out of the psychological self-protection of the worker
and has nothing to do with weakness of character. Nevertheless the evasive idea
is often heard, that all this is not so terrible after all, as such a profession
will only be chosen by people with an innate disposition towards raw and cruel
action, on whom not much can be worsened anyway. First I think this is only
a pretext to calm one's own conscience, and second that it would be our moral
duty to keep off such people all the more from activities which make them suppress
the creative side of their character and develop it's ugly one.
In applying the Rorschach Test, the mentioned psychologist also discovered
that the tested farmers always projected blood or skeletons into the ink splotches
presented to them. This revealed to her the intimate relationship of the farmers
and their animals, which invariably ends with the latter being killed. Of course
I do not want to generalize this idea, but it can not be simply ignored, either,
simply because large-scale analyses have not been done yet.
Many people know the phrase «He who sows violence will reap violence».
In spite of this, they see no reason to stop the violence against our fellow
beings committed daily in stables and slaughterhouses, or at least to stop endorsing
it with their own meat consumption. They believe to be able to wash their hands
in it by hiding in the mass of meat-eaters; nevertheless, «an injustice
remains an injustice, even if everybody commits ist» (M. Schwantje) and
violence remains violence, even if delegated to others (e.g. slaughterers -
or soldiers, for that matter).
Footnotes:
[1] Brockhaus, Wilhelm: Das Recht der Tiere in der Zivilisation, F.Hirthammer,
Page 272f. In this context, the statement of Federal Coucellor Ruth Dreifuss
is interesting: «Here in Switzerland, every seventh child is psychically
afflicted» (quoted in: Der Brückenbauer, Nov. 17, 1993). In a project
in psychiatric epidemiology of the Swiss National Foundation for Scientific
Research, the psychiatric Policinic of Basel found out that more than half of
the representative sample of Basels city-dwellers had been, for two or more
weeks in a row, completely dishearted or even depressed every day. Further,
23% of the questioned people had suffered from severe dread at least once in
their life, which (as opposed to the depressions) had come up during childhood
already.
[2] Source: bilanz 10/88, page 68