May 31st, 1997

DO YOU MATTER?
By Jackie Giuliano

Do you matter?
You are only one person, after all.
Only one.
What of the many others.
What of them.

Suppose something hurts you
but doesn't hurt them?
Should the thing be stopped
that hurt you . . .
but not them?

You are only one person.
Do you matter?
Why should something be stopped
If it only hurts you?

But wait!
Of course I matter.
If not me, then who?

They are me.
I am them.
We all matter.
-- Jackie Giuliano

I believe that we are summoned now to awaken from a spell. The spell we must shake off is a case of mistaken identity, a millennia-long amnesia as to who we really are. We have imagined that we are separate and competitive beings, limited to the gasp of our conscious egos, hence essentially fragile, endlessly needy. This delusion has brought us some high adventures, but also much suffering, and it will destroy us and our world if we don't wake up in time.
-- Joanna Macy, "Awakening to the Ecological Self" in Healing the Wounds, the Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant.

A friend called me a few days ago - in tears and deep in despair. She is a kind soul, searching for a way to make her life consistent with the cycles of the Earth. She wants to make a difference, to teach others of her love for the planet. Not having ever gotten her undergraduate degree, she thought that if she took classes leading toward a degree in "conservation biology" that she could learn of the workings of the Earth and be a better teacher. She realized before she called me that she was wrong. That's why she was weeping.

Her "field biology" class went on a 4-day field trip to study the Earth's ecosystems and the life in them. What my friend didn't realize was that the traditional method of studying the Earth involves classifying and recording - and keeping your heart at a distance. Usually, any course of study with the words "conservation" or "management" in the title will be discussing the Earth's gifts as "resources." The way we study the world is deeply rooted in the processes that evolved during the Scientific Revolution, that time during the 15th and 16th centuries when the scientific worldview came into being, with humans acting, as Descartes said, as "masters and possessors of Nature."

Francis Bacon, an instrumental leader in the Scientific Revolution, said that nature had to be "hounded in her wanderings" and "bound into service" and made a "slave." She was to be "put in constraint" and it was the job of the scientist to "torture nature's secrets from her."

Was that just 16th century thinking? No, it is today's thinking as well, as my friend found out. During her field trip, the instructor had the class capture all manner of creatures. Liquid paper was painted on lizards to track their movement (this will probably, eventually, kill the animal as the toxins seep into its skin). They captured a number of small birds to "examine" and "classify" them. One bird died. Many other creatures lost their lives during those 4 days.

Over 5.7 million animals (3 million of them frogs) are dissected annually in the U.S. Studies have shown that there is no significant difference in test scores of students who dissect and those who do not. The desensitization, however, that everyone will experience is great. The relegation of another living thing to a "test subject" is akin to the classification of someone as the enemy, therefore legitimizing killing them during a conflict. Many war veterans describe their combat training as focusing on dehumanizing the enemy. Yet the "enemy" were people, just like them. When they returned home, how could they cope when they were taught that people were of no value?

My friend was horrified. How could this blatant lack of respect for life be possible among people who were studying the environment? She confronted her teacher, an extreme act of courage for my friend. Her teacher told her that the individual was not important. They were studying the creatures for the greater good of the species.

Baloney!

How many animals will needlessly suffer during such "study." And for what purpose? What did it teach the class in Michigan in 1991 when children, at the end of the school year, intentionally stomped on 35-40 gerbils that were kept as classroom pets?

Is it so great a step to go from harming an animal to harming a person? Studies suggest it is not. Compelling evidence exists showing that people who commit acts of violence against people have also committed acts of violence on animals during their youth. There is a significantly high incidence of cruelty to animals during their youth among serial killers and mass murderers. Here are some chilling examples (from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals web site):

• Patrick Sherrill, who killed 14 coworkers at a post office and then shot himself, had a history of stealing local pets and allowing his own dog to attack and mutilate them.
  
  
• Earl Kenneth Shriner, who raped, stabbed, and mutilated a 7-year-old boy, had been widely known in his neighborhood as the man who put firecrackers in dogs' rectums and strung up cats.
  
  
• Brenda Spencer, who opened fire at a San Diego school, killing two children and injuring nine others, had repeatedly abused cats and dogs, often by setting their tails on fire.
  
  
• Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler" who killed 13 women, trapped dogs and cats in orange crates and shot arrows through the boxes in his youth.
  
  
• Carroll Edward Cole, executed for five of 35 murders of which he was accused, said his first act of violence as a child was to strangle a puppy.
  
  
• In 1987, three Missouri high school students were charged with the beating death of a classmate. They had histories of repeated acts of animal mutilation starting several years earlier. One confessed he had killed so many cats he'd lost count.
  
  
• Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer had impaled dogs' heads, frogs, and cats on sticks.

Of course, I am not suggesting that students who use animals in their classes will turn into serial or mass killers. But do you think it is too far off the mark to suggest that if we allow the desensitization towards the suffering of other living things to grow in us that we might suffer as well? Maybe we would find it easier to walk by the homeless person or ignore the suffering of the 60,000 children that die each day worldwide from diarrhea due to bad drinking water? It is something to think about.

These are further examples, as are the other issues we have been addressing in these columns, of how disconnected we have become from the natural world. Examples abound - even in the U.S. government.

The Federal Aviation Administration readily admits that before it will issue an order to the airlines to put a safety measure into affect, they conduct a "cost-benefit analysis." In this analysis, a human life is assigned a value of $2.4 million. If the cost of the safety measure will be more than the wrongful death lawsuits from those that would be killed, then the measure will not be recommended!

For example, if they determine that 10 people could die from a particular unsafe condition on an airplane, then the cost of putting the measure into effect would have to be less than 10 times $2.4 million or $240 million. If it would cost $300 million to put the safety measure into effect, then they would not recommend it. This is nothing less than obscene.

How have we come to this? How is it possible for some people to say that letting ANY amount of people die from a preventable mechanical issue is OK?

I told my friend to quit this program. There is no need - and there is no more time - for this kind of abuse to continue. She DOES NOT have to be a part of it. She DOES NOT have to go through any "rite of passage" in order to earn the right to teach compassion. She DOES NOT have to become part of an abusive, evil system in order to change it. She DOES NOT have to go against her heart and soul for anyone.

I told her that when she was ready to hear some recommendations from me about more compassionate programs, I would give them to her. That is the easy part.

The harder, and most important part, comes first: to sit with the pain of awareness, the pain of having seen cruelty - and been a part of it; to sit with the pain of being responsible - yet choosing to stop. I told her she has received a great gift and blessing - that of awareness, that of seeing into her heart, that of feeling that something must change.

She felt what Thich Nhat Hanh says we all need to stop and listen for: the sound of the Earth crying. Only when we hear that sound can we really be moved to act. And act we MUST.

REFERNCES AND RESOURCES

1. For more about the dissection issue in the classroom check out http://www.envirolink.org/envlib/orgs/avar/dissect.htm

2. Read more about the use of animals in the classroom at the site of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals at http://www.peta-online.org/facts/mis/fsmis12.htm

3. Face the pain and fears and visit your local animal shelter. See the despair of the animals there and do something. Get a friend to adopt an animal or adopt one yourself.

4. Contact the authorities immediately if you see or suspect any act of cruelty to an animal (or to anyone). Don't assume that everything is OK. Act.

5. Investigate your local schools. Do they have programs involving animals? If so, have some meaningful meetings with school officials.

6. If you have children, encourage them to not participate in animal programs and support them if they choose to not participate. PETA has lots of information about how to do this.

7. Thich Nhat Hanh will be coming to the United States from late August 1997 to October 1997. SEE HIM! Check out him and his schedule at http://www.parallax.org/scripts/parallax/static.pl?file=schedules.html&id=

8. Check out the work of Joanna Macy at http://members.aol.com/creabooks/creatura.html

{Jackie Giuliano can be found trying to tolerate the ants in his house in Venice, California. He is a Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los Angeles, the University of Phoenix, and the Union Institute College of Undergraduate Studies.}