Courteously Deferential Apathy

“Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.”
Stanislaw J. Lec

When I was in the seventh grade, I did volunteer work for the Humane Society in order to fulfill service hours for my school. My job was to make phone calls about animals that had been left at the shelter, and my supervisor used to comment about how hard I worked. My mother was so proud. Garnering respect for rescuing cats and dogs is a “no-brainer.” Who could hate someone who cares for animals?

Twenty years ago, when I became a vegetarian, I realized the answer to that question. Family, friends, and acquaintances suddenly decided that I “had some ‘splainin’ to do.” Since then, I have encountered every argument and reaction from the lame to the ridiculous, with some arguments being so much so that I suppose I appeared to be surrendering because the “reasoning” I was offered was so ludicrous I didn’t even know where to begin.

I have also encountered the full range of emotional reactions. Some think veganism is interesting, but others become defensive and still others become angry. The anger usually takes the form of ridicule, as it so often does in so many situations. Ridicule is easy, accessible, and effective. Scorn is something that many will shun even more than they will bursts of rage, because scorn is insidious in its presentation and difficult to diffuse. Rage only makes the angry person seem more transparent, but ridicule makes perfectly serious, legitimate ideas seem trivial and frivolous. Scornful jokes succeed in distracting people from the real issue and belittling those who dared to bring up the issue in the first place.

After twenty years, I have become more and more adept at dealing with such reactions, perhaps in part because vegetarianism has become more widespread and in part because I am not as affected by negative reactions as I once was. I am especially amused by those who believe they are offering up an argument that I have never heard before. Oh no, I have NEVER heard the “people are starving in India because they can’t kill a cow” routine. But that is for another essay altogether.

At this point in my journey, I can handle most of the common rationalizations, except one. Now, the most infuriating, maddening, discouraging, and disheartening response is one that I will label “courteously deferential apathy.” It is not open scorn; it is not anger or defensiveness; nor is it ridicule. It is the quietly patronizing pat-on-the-head. “Isn’t it nice that you care about the little animals? Good luck with your cause. I am so glad that you found a project to fill up your time.” While scorn is difficult to recognize when doled out by those who have mastered it as a tool, it still amounts to a hatefulness that most of us can detect at least as an unnamed droning background noise lingering in the back of our minds. The insidiousness of courteously deferential apathy lies in its ability to make the scornful trivialization of important issues seem like a compliment. It is still, ultimately, a defense mechanism, one of the myriad ways in which we shield ourselves from the truth. It is tantamount to saying, “I think it’s sweet that you are concerned about these things, but don’t expect me to feel the same way.”

Such pleasant (and convenient) platitudes are missing the point. I have some news that some readers may find shocking. I DO expect you to feel the same way. I do not refer to the meaning of the word “expect” as “to demand something.” I refer to the meaning of “expect” as anticipating a certain event based on past experiences. Those past experiences include the pride that my family felt when I volunteered at the Humane Society, the rescued animals that so many of my friends and acquaintances have adopted, the stray cat that my family members took to the vet and spent more than $200 on, the frightened cat that one of my former roommates spent hours coaxing out of a tree, the dog that one of my friends brought home because he found it hanging around a gas station with a metal wire around its neck. The list goes on and on. It is what is commonly referred to as “the milk of human kindness” that causes us to respond to situations that we find unworkable or intolerable, especially situations in which we find others, human and non-human, abandoned or in pain.

So anyone out there who is considering using the “you can care about animals but I don’t” argument may as well drop it, because I’m not buying it. Herein lies the fundamental flaw of courteously deferential apathy; it assumes that those who speak out for animals have some special emotion, or some special access to emotions and sentiments that others just don’t have. The above examples are just a small sampling of evidence that this simply isn’t true. Let me illustrate with a story.

A few years ago, when my husband and I were walking from our apartment door to our car, we heard a dog whimpering. We searched for the source of the sound and finally realized it was coming from the swimming pool. A puppy had fallen into the freezing water (it was November) in the pool and could not get out because its back legs were still too short to clear the distance from the top step to the lip of the concrete around the pool. Its two front paws were out of the pool while the back half of its body was in the pool, and it was struggling to get out, to no avail. Because it was winter, the gate to the pool was locked. My husband climbed over the locked gate and got the shivering puppy out of the pool and we took it to the manager’s office, where the custodian, whom we had come to know, said he would take it home.

Are my husband, myself, and that custodian somehow “special?” Are we different than anyone else? How many people really would have ignored that puppy’s cry for help? No, I am not naïve enough to believe that there are not people who would have walked away, but I am speaking to the people reading this that I KNOW are caring, compassionate people. It is utterly natural to respond to calls for help that come from other people and also from non-human animals, which is why I expect that most people would (and do) respond. When we see people sick or injured, what do we do? We call 911. We try to relieve their pain. We do all we can for them, and we don’t need a reason. We do it without thinking, because we care. Period.

Yet, when the cry for help is faint and comes from a distant slaughterhouse that most people would never choose to visit or even read about, we find it very easy to ignore the call. Are the pleas for mercy that come from animals that will end up on someone’s dinner plate somehow less valid and less legitimate than the pleas of a cat or a dog? Why, precisely, do we choose NOT to respond in this situation?

The answer is simple – because it’s just too painful. You see, the puppy probably fell into the pool by accident. While it was suffering to some degree, it only suffered because it tripped over its own circumstances, not because someone purposely tried to hurt it. In such a case, it is easy to be the Good Samaritan.

Those distant cries coming from the slaughterhouse are another story entirely. They issue from the one thing that we fear the most – the darker side of humanity. The mysterious and scary side that motivates some people towards unspeakable abuses, including kicking, punching, stabbing, hanging, burning, scalding, and skinning animals alive. And the cries are not just coming from the animals; they are also coming from the people who have the unfortunate job of carrying out tasks that result in constant bloodshed, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. It is a far, far more brutal life than most people imagine. In some of the larger “processing plants,” which is where 90% of animal food comes from, the “stickers” will slice the throats of between 900 and 1200 pigs every HOUR. They are literally covered in, and surrounded by, blood (among other bodily fluids) all day, every day.

Feeling a little lightheaded? I am. I know what some of you are thinking. “Stop being so melodramatic. It’s not THAT bad. Those people just get used to it.” That is precisely the problem. You think they leave the violence behind in the slaughterhouse? NOW who is being naïve? It is extremely difficult to keep one’s cool when one is being screamed at and berated all day, and then being given free range to take out one’s aggressions on defenseless animals. Is violence something we are supposed to just get used to? There is only one way to get used to it, and that is to cut oneself off from one’s own feelings, to cut oneself off from that connection that makes us respond to cries for help without a thought for our own welfare.

This is why I simply cannot buy the “it’s OK for you to care but don’t expect me to” argument. Sorry, but you cannot get off the hook that easily. I expect people to care. I expect them to care because I know that they DO care, whether they want to admit it or not. I do not speak for animals because it is “my special thing,” or because it is fun, or to make a fashion statement, or to ruin someone else’s day. I speak for animals because they called to me for help and their pain drove me into action. I speak for animals because the reckless abuse, neglect, and endangerment of them violates a fundamental, universal law of connection, the connection that causes us to cringe when we see others in pain and to rejoice when we see them flourish. We cannot keep ignoring their cries for mercy forever without injuring ourselves in the process. And we cannot deprive others of the dignity of meaningful work by asking them to commit acts on our behalf that few of us would be willing to do for ourselves.

It is time to open the doors of the slaughterhouse and look inside. It is time to face the stench and the bloody reality. It is time to, literally, wake up and smell what we are shoveling. We have to stop pushing it away into dark corners because we can’t bear to look at it. A plea for help that is muffled by thick, steel doors is still a plea for help, and if we are still human at all, we will respond. ALL of us.

Sharyn Beach