The abuse of animals has reached such a heinous scale that sorrow is the only sensible emotional response in the long term, but in time even sorrow must give way to curiosity and the desire to understand. Why do human beings eat meat, and by extension, why do human beings create it? Why do we torture and kill animals when there are viable alternatives, and what stops those alternatives from fully replacing the meat industry? I have wanted to know the answers to these questions for many years, and have explored various avenues, but none have answered it with certainty.
I found psychological defense mechanisms preventing people from seeing animals as people, and I found ideologies that uphold humanity as superior, but I wonder if there’s a missing piece: a desire to inflict pain. Are carnists aware of the suffering they create, and on some level, choosing to eat meat for the very purpose of creating suffering? I ask, because in all my conversations with carnists over the years, conversations I would have preferred to skip, mind you, conversations they usually start, one detail has always been hard to understand. With enough tender care and compassion, carnists can be shown a path away from the delusion of depersonalization and the zealotry of human superiority, yet many cling desperately to their desire for meat. I suspect most crave the taste and experience, not the suffering required to produce it, but in my conversations, a handful have espoused a form of glee for the process required to create it. Some people seem to enjoy the suffering of the animals, not the meat itself.
I wonder if perhaps animals are simply a convenient target for sadism, for they have no means of protest or retaliation, and even compassionate humans turn a blind eye to their suffering. It shouldn’t be surprising, for abuse of power is casual and common in modern society, and the root of all abuse is simply the desire to inflict suffering as a means of coping. The only question is, how large is the overlap between sadism and carnism, and how can the abuse be mitigated? If we can learn what causes cruelty to manifest, and give people a healthy outlet for sadism, then perhaps we can avert the needless suffering, and in time, snuff out a central cause of carnism.
We must investigate cruelty in all its forms, with the goal of understanding why people hurt those who cannot defend themselves.