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TechnoratiSeeing the Suffering We Cause
The South Carolina legislature is still considering a bill--passed by the State Assembly last week--that would require those who want abortions to see an ultrasound image of the fetus to be aborted. This proposal reminds us of the importance of seeing what we do. It is a good idea to make sure that the consequences of all of our actions are made visible. To make good judgments we need all the information we can get.
However, while it might seem reasonable that women should have to fully face what they are choosing to do in having an abortion, such a requirement is unfair. No one else is forced to confront images that show the consequences of what we do. But perhaps we would all be better off if we were completely honest about the suffering we cause.
Our daily lives are built upon a foundation of suffering, although our culture protects us from seeing it. To see, on a daily basis, the suffering caused by our lifestyle choices would be unbearable to many of us; but it might force us to change our ways. Imagine for a moment what life would be like if we were forced to confront the suffering that we cause every day.
Let's begin with the most obvious example: war. Perhaps we should be required to see the death and destruction of the wars we support. Images of flag-draped coffins are not enough. We should be required to see the battle scenes, the carnage, and the dismembered bodies. Indeed, perhaps we should also be required to hear the screams of those killed and wounded. This should not only focus on our own dead and wounded soldiers. We should also be required to see the mutilated bodies and hear the dying cries of the women and children killed in the wars we fight. At the very least, these images should be on the front page of the newspaper and in the national news everyday. But a more forceful measure might require citizens to review the year's casualties—perhaps via a DVD provided by the IRS—at tax time, since those taxes pay for war.
Maybe we should also be required to see the carnage of the slaughterhouse. Every package of hamburger sold in the supermarket should have on its label a series of photos that shows the process through which the cow is butchered. Fast food restaurants should have to display pictures of headless chickens with their necks draining blood next to the pictures of tasty chicken nuggets for sale. And in fancier restaurants, each menu should include pictures that show how veal or sausage is made.
A further proposal might require people who use cosmetics or medicines that are tested on animals to watch a video that shows how these products were tested. Women who use mascara or eye make-up should be forced to watch animals being slowly blinded by the application of these substances directly to their eyes. At the very least, drug companies should be required to disclose on medicine bottles the numbers of animals who were tortured and killed during the process of research and development.
We might also demand that citizens be shown images from crime scenes and prisons. The news should contain explicit images of murder, rape, and assault. That way we would know why we need to punish criminals. The news should also include regular updates about the living conditions of those in prison. In this way, we would know whether prisoners are actually being punished or whether they are really only watching TV and lifting weights. Finally, when prisoners are executed, the news should be required to show the prisoner's march to the gurney and the process by which the lethal drip ends his life.
In considering these examples, I am not suggesting that any of these practices are wrong or right. It takes quite a lot of deep thought to argue that war, meat-eating and animal testing, the death penalty, or abortion are right or wrong. To reach good conclusions about these tough practices, we need detailed knowledge about them. But for the most part we lack this knowledge because the "wet work" happens behind closed doors, where we cannot see it or judge it.
Full disclosure is always helpful in making better judgments. However, unless we are willing to disclose the horrors of all of our practices, it certainly seems hypocritical to single pregnant women out for this sort of treatment.
Andrew Fiala is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fresno.
13 Comments so far
Show AllDamn. Lost it again. Message board not working.
The authors spot on. The only reason we engage in bad behavior is because the negative consequences aren't staring us in the face.
If you smoke and had x-ray vision, you'd quit immediatley. Once you see the plume of smoke entering YOUR body and sticking to YOUR lungs, Phillip Morris is out of business.
Al Gores Inconvienent Truth had the same effect. He got the world more concerned about the environment by putting the consequences of our energy policy in our face. Michael Moores F. 9/11 changed peoples attitudes about the Iraq war. Dido for Sasha Baren Cohens Borat. He showed us how ignorant Americans can be. The Frat boy who had nothing but contempt for women was so ashamed and humiliated that he filed a law suit. He won't be acting like an ass in front of a camera anytime soon.
Whatever uncovers inconvienent truths is useful.
does this work?
I also have to say that the writer of this article has no knowledge of the criminal justice system. My estimation would be that close to 60 or 70 percent are in jails or prisons for non violent crimes and should be receiving treatment if it's a substance abuse problem or probation.
I am not saying that we don't need jails and prisons. There are indeed a lot of people who need to be locked up. However, if a more rational approach to dealing with victimless or non violent crimes were adopted, we wouldn't be locking up more people than any country in the world.
I also noticed that education had a lot to do with whether or not you ended up in jail. If these people were given the chance of a good education while growing up, they would have many more options with what to do with themselves as adults.
We need better and more education - not better and more prisons. I will also say that many of the guards are worse than the people doing time. Anyone who has done time knows there are some very sick individuals working in the prison system. They beat and abuse more prisoners than vice versa.
Finally, our criminal justice system is inherently unfair. You will see very few wealthy people in jail or prison. Those who do end up there are often in a "Club Fed" and are not truly being punished the way most prisoners are.
Not only do we have a military-industrial complex, we have a prison building-incarceration complex.
By the way, you aren't allowed to lift weights any more in jail, so get that one straight along with your other misconceptions about jails.
revolution or continued blood shed? who will decide?
And isn't it funny how all the big talk about peace comes from the country that's most responsible for disturbing it.
Anyone who is in prison IS being punished no matter how comfortable, clean and orderly the institution may be. The loss of liberty is a severe punishment, and need not (and should not) be augmented by abuse, torture or other deprivations by staff.
A well-run institution (prison or jail) is operated by staff who understand this, and who treat those placed in their charge professionally and with respect. To do otherwise threatens the well-being and safety of both the staff and the inmates and ultimately shames and threatens the community it is established to protect.
There are already enough reports on what goes inside slaughterhouses and research labs--the problem is getting the media to pay attention and then the public. The undercover videos from Huntingdon Life Sciences led to public putrage against it--but the videos are forgotten in subsequent news coverage on the anti-HLS group SHAC. Watching innocent animals being tortured and killed is sure to get some reaction--but I am not even convinced that witnessing such activities would automatically make people more sensitive--it may produce the opposite reaction. They used to torture and kill prisoners in public squares. It didnt necessarily make people judge the situation better. Humans are capable of rationalizing anything unfortunately.
!!!!!!!!!!!! EMERGENCY CALL TO ACTION !!!!!!!!!!!
I don't think Bush has any intention of vetoing the Supplemental funding bill if it ever gets to his desk. One of the benchmarks he has to certify turns Iraq's oil over to the major American and British oil companies is buried in this Supplemental!
Please read Richard Beham's "George Bush's Land Mine" just posted here on Common Dreams. Excerpt:
"The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only "benchmark" that truly matters to his Administration.
Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.
If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5's of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing "benchmark" Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it.
The legislation pending now in Washington requires the President to certify to Congress by next October that the benchmarks have been met-specifically that the Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been passed. That's the land mine: he will certify the American and British oil companies have access to Iraqi oil. This is not likely what Congress intended, but it is precisely what Mr. Bush has sought for the better part of six years.
It is why we went to war."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ACT NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have to contact every member in the Congress that is on the panel to reconcile the House and Senate version of the Supplemental funding bill that just passed both houses of Congress. This "benchmark" has to be stripped out of this bill before it goes to Shrub's desk!
GO! GO! GO!!!
P.S. I'm going to go on over to Move On and see what the can do.
Thanks.
See some of those inflicting the suffering here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17393.htm
In the third-to-last paragraph, it is clear that the author knows nothing about criminal justice in the US aside from the 6 o'clock news. The great majority of prisoners in the US - which has by far the greatest incarceraton rate in the world, are in prison largely due to a combination of nonviolent drug or larceny offences and simply being black or latino - offenses which whites often only recieve probation and fines.
His remark " [the prisoners] are actually being punished or whether they are really only watching TV and lifting weights." is positively chilling. Is he advocating torture?
Andrew, thank you for a powerful piece that connects the violence committed against all who are deemed "less important" in our skewed scheme of moral responsibility. That scheme always seems to reflect the underlying power dynamics that portrays the suffering of the powerful as significant, and that of the less powerful or the utterly powerless, insignificant, hardly worth mentioning.
I first learned about the horrors done to animals years ago and immediately saw how that kind of utter disregard for their suffering served as a model for other kinds of violence: against women, people of different color, nationality, language, religion, whatever. To dehumanize others is to render them "animal-like" and that means to render their suffering of no consequence. I personally believe that until we rethink our violence against animals, our fundamental metaphorical "other," we will never really be at peace with one another.
whether we see it or not, we know what is going on, the suffering that is going on in the world because of oil, diamonds, cocoa, WATER, Rubber etc....... at what cost? and we all know who is benefiting from this... the corporations, and thier puppets. I am personally sick to death of hearing about the "economy" and how great it is???
Great for who???? not the people being raped and raveged in these countries, and not for the people here at home in the USA either. guess what???? if we keep going at this rate there wont be an economy!!!!! keep raping the planet and see what happens, oh yeah, its already happening is'nt it, right in front of our eyes. I dont know about anyone else but I have trouble sleeping, eating, etc... BECAUSE of all the suffering that is going on. Just because I dont SEE it everyday does'nt mean I dont FEEL it. we are all connected.
humans, animals, trees etc. Dont think so???? think again.
we will face the consequences of our irresponsible actions.
we already are.