OUTLINE

In this (slightly longer post) I will begin with a statement of my personal position on the vegan life which I really don’t think I could handle.  I then qualify that by explaining the origins of my love for nature.  Finally, I begin the real meat of the story with a description of what seems to possibly be a less virtuous portrait of human character, possibly found in highest concentrations in the US Southern states, but probably also existent in other part of the US as well.  Because I have little scientific training in sociology or anthropology other than a few college courses, I am restricting my descriptions to my own personal experiences and first hand observations (which are mostly in the southern US).  I have spent considerable time in Europe, Asia, the tropics, South America, and I have lived in the Northeastern US and for a short while in Southern California.  However, most of my life has been spent in the Southern US.

CAVEATES

Let us begin then.  I am a carnivore.  I love meat plain and simple.  I also love to ‘go native’ with traditional low-brow caveman behavior on occasion, because it appeals to me at some very basic level and harms few others in most cases.   I like to be a “man’s man”.  However, I am also a naturalist, and I have lived WAAAAAAAYYYYY out in the boonies at times, and really enjoyed that quiet simple world, with forested streams, barely travelled paths, and secret fishing-hole ponds.  In fact, when I was a kid I often fantasized about becoming Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, running away and living the high life on garbage scraps and exposure to the elements (he he).  But seriously, I loved those stories, and many others including ‘Call of the Wild’ and one in particular about a small Native American boy who was originally an English emigrant, but was taken and raised with Native Americans.

NATURE LOVE ORIGINS

In that story of the adopted Native American boy, he was eventually re-captured by settlers and went on to ride in a Rodeo.  But while with his tribe, he learned the values of the natives, how they respected the animals they hunted, which was never for sport.  Instead, when they did hunt, it was for food and other materials — they used every single part they could so as not to waste.  There was no concept of ownership of land, although there were ‘hunting grounds’ where some tribes hunted traditionally.  The best part was the description of the circle of life.  The concept of the circle and how nature has patterns that are like repeating cycles came up several times in that book.  It somehow struck a deep chord with me, as if awaking some inner respect and love for nature.

Well, that was a long time ago.  At a few times in my life, my friends would tell me of their hunting trips with their fathers.  That whole concept resounded in me… the quiet moments of waiting and watching, then the thrill of killing a large animal, one that could potentially be dangerous to the hunter.  Cutting it open with a large knife, feeling the warm blood on your hands.  Then taking the meat home and eating it.  There was something so adventurous and thrilling about those stories my friends told.  Perhaps there was a bit of jealously — as I had no similar man-to-man time with my dad.  However, even as an young adult man, there were times when friends still would tell me new hunting stories, and I would be wishful that I could do such a thing.  I wanted that experience.  Was it just the idea of killing a large mammal, intentionally and then the violence of the knife afterwards?  What was the attraction to me?

MY EXPOSURE TO RACIST WHITES

I am often confronted with prejudices where I live (in Lubbock, Texas).  Most of the time, these prejudices reveal themselves in subtle attitudes and feelings which only a person who is sensitive to such matters would impugn.  Indeed, simply (apparently) because I am white, I often hear white people say things in my presence such as “those black people are lazy, looking for a free ride on the government”, and they love to say that “blacks were bred during slavery to be dumb and muscular, for work in the fields”.  Not surprisingly, xenophobic folks rarely criticize or make such sweeping ‘whole-race’ attacks against their ‘own kind’.  The stereotypical (and appropriate) image used to be Jed Clampett, toting his shotgun, saying “from these cold dead hands”, wife waving a bible and praying out loud, the pregnant teenage daughter clawing at the air despite her big brother holder her back.  Now, it’s the tenure-track ‘proud to be a Southerner’ faculty professor at ‘Blacks Now Tolerated Texas University’, careful to watch his tongue yet eager to wave his Republican-redneck-status on bumper stickers, his son’s pickup truck pumping subwoofer rap music despite having adopted his father’s opinions that national pride and patriotic duty mean “love it or leave it” (like Hitler would have said) rather than “let’s fix this” (as Obama says).

I don’t hate racist people. I just hate racist myths and values.  Some of my closest family, my lifelong best friends (whom I still call best friends), and many associates whom I am really fond of, almost all have some deep down well-hidden attitudes or feelings which are racist (or prejudiced against some other groups).  These are well-intentioned, often empathic and super-warm hearted folks, often honest to a fault and very empathic.  The problem is that there is cowardice among average everyday folks to publicly expose their inner thoughts and open-communicate about sensitive topics.  How can learning take place under such circumstances?  See my last post in this blog for more on that topic, which relates more to educational policy.

Part of what I want to do here in this post, is to explore the abstract stereotype of the “racist-white-trash-redneck” (RWTR).  I have several ulterior motives, not just including academic and intellectual enrichment.  For instance, my father is a racist-white-trash Southerner (not exactly a redneck, but definitely still a Texan), living on the east coast in Virginia, but originally from Houston, Texas.  He is a minister, with perhaps 50% of his congregation made up of blacks.  Yet, I can recall as a child hearing him use the “N-word” quite frequently, and to this day, he has many attitudes and beliefs still which are racist.  When I met my first wife, my father was quite condemning of her race, and now that I have dark skinned children, there have been a few other times when I experienced some racist reactions by others. In addition, my three youngest children are quite pale, from Russia, and so I currently have a rather colorful family.

THE STEREOTYPE

What I’m trying to describe here is the typical syndrome of a despicable human being which I am labeling a “racist-white-trash-redneck”.  I hope that most rednecks are not racist, and in fact, I do not intend to say that if you have all of these qualities, then you are definitely a despicable waste of flesh, but rather to say, you probably are — in the sense that sounding like a duck, smelling like a duck, etc., you probably are a duck.  So let me sum these up the stereotypical qualities of the “racist-white-trash-redneck” (RWTR) as they stand thus far:

1. Bible-waving orthodox religious orientation (if not ‘saved’, then doomed for eternity, aka ‘other races in other countries’)
2. Low-end economic conditions, including low-cost or lack of expensive education (such as college), blue-collar labor, and possible living conditions (such as living in a trailer).
3. Patriotism defined as: Intolerance for critical calls for government reform, love for murder of people in their own country after we invade their country
4. Belief that morality is phenotypic, influenced by genotype
5. Xenophobic lack of humanistic empathy for anyone different (unable to expand the narrow bubble of origin)
6. Possible additional last quality (explained below) related to ‘Child-like joy and idealization of animal murder for sport’ (or for other non-essential traditions).

IMPORTANT NOTES:
1. The above list is a completely fabricated subjective perception on my part alone and written without any forethought at all, straight from the heart as honestly as I can
2. I may need to come back to this post in the future to revise this list.  In particular, I am very skeptical of number 2 above (economics).  There are plenty of racist-white-trash-professors with terminal degrees, and likewise there are plenty of racist-white-trash-blue-collar business owners who have done very well financially.

DECONSTRUCTING THE STEREOTYPE

Before I begin the main segment of this exploration, I will confess that I have learned that most qualities that describe humans don’t really come in discrete categories, and are more often actually continuums.  In fact, even within a single generations, it is not unheard of that while a set of parents might be stereotypical of what is called “redneck, hillbilly, country, Baptist, hick”, that their child(ren) might quite easily slide into a role closer to the stereotype of the “wasp, middle-class, evangelical, yuppie, preppy”, and carry on subtler attitudes such as “minorities look for free rides more often than whites do” (with the assumption of a moral difference based on race).  Although racism (of certain types) may have been more prevalent in the South, where humans as property was more prevalent and lasted longer, there is no clear reason to doubt that there are many exceptions to all stereotypes including this one, such that racism crosses all boundaries.

That being said, I must wonder whether there is some correlate of certain kinds of cruelty to animals, such as dog-fights, which relates to my list of qualities of the “racist-white-trash-redneck”.  Would education level, economic level, or geographic location be more tightly associated and predictive of being an avid dog-fight observer/trainer?  What about the possibility of shooting and killing large mammals on a regular basis, then stuffing their bodies and displaying the corpse as a trophy?  Would that be more closely associated with education level, economics, or geographic location?  What I’m getting at, is to try and determine whether the list of qualities I have attempted to build on, as the stereotypical “racist-white-trash-redneck”, might also include an attitude which objectifies all animals, including large mammals which are KNOWN to have emotions very similar to humans, to the point that needless animal suffering means very little.

RACISM AND ANIMAL RIGHTS

Ever heard of a racist member of PETA, or Green-Peace?  Me neither.  My wife (Belinda Richardson) is an animal lover, founder and the former president of the Lubbock Pet Project, now called the Human Society.  Like your average Neanderthal, before I met my wife I frankly never considered a relationship with an animal to be anywhere near the same category of human-to-human relationships.  In fact, the only animal rights activists I had ever seen up close, appears to be ‘damaged-goods’ types, more likely to be successful bonding with animals because of their lower-maintenance, and obedience relative to humans (or some other similar explanation such as TRULY unconditional warmth, honesty, etc.).  Belinda has since taught me a few lessons about animals and their rights, but also I have learned some truths simply by living with them.  We have 4 large dogs including a Great Dane, 2 smaller dogs, 4 cats, and other assorted mammals who all live and sleep indoors with us humans.  They each have emotional bonds with me, some stronger than others, and each has cognitions and perceptions, each communicates with me at some level in various degrees.  Some of them are very dear to me, and I feel a kinship with them.  Like my own travels among other peoples, highly diverse cultures, and getting to know highly unique people, there is a process of opening the heart that happens, which transcends a simple opening of the mind.  This is what has occurred by my frequent close contact with animals.

Let us return now to my discussion of the practice of hunting of large and small game, including large mammals, which is a source of great pride and tradition among many southern peoples in the US.  Some months ago, my son was given a gift card to a “sports” store in town.  I’ve actually been inside this store once before, perhaps when I was less alert, and for a shorter period of time.  For some reason on this visit though, I took my time and began to look around.  Very gradually I came to realize that although this particular store had some “sports” stuff, the majority of the store was devoted to outdoor activities, and perhaps more than any other activity, to “hunting”.  As I sat looking at the sections which divide the boys from the men’s sections, and the parallels, I began to see how little boys would be interested in these materials and good, if for no other reason than due to idolizing their fathers.  But in addition, I began to see that this was very much a matter of culture and tradition, carried down from generation to generation.

I can’t say how many times I’ve wondered how on earth people (good everyday folks) could stand by and do nothing while their neighbors bought and sold other human beings like property.  Were they really that stupid, that they simply could not use their frontal lobes and reason out just how wrong it was?  Did they know how wrong it was, and yet were mere cowards, as we are lead to believe in the Spencer Tracy movie “Nuremberg”, regarding the vast German public who sat and did nothing while Jews were herded off?  Surely it is probably a collusion of many simultaneous influences, when an entire population of people engages in cowardice or evil, and no single cause can be blamed in isolation.  As I looked around me, everywhere I looked was death and corpses of beautiful majestic animals, who were in the prime of their youth, and probably had families waiting for their return the day they died needlessly.  Could no other person in the store not see what I was beginning to see?  Was this not a sanitized, shiny, glorification of murder and violence for sport?  How different was this from the cultural practice of ritual human sacrifice we read about in primitive societies?

The answer is that it is NOT very different at all.  Those primitive societies had lots of good folks, empathic, virtuous, and kind, who stood by and allowed atrocities to take place, for who knows whatever reasons.  I don’t care.  The point is these practices are now very rare, because most people now recognize them as unethical and immoral, even though we probably have LESS penetration and concentration of religious orthodoxy and spirituality than those societies did.  I’m not attaching religion here mind you, because I personally believe in Free-Will.  In addition, I have a totally open mind toward the possibility that Jesus was (is) God incarnate, and that Mohammed was his prophet, and that the Vedas are true, or tell many truths, and so many other things that give me hope and inspiration.  To the contrary, I think that religion has always been a huge help to humankind overall.  Not only has it been a salve and balm, but an opiate to handle the pain of a brutish and violent existence.  Though often used as an excuse for murder, war, and other crimes, it has MORE often led to the development of more just governmental forms and legislation that I cannot imagine would have developed in so humanistic a course had religion not existed at all (in which case I would expect a world that objectifies EVERYTHING as materialistic gain or loss).

RACISM AND UNSOPHISTICATED SPIRITUALITY

This does bring up a point worth a minor digression though.  Everyone seems to agree that those folks with an external locus of control live in fear and helplessness, constantly struggling to gain control, yet fearing that nothing they do can help.  By the same token, we are now taught more than ever before that self-control is ultimately an illusion and that all behavior derives from either genetics or environment at its origin.  Never (in any psychology course I ever took) is the possibility of Free Will ever brought up.  If you are very poor, the concept of hopelessness is a very frequent companion.  If you have any choice at all, it is usually only one option (the cheapest item on the shelf).  If you are wealthy, you have plenty of choices, and by cognitively exercising the skill of deliberation become a very savvy consumer over the years.  Who then would be more attracted to a more primitive brand of religiosity then, that person who had fewer choices under their control, who may be desperate for some outside assistance to tip the balance back into their favor whenever circumstances are most dire, rent due, and no groceries to feed the young?  It would not surprise me at all that those with a more modern and sophisticated set of religious beliefs, incorporating theological as well as philosophical answers to ethical dilemmas, would be correlated to those with higher economic means/status.

If ownership of the means to production provides greater sense of internal local of control, then one’s conception of God would not require personal intervention as frequently, and might even provide for a less personal, more mystical conception of God.  Furthermore, the need for personal economic control (or perceptions typical of internal local of control) relates more to “relative deprivation” than to actual deprivation in rich countries such as the US, where starvation due to lack of food is actually quite rare among resourceful adults who are not mentally ill or drug-addicted.  Fear of loss of economic control would also seem to be a related factor in one’s choice of religious beliefs.  If you fear some other group of people (xenophobia) or specific groups of races from attempting to take your economic resources, then you might be expected to again, believe in a more personal God, and one who is likely to intervene in human matters to your advantage, upon request.

Like the most primitive societies we know of, ever single action, could be watched by such a personal God, and be punished or rewarded.  Every event, and ever series of relations between events, can be seen as under potential control or intervention by spirits (or by your God).  An external locus of control centered within external spirit entities (or your God), can be an effective substitute for an acknowledged lack of control by the believer, especially in economically harsh circumstances, or when fear of loss of economic resources is greatest (like when there are lots of very poor people who cohabitate with you).  This is really just starting to sound like a deconstruction of typical Republican propaganda which refuses public support or training for those at or below poverty level, so I will end my digression here.  Suffice it to say that it certainly seems that many aspects of one’s choice in religious beliefs relate strongly to the syndrome of fear and hate-filled beliefs called prejudice.

THE GRAND TOUR

Here is what I saw in the store that opened my eyes to the tragic violence practiced for sport by typical “racist-white-trash-rednecks” (in order of observation as I walked through the store):

First I happened across this tall structure attached to a support column.  I thought “oh that’s neat”.  Then I looked closer and imagined myself sitting in it.  No wait, that wouldn’t work, those teensy little seats are meant for children I think.  Indeed, it’s hard to convey via this photo, but essentially, the two empty seats facing to the right in this photo were each about 10 inches wide, and neither of them had much cushion.  I thought to myself “must be for real small folks, or else kids”, otherwise I couldn’t stand more than about 10 minutes of it.

Gradually, I began to survey the walls, noticing many more of these dead animals mounted like trophies all over the place.  This one support post has about a dozen, but along some of the walls were many others including larger more powerful specimens.  Something about it began to seem odd to me, like shrunken heads of felled enemies lining some cave-wall.  Still these ideas were like a mist settling into place.  I really had NOT noticed this very much, or paid much attention to it the first time I had been to this store.  At first, I just thought, these are trophies, nothing more.  The expense invested in their taxidermy far outweighs any savings or other utility gained by the consumption of their meat or other organs.

The clincher which solidified what I was feeling was this very odd large wooden box I found, which was about 5 x 3.5 feet across, and maybe 4 feet deep filled with large rocks.  The box was labeled “trophy rock”, and that was all.

I was so puzzled at first, and couldn’t imagine how a rock would be a “trophy”.  Then I opened the glossy pamphlets that were sitting atop the box.  Below is a photo of the pamphlet.  It kind of looks like a brochure for a circus act, flashy and gaudy.  Across the top is the headline “if you want the rack.. get the rock!”  Suddenly it made sense.  This was a rock with salts and minerals.  It was meant to be tossed into the brush, and left for some time so as to become a haven of needed nourishment to animals.

I turned around and suddenly my eyes were seeing things a little differently.  I have (over the last year or so) spent many separate moments teaching my children what “good sportsmanship” was all about.  If they pouted after losing, I’d say, “now be a good sport”, and I’d always tell them not to cheat, even when playing alone.  The challenge was part of the fun, trying to find your own limits and expand them out, achieve more.

When I turned around, I could see that there were children’s toys and LOTS of them, in the form of toy guns, bows/arrows, knives, and every conceivable weapon which can be used to hurt or kill animals.

As I then walked on down the aisle I came across a very large display which had a bunch of 5 to 6 ft tall safes.  As most people use banks these days for highly liquid valuables, all I could think was “what would people keep in these?”   Barring the possible few paranoid types who might keep strange things, the most probable answer is GUNS.  Not only are guns extremely dangerous tools for killing, they are also very expensive.  Using a safe this big would be necessary if you own quite a few guns, and don’t want people to see them.

Moving right along, I came to an aisle with lots of spotlights.  As I have learned over the years, using spotlights has been deemed “un-sportsman-like” and therefore outlawed in many places, but still commonly practiced.  Apparently, using the spotlight blinds an animal temporarily, and they become much more helpless.

As I passed the final corner before heading back toward the cash registers, I noticed these cowboy bottles which suddenly did NOT seem funny to me.  All I could think of was an image of immature, beer drinking, machismo-obsessed ignorant racist-white-trash-rednecks who might find it funny in their classless low-brow way.

Will this one day be seen as a primitive practice that died out only slowly among an ever more narrow niche of people?  Is it possible that we do not see such a “sport” as unethical simply because it is still rather common and highly visible, in the same way that common people viewed slavery when it was still thriving?  I will admit that I have never been hunting and never killed an animal larger than a rabbit (which we raised for food and money in my family as a child), and I also admit that I love to eat beef products, chicken, and seafood on a regular basis.  Am I a hypocrite?