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Toward an Understanding of Human Violence: Cultural Studies, Animal Studies, and the Promise of Posthumanism

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10714413.2013.752697

1556-3022

Lynn Worsham,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes See Harvey (2005 Harvey , D. ( 2005 ). A Brief History of Neoliberalism . Oxford , UK : Oxford University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Giroux (2008 Giroux , H. A. ( 2008 ). Against the Terror of Neoliberalism: Politics Beyond the Age of Greed . Boulder , CO : Paradigm . [Google Scholar]) for especially useful discussions of neoliberalism. Wolfe's (2009) PMLA article appears, in revised form, in his book, What is Posthumanism?, which offers a wide-ranging exploration of several paths to the posthuman, which, Wolfe cautions, is not about transcending the human and human embodiment. In both the PMLA article and the book chapter, Wolfe focuses on two kinds of finitude: the finitude that arises from the fact of human embodiment (physical vulnerability and mortality) and the finitude we experience in our subjection to and constitution in language. For additional treatments of posthumanism, see Hayles (1999 Hayles , N. K. ( 1999 ). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics . Chicago : University of Chicago Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Badmington (2003 Badmington , N. ( 2003 ). Theorizing Posthumanism . Cultural Critique , 53 , 10 – 27 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In Straw Dogs, Gray (2007 Gray , J. ( 2007 ). Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals . New York : Farrar . [Google Scholar]) offers a trenchant analysis of the tradition of humanism and its commitment to human exceptionalism, especially the idea that humans can transcend animal life. Writing about the soaring increase in violence in post-apartheid South Africa, Farred (2002 Farred , G. ( 2002 ). The Mundanacity of Violence: Living in a State of Disgrace . Interventions , 4 ( 3 ), 352 – 362 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) coins the term mundanacity of violence to suggest that the phenomenon of violence has become so routine that it is now mundane and part of the accepted fabric of everyday life. I think this term can be usefully exported to several locations across the globe, including the United States, to call into question the processes and practices that make violence seem tolerable and acceptable. Pinker's book on violence has created something of a firestorm of controversy. See, for example, Gray's (2011a Gray , J. ( 2011a , 21 September) . Delusions of Peace . Prospect . [Google Scholar]) "Delusions of Peace," an incisive review of Pinker's (2011 Pinker , S. ( 2011 ). The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined . New York : Viking . [Google Scholar]) book in which Gray identifies Pinker as an "evangelist" for humanism. (Pinker himself suggests that violence has declined because of the success of Enlightenment humanism.) See also Daly and Wilson's (1988 Daly , M. and Wilson , M. ( 1988 ). Homicide . New York : De Gruyter . [Google Scholar]) study of homicide, which concludes with an observation Pinker could agree with: "Twentieth-century, industrial man may well have a better chance of dying peacefully in his bed than any of his predecessors" (291). For a view quite different from Pinker's, see Lifton (1991 Lifton , R. J. ( 1991 ). The Survivor . In Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (pp. 479 – 541 ). Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; 2011 Lifton , R. J. ( 2011 ). Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir . New York : Free . [Google Scholar]). Pinker, Lifton, and other readers discuss Pinker's book and violence in human history in "Sunday Dialogue" (2012). It is important to note that at the same time that we see unprecedented forms and frequencies of interhuman violence and violence against animals we also see the development of a multitude of industries associated with pet-keeping—not only a vast array of pet products and services as well as books and films about pets but also the professionalization of the industry of veterinary medicine. The development of these industries go hand-in-hand with the intensification of the sentimentalization of pet-keeping. As Fudge (2002 Fudge , E. ( 2002 ). Animal . London : Reaktion . [Google Scholar]) points out, "A pet is a pet first, an animal second" (32). (On the topic of pet-keeping, see also Garber 1996 Garber , M. ( 1996 ). Dog Love . New York : Simon . [Google Scholar]; Grier 2006 Grier , K. C. ( 2006 ). Pets in America: A History . Orlando , FL : Harcourt . [Google Scholar]; Shell 1986 Shell , M. ( 1986 ). The Family Pet . Representations , 15 , 121 – 153 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Tuan 1984 Tuan , Y.-F. ( 1984 ). Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets . New Haven : Yale University Press . [Google Scholar].) These developments—violence (against humans and against animals), on the one hand, and on the other, the sentimentalization of pet-keeping—are not unrelated. The idea that a pet is a pet first and an animal second is a deflection (in the sense discussed in this essay) of the reality of its animality, which makes the use, abuse, and killing of animals that are not pets permissible and acceptable and largely invisible—in other words, the idea that a pet is a pet first and an animal second makes possible the differential treatment of animals, some of whom are pets and some of whom are not. We sit at the dinner table and enjoy a steak while Kitty is curled up at our feet; we make no connection between our use of one animal and our different use of the other. We deflect attention from the sacrifice of the "other" animals—factory-farmed animals and animals used in scientific research, for example—through an often intensely sentimentalized attachment to our pets. See Fudge (2002 Fudge , E. ( 2002 ). Animal . London : Reaktion . [Google Scholar]) for more on our contradictory relation to animals. The way of thinking that automatically moves from the individual to the group is the essence of speciesist logic. As Kappeler (1995 Kappeler , S. ( 1995 ). Speciesism, Racism, Nationalism … or the Power of Scientific Subjectivity . In C. J. Adams & J. Donovan (Eds.), Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (pp. 320 – 352 ). Durham , NC : Duke University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) argues in a brilliant analysis of speciesism, we tolerate or allow a moderate, acceptable, or lawful amount of killing as long as the species survives, not through individuals but through group reproduction. When the group's survival is threatened, we call it "genocide," but only in the case that the group is identified as "human." An extensive literature is available on the existence of "animal minds"—that is, on animal cognition, emotion, and moral sensibility. See, for example, Griffin (1992 Griffin , D. R. ( 1992 ). Animal Minds . Chicago : University of Chicago Press . [Google Scholar]), Bekoff (2007 Bekoff , M. ( 2007 ). The Emotional Lives of Animals . Novato , CA : New World . [Google Scholar]), and Haraway (2003 Haraway , D. ( 2003 ). The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness . Chicago : Prickly Paradigm . [Google Scholar]). See Kennedy (1998 Kennedy , G. A. ( 1998 ). Rhetoric Among Social Animals . In Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross-Cultural Introduction (pp. 11 – 28 ). New York : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]) for a discussion of nonhuman animals' use of rhetoric (understood traditionally as persuasion, eloquence, deception, deliberation, and judgment). See also Kappeler (1995 Kappeler , S. ( 1995 ). Speciesism, Racism, Nationalism … or the Power of Scientific Subjectivity . In C. J. Adams & J. Donovan (Eds.), Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (pp. 320 – 352 ). Durham , NC : Duke University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Roberts (2008 Roberts , M. S. ( 2008 ). The Mark of the Beast: Animality and Human Oppression . West Lafayette , IN : Purdue University Press . [Google Scholar]). For different treatments of the relationship between animalization and dehumanization, see Haslam (2006 Haslam , N. ( 2006 ). Dehumanization: An Integrative Review . Personality and Social Psychology Review , 10 ( 3 ), 252 – 264 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Smith (2011 Smith , D. L. ( 2011 ). Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others . New York : St. Martin's . [Google Scholar]). Of particular interest is Smith's view that animalization is necessary for dehumanization to occur. He argues that because women and girls are not animalized, but only objectified, they are not dehumanized. Smith's claim flies in the face of the extensive feminist literature on sexual objectification as a form of dehumanization. Haslam's treatment is more sensitive to the realities and experiences of dehumanization because he admits two forms: dehumanization through objectification and dehumanization through animalization. In her analysis of the interconnections (or interanimations) among sexism, racism, class privilege, ethnicism, speciesism, nationalism, and capitalism, Kappeler (1995 Kappeler , S. ( 1995 ). Speciesism, Racism, Nationalism … or the Power of Scientific Subjectivity . In C. J. Adams & J. Donovan (Eds.), Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (pp. 320 – 352 ). Durham , NC : Duke University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) argues that sexism is at the center of, and is the anchor for, speciesist logic. She argues that "reproduction, the sexist instrumentalization of women as reproducers of their 'kind,' is the pivot of all speciesism, racism, ethnicism, and nationalism—the construction of collective entities at the cost of the rights and interests of individuals" (348). Kappeler's analysis suggests that sexism is intrinsic to all these systems of oppression, including and especially speciesism. Thus, sexism and systems of oppression based on gender must be a focus of posthumanist critique. Nussbaum (2004), Diamond (2001 Diamond , C. (2001). Injustice and Animals. In Carl Elliott (Ed .), Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers: Essays on Wittgenstein, Medicine, and Bioethics (pp. 118–148). Durham , NC : Duke University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2008 Diamond , C. ( 2008 ). The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy . In S. Cavell , C. Diamond , J. McDowell , I. Hacking , & C. Wolfe , Philosophy and Animal Life (pp. 43 – 89 ). New York : Columbia University Press . [Google Scholar]), Derrida (2002 Derrida , J. ( 2002 ). The Animal that Therefore I Am (More to Follow). Trans. David Wills . Critical Inquiry , 28 , 369 – 418 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and Wood (1999, 2004 Wood , D. ( 2004 ). Thinking with Cats . In P. Atterton & M. Calarco (Eds.), Animal Philosophy: Ethics and Identity (pp. 129 – 144 ). London : Continuum . [Google Scholar]) are among many scholars who have recently developed a focus on vulnerability. See also, for example, Butler (2006 Butler , J. ( 2006 ). Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence . London : Verso . [Google Scholar]) and Cavarero (2008 Cavarero , A. ( 2008 ). Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence . Trans. William McCuaig. New York : Columbia University Press . [Google Scholar]). For a classic study of the denial of death in human history, see Becker (1973 Becker , E. ( 1973 ). The Denial of Death . New York , NY : Free Press . [Google Scholar]). See Gray (2011b Gray , J. ( 2011b ). The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death . New York : Farrar . [Google Scholar]), Immortalization, for a recent historical perspective on the human effort to cheat death. Traumatic experience also rewires the autonomic nervous system and creates long-term physiological changes in the individual, such as a heightened startle response or a tendency to the kind of explosive anger that might lead to false witness. Trauma produces memories that are not stored in the same way as ordinary memories, which are narrativized and are easily retrieved under normal circumstances. Traumatic memories, Herman (1992 Herman , J. ( 1992 ). Trauma and Recovery . New York : Basic . [Google Scholar]) explains, lack context and a place in a coherent narrative. They are encoded in the body through vivid sensations and images and are typically elicited involuntarily in nightmares and in flashbacks (38). Girard (1987) insists that scapegoating is and must be "nonconscious," a state that he differentiates from the Freudian notion of the "unconscious." In describing false witness as a process of scapegoating, I do not intend to conflate Lifton's (1991 Lifton , R. J. ( 1991 ). The Survivor . In Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (pp. 479 – 541 ). Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) notion of false witness with Girard's notion of psychosocial scapegoating or Burke's notion of victimage. Lifton's notion of false witness operates within a psychological discourse on human trauma; Girard's notion of psychosocial scapegoating operates within a broad theory of religious ritual and myth; Burke's notion of victimage derives from his view of language as symbolic action. What Lifton's notion of false witness brings to the discussion of scapegoating and victimage is a recognition that these practices may have their roots in prior traumatic experiences. Slavery is an exemplary case of the kind of victimization that Lifton (1991 Lifton , R. J. ( 1991 ). The Survivor . In Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (pp. 479 – 541 ). Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) describes as false witness. In his highly influential comparative study of slavery, Orlando Patterson (1982 Patterson , O. ( 1982 ). Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study . Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press . [Google Scholar]) describes slavery as a form of "human parasitism" and details the many ways the slaveholder lives off of those who are enslaved—not only physically and economically but also psychologically and symbolically. Patterson defines slavery as "the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons," a condition that he defines as "social death" (13). Through the institution of slavery, the slaveholding group asserts its vitality and symbolic immortality by denying slaves their right to life and by identifying them with death. Social death is accomplished by denying to each slave his or her individuality, his or her unsubstitutable singularity and irreplaceability. Criminologist Lonnie Athens has identified a four-stage process of social development, which he calls violentization, that, he argues, all violent people have undergone: a stage of brutalization in which a young person is forced, through real or threatened violence, to submit to an aggressive authority; a stage of belligerency in which the young person, in an attempt to prevent further violent subjugation, resolves to engage in violent acts; a stage of violent performances in which the individual learns that violent actions produce respect and fear in others; and, last, a stage of virulency in which violence becomes the preferred means of dealing with others. See Rhodes (1999 Rhodes , R. (1999). Why They Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist . New York : Knopf. [Google Scholar]) for a discussion of Athens' theory of violence. See DeMause (2002 DeMause , L. ( 2002 ). The Emotional Life of Nations . New York : Karnac . [Google Scholar]) for a related discussion of how styles of leadership, on the world stage, derive from how those leaders undergo violent socialization. See, for example, Kincaid's (1988 Kincaid , J. ( 1988 ). A Small Place . New York : Farrar . [Google Scholar]) A Small Place, an essay that delivers a scorching indictment of the history of colonialism in the Caribbean (in particular, Antigua, her home island) and its enduring legacy of traumatic effects, especially crime, corruption, abuse, and tourism as a form of secondary colonialism. Coetzee (1999) and Derrida (2002 Derrida , J. ( 2002 ). The Animal that Therefore I Am (More to Follow). Trans. David Wills . Critical Inquiry , 28 , 369 – 418 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) are not the only writers who make the comparison between the massive abuse and killing of animals and genocide and the Holocaust. See, for example, Charles Patterson's (2002 Patterson , C. ( 2002 ). Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust . New York : Lantern . [Google Scholar]) Eternal Treblinka, which takes its title from "The Letter Writer," by Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer: "In relation to them [the animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka" (qtd. in C. Patterson 2002 Patterson , C. ( 2002 ). Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust . New York : Lantern . [Google Scholar]). See also Buettner (2002 Buettner , A. ( 2002 ). Animal Holocausts . Cultural Studies Review , 8 , 28 – 44 . [Google Scholar]). Although the analogy may be controversial or even offensive to some, the analogy is misleading and even erroneous, as Wolfe points out, "since ten billion land animals are killed each year in the United States alone for food, the vast majority of them—about eighty percent—under the deplorable conditions of factory farming" (567). Wood's (2004) point about meat-eating as a form of what I would call repetition compulsion occurs in the context of a discussion of the symbolic role of animals in human life and history. His point is not about the role of hunting and meat-eating in evolution—that is, whether meat-eating contributed to the possibility of the emergence of a larger brain in humans, a topic of some controversy among scientists. It is perhaps worth noting in this context that the earliest direct ancestors of modern humans, the australopithecines (who lived 4.2 to 1 million years ago), were not hunters but were specialized vegetarians. Similarly, Homo habilis (emergence around 2.5 million years ago) also were not hunters but had a diet consisting of vegetable material and leftover meat scavenged from dead animal carcasses abandoned by large predators. It is likely, in other words, that meat made up only a tiny part of the diet of Homo habilis. Neanderthals hunted and scavenged on dead carcasses. By 500,000 years ago, early humans were hunting animals for meat (see Mithen 2007 Mithen , S. ( 2007 ). The Hunter-Gatherer Prehistory of Human-Animal Interactions . In L. Kalof & A. Fitzgerald (Eds.), The Animal Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings (pp. 117 – 128 ). Oxford , UK : Berg . [Google Scholar], 119–120). I present this information to make the point that, contrary to popular, "meat-centric" opinion in the West, humans are not carnivores in the same way as, say, big cats. Our earliest ancestors were vegetarians; and for most of our prehistory and history, we have been omnivores, with meat occupying a very small part of our diet. This kind of diet continues to sustain traditional and non-western cultures. Developing countries that are in the process of shifting to a meat-based western diet are experiencing an increase in health issues related to meat-eating and a diet high in animal protein, animal fat, and processed sugars. The neurobiological memory of this original trauma of predation may well be the source, as Steeves suggests, of our fear of being eaten and, in many cultures, the prohibition on cannibalism (1999, 168; see also Ehrenreich 1997 Ehrenreich , B. ( 1997 ). Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War . New York : Holt . [Google Scholar], 77–96). To balance Sterelny's (2003 Sterelny , K. ( 2003 ). Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human Cognition . Malden , MA : Blackwell . [Google Scholar]) view that thought evolves in response to threat, I should mention that the consensus among evolutionary scientists is that most of what we view as distinctively human (the big brain, language, for example) evolved as a result of the fact that our early hominin ancestors and early humans were especially social and cooperative and their success as a species must be attributed to their ability to form and sustain social bonds, even in the context of predation. As Dunbar (1996 Dunbar , R. ( 1996 ). Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language . Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press . [Google Scholar]) argues, "primates live in groups as a mutual defence against predation. Indeed, sociality is at the very core of primate existence; it is their principal evolutionary strategy, the thing that marks them out as different from all other species" (18). See Appadurai (1998 Appadurai , A. ( 1998 ). Full Attachment . Public Culture , 10 , 443 – 449 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2000 Appadurai , A. ( 2000 ). The Grounds of the Nation-State: Identity, Violence, and Territory . In K. Goldmann , U. Hannerz , & C. Westin (Eds.), Nationalism and Internationalism in the Post-Cold War Era (pp. 129 – 142 ). London : Routledge . [Google Scholar], 2006 Appadurai , A. ( 2006 ). Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger . Durham , NC : Duke University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) for more on the concept of full attachment, which is a term he coins to account for the affective side of social solidarity and which often is, in his view, inadequately understood through the familiar (and more cerebral) concepts of loyalty or patriotism. With the concept of full attachment, Appadurai attempts to account for "an order of attachment" or "a surplus of attachment" to others in one's group, nation, or territory that allows them "to kill and die in its name" (1998 Appadurai , A. ( 1998 ). Full Attachment . Public Culture , 10 , 443 – 449 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 445; "2000 Appadurai , A. ( 2000 ). The Grounds of the Nation-State: Identity, Violence, and Territory . In K. Goldmann , U. Hannerz , & C. Westin (Eds.), Nationalism and Internationalism in the Post-Cold War Era (pp. 129 – 142 ). London : Routledge . [Google Scholar], 130). I think Appadurai mines the metaphor of attachment, as it is developed in psychological research on individual identity (Bowlby, for example), to account for another order of identity and identification that links the individual to the collective. As a long-term vegan, I have been more than a little perplexed by the often strongly negative reactions to these dietary practices, reactions that, at times, have seemed wildly out of proportion and creepily personal and vicious. I now see that these dietary practices are more than simply a personal "lifestyle choice"; they also represent a radical repudiation of the social solidarity created by patriarchy, misogyny and sexism, and speciesism (see Adams 1990 Adams , C. J. ( 1990 ). The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory . New York : Continuum . [Google Scholar], on the sexual politics of meat). A vegan commits (intentionally or unintentionally) the ultimate betrayal: a repudiation of the social compact that constructs "human" (especially the human male) as the preeminent predatory identity. Perhaps this explains why some individuals feel so threatened by these dietary practices that they are compelled to lash out by "othering" vegans and vegetarians. See Coetzee (1999 Coetzee , J. M. ( 1999 ). The Lives of Animals . Princeton , NJ : Princeton University Press . [Google Scholar]) for an insightful treatment of vegetarianism. Elizabeth Costello explains that her own vegetarianism does not arise from "moral conviction" but comes out of a desire to save her soul, which suggests that her decision is not about following or attaining an abstract ethical ideal but arises from a more personal and intimate sense of endangerment (43). Pliny the Elder's (2007) "Combats of Elephants" offers a graphic description of elephants' awareness of their own vulnerability and potential death and their capacity to appeal to human empathy. Gowdy's (1998 Gowdy , B. ( 1998 ). The White Bone . New York : Picador . [Google Scholar]) novel, The White Bone, is an especially moving fictional account of the trauma and suffering of several individual elephants and their clans, suffering caused by human rapaciousness and predation. See also Bradshaw (2009 Bradshaw , I. G. A. ( 2009 ). Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us about Humanity . New Haven , CT : Yale University Press . [Google Scholar]) and Bekoff (2007 Bekoff , M. ( 2007 ). The Emotional Lives of Animals . Novato , CA : New World . [Google Scholar]). In the context of the recent turn to trauma studies to understand animal suffering, it might be useful to note that the term posttraumatic stress disorder was coined and the diagnosis formally recognized in 1980, which opened the way for the contemporary study of human trauma (see Herman 1992 Herman , J. ( 1992 ). Trauma and Recovery . New York : Basic . [Google Scholar]). Our understanding of traumatic experience has been developed in part through the interdisciplinary field of trauma studies, which began to consolidate itself as a field in the 1990s with the recording and study of the oral testimony of Holocaust survivors (see Caruth 1995 Caruth , C. ( 1995 ). An Interview with Robert Jay Lifton . In C. Caruth (Ed.), Trauma: Explorations in Memory (pp. 128 – 147 ). Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press . [Google Scholar]). In my view, it is unsurprising, given the present argument, that this extensive body of interdisciplinary knowledge is only beginning to be employed in an understanding of animals and the nature of their suffering. Although some may object that the extension of this knowledge of human trauma to create an understanding of animal suffering is but another instance of anthropomorphism and is therefore anthropocentric, I would propose that anthropomorphism in this instance is defensible, for it increases the likelihood that this understanding will lead to greater justice for nonhuman animals. For very different arguments in defense of anthropomorphism, see Diamond (1991 Diamond , C. ( 1991 ). Eating Meat and Eating People . In The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind (pp. 319 – 334 ). Cambridge , MA : MIT Press . [Google Scholar], 2001 Diamond , C. (2001). Injustice and Animals. In Carl Elliott (Ed .), Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers: Essays on Wittgenstein, Medicine, and Bioethics (pp. 118–148). Durham , NC : Duke University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); Oerlemans (2007 Oerlemans , O. ( 2007 ). A Defense of Anthropomorphism: Comparing Coetzee and Gowdy . Mosaic , 40 , 181 – 196 . [Google Scholar]); and Daston and Mitman (2004 Daston , L. and Mitman , G. ( 2004 ). Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism . New York : Columbia University Press . [Google Scholar]). In "Losing Your Concepts," which was published before "The Difficulty of Reality," Diamond employs the phrase "that great arena of dissociated thought" to describe the debate on animal rights (1988 Diamond , C. ( 1988 ). Losing Your Concepts . Ethics , 98 , 255 – 277 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 276). She does not link what she means by "dissociated thought" to the experience or legacy of trauma, nor does she discuss deflection as dissociated thought in the later essay. Nonetheless, the phrase, "dissociated thought," led me to think of deflection as dissociated thought, as a style of thinking that bears the legacy of traumatic exposure in dissociating the mind from the body and thereby sacrificing the body and its knowledge (including its knowledge of vulnerability and mortality) for an investment in the symbolic immortality offered in the life of the mind. In "Comment," Wood suggests that Derrida writes "as though he is on the brink" of developing a "historico-psycho-anthropology" that "would reveal human subjectivity as something like surplus repression … " (1999, 33). Inasmuch as repression results from trauma (in Freudian theory, childhood trauma), I am indebted to Wood for the insight that human subjectivity might be an effect of a history of traumatic experience. But see also Kristeva's (1982 Kristeva , J. ( 1982 ). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection . New York : Columbia University Press . [Google Scholar]) remark, cited above, that suggests that human subjectivity is an effect of repression. A "spill" is easily and quickly cleaned up, and recovery from a spill is also easy and relatively effortless. As in "spilled milk," a spill has no serious or lasting consequences. In addition, when we are admonished "not to cry over spilled milk," we are admonished not to cry over things we cannot change. In the context of the BP disaster, the use of the term spill, especially in the initial weeks after the disaster, represents a deflection of the difficulty of the reality of this disaster and its horrific consequences for habitats and their inhabitants. This choice of words also lends a kind of inevitability to this disaster and perhaps others in the future, because our remorse cannot change the outcome. The phrase, "deep-sounding bell," is a recurring motif in Roy's (1998 Roy , A. ( 1998 ). The God of Small Things . New York : Harper . [Google Scholar]) novel, The God of Small Things, which presents a powerful critique of Western colonialism and neocolonialism, a critique that in part arises from an equally powerful environmental ethic. In her novel, the phrase alludes to the well-known poem by John Donne, "No Man is An Island," and also to Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which focuses on the Spanish Civil War and the threat of fascism. Donne's poem, and Roy's repeated allusion to it, memorialize our interconnectedness and interdependency and therefore our responsibility to one another, to all life, including the earth. The healing arts to which I refer will have help from neuroscientists, who have discovered the neurobiological basis for empathy in mirror neurons found in the brain. These neurons fire when an individual is engaged in an action and also when the individual is simply watching another engage in the same action. They were originally discovered in the laboratory in macaque monkeys in the 1990s (see, e.g., Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia 2008 Rizzolatti , G. and Sinigaglia , C. ( 2008 ). Mirrors in the Brain: How Our Minds Share Actions and Emotions . Trans. Frances Anderson. London : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar] and Iacoboni 2008 Iacoboni , M. ( 2008 ). Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others . New York : Farrar . [Google Scholar]). Mirror neurons have also been found in other species of animals and are thought to be the neurobiological basis for empathy in some nonhuman animal species (see Bekoff 2007 Bekoff , M. ( 2007 ). The Emotional Lives of Animals . Novato , CA : New World . [Google Scholar]). Baron-Cohen (2011 Baron-Cohen , S. ( 2011 ). The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty . New York : Basic . [Google Scholar]) describes the mirror neuron system and the neural circuits involved in human empathy, and he argues that when the empathy circuit fails to develop properly the result is "zero-degrees of empathy," which he describes as an inability to read other people's feelings and thoughts, an inability to respond appropriately to social cues, and a deep-seated self-centeredness. He differentiates between "positive" and "negative" forms of zero-degrees of empathy. Autism is, in his view, the positive side of zero-degrees of empathy, because people on the autism spectrum, although they do not have normal empathy, show various talents and capabilities that are not harmful to self or others. On the negative side of zero-degrees of empathy, he argues, one of three different personality types occurs: narcissistic personality, psychopathic personality, and borderline personality. Because empathy is a deep and ancient genetic endowment that may be developed or damaged by an individual's environment, Baron-Cohen wonders how modern life shapes our natural resources for empathy. In an award-winning study of social emotions that are linked to moral sensibility, such as compassion, Damasio et al. find that the development of social emotions requires "a level of persistent, emotional attention" (Marziali 2009 Marziali , C. ( 2009 , April 14) . Nobler Instincts Take Time . USC News . [Google Scholar]). The study raises questions "about the emotional cost—particularly for the developing brain—of heavy reliance on a rapid stream of news snippets" provided by digital media (Marziali 2009 Marziali , C. ( 2009 , April 14) . Nobler Instincts Take Time . USC News . [Google Scholar]). As Manuel Castells observes, "In a media culture in which violence and suffering becomes an endless show, be it in fiction or in infotainment, indifference to the vision of human suffering gradually sets in" (qtd. in Marziali 2009 Marziali , C. ( 2009 , April 14) . Nobler Instincts Take Time . USC News . [Google Scholar]). What we are learning about the neurological and social basis of empathy presses us to assume our specifically human obligation to develop and extend empathy and social justice to all living beings, including nonhuman animals. This article is a substantially revised and expanded version of my article (Worsham 2010 Worsham , L. ( 2010 ). Thinking with Cats (More, to Follow) . JAC , 30 ( 3–4 ), 405 – 433 . [Google Scholar]), "Thinking with Cats (More, to Follow)," which appeared in a special issue of JAC on the human-animal relation.