Learning Not to Care and Not to Know

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Animal Feelings: Learning Not to Care and Not to Know By William Crain

 

At a recent New Jersey public hearing, the topic was a proposed bear hunt. A

small

boy walked up to the microphone, said his name was Bobby, and told the officials

that shooting bears was horrible. " How would you like it if someone shot at

you? You wouldn't like it, would you? " Then Bobby threw up his arms and

said, " But you won't care what I say because I'm only seven years old, "

and walked back to his seat in a dejected manner.

 

Many parents and teachers have observed that young children are fascinated by

animals

and care deeply about them. Recent research has revealed that animals are so

important

to young children that they routinely dream about them. In fact, 3- to

5-year-olds

dream more frequently about animals than about people or any other topic, and

animal

dreams continue to be prominent at least until the age of 7 years.

 

But as children grow up in the Western world they, like Bobby, find that their

deep

feelings for animals aren't shared by the dominant culture.

 

The rudest awakening occurs when children discover the source of the meat they

eat.

In a preliminary study of urban, middle class children, one of my undergraduate

students, Alina Pavlakos, found that most 5-year-olds didn't know where meat

comes from. They knew they ate meat, but when asked, " Do you eat animals?, "

most said, " Nooo!, " -as if the idea were outrageous.

 

Pavlakos found that children soon learn otherwise, most by the age of 6 or so.

She

and others also have informally observed that many children become distraught

when

they learn the facts. As Jane Goodall points out, some children want to become

vegetarians

at this point, but their parents rarely permit it.

 

In the years that follow, our culture seems to work in many ways to dampen

children's

sensitivity to animals-especially farm animals. Sometimes our language hides the

identity of animals as food. We eat pork, not pigs; veal, not calves; meat, not

flesh. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer pointed out that the English language

more subtly distances us from animals by referring to them with the impersonal

pronoun

" it, " as if they were mere objects. If a young person becomes interested

in the science of animal behavior, she will learn to avoid the attribution of

any

human emotions, such as pain or happiness, to animals. The scientific custom is

to view animals impersonally.

 

In a tour de force, our society has managed to keep the public largely in the

dark

with respect to factory farms, which produce nearly all the meant Americans

consume.

Factory farms subject animals to incredible suffering, but most adults know

little

about it. This, at least, is what another undergraduate student, Srushti

Vanjari,

and I have found. From December, 2005, to the present, we have distributed

questionnaires

to undergraduates at different colleges and to adults in hotel lobbies and a

senior

citizen center in the New York metropolitan area. In these samples, 73 to 90% of

the adults rated their knowledge of factory farms as either slight or

nonexistent

(with a large majority of these respondents rating their knowledge as

nonexistent).

 

Admittedly, our surveys are informal, and some of my friends question the

results.

They believe that the past decade has witnessed a dramatic rise in vegetarianism

as people have become aware of the mistreatment of animals. But the most recent

Harris poll, conducted in 2006, found that only 2.3% of American adults chose a

vegetarian diet-a figure that is actually down from 2.8% in 2003.

 

At a time when there is so much emphasis on improving education, the widespread

adult ignorance with respect to animal suffering is stunning. I hope educators

will

rise to the task of eliminating this ignorance. I hope, for example, that

educators

will introduce secondary school and college students to writers such as John

Robbins,

Peter Singer, and Jane Goodall, and will encourage discussions on animal emotion

and treatment. Perhaps the day will come when the adults in our society, with

their

blinders removed, will share young children's fascination and empathy with

animals.

 

Article by William Crain, Professor of Psychology

William Crain is professor of psychology at The City College of New York. He is

the author of Reclaiming Childhood: Letting Children Be Children in Our

Achievement-Oriented

Society and the editor of the journal, Encounter: Education for Meaning and

Social

Justice.

 

Dr. Crain advocates for the child's right to play and for the protection of

nature and animals, and is co-founder of the Safe Haven Farm Sanctuary in

Beekman,

NY ( http://www.safehavenfarmsanctuary.org ), where children and adults visit

animals

rescued from inhumane conditions.