ABOUT THAT GORILLA...

Many have written this before: when it comes to sympathizing with animals or people, animals always win.

·         NFL players beat wives and girlfriends, but only Michael Vick still elicits protestors outside stadiums because of his dog fighting past.

·         This ..\Pictures\child.jpg image was a singular and world-wide tragedy, yet a ton of hard right politicians and people in the US and Europe still won’t accept refugees, but imagine if this body lying face down in the surf was an adorable baby hippo or panda bear fleeing some torturous animal park or zoo?

·         Babies, and toddlers and mothers and fathers are gunned down at staggering levels in the US to a collective national yawn, yet a lion named Cecil, gunned down by a trophy-hunting dentist sets the internet on fire in protest.

A few days ago, when Harambe, the gorilla was shot in order to protect a child who had somehow gotten into the enclosure, social media blew up with outrage at the parents, the zoo, and the very practice of caging animals. It is now THE story in the world.  More clicks and reads than the missing Air Egypt plane, more attention than ongoing atrocities in the Middle East and Africa, almost (imagine!) more attention than Donald Trump.

Why?

Why do we literally stop everything, place our outrage and shock for human tragedies on hold and pick up our collective white-hot anger for the perceived wronging of an animal? Why do we instantly forget about dying kids, mutilated brothers and sisters, mangled corpses of once-thriving family members, because some whale, primate or large cat is killed, imprisoned or harmed by Homo sapiens?

I think I finally know why.

No, it’s not because of our humanity and kindness for animals. No, it’s not because the innocence of animals strikes deep into our hearts. No, it’s not because we hold ourselves to higher standards of stewardship over the fauna of the earth.

We do it – we rage more against the killing and mistreatment of animals vs. people because it’s easier.

At the end of the day, accounting for the endless violence and mistreatment and hatred people inflict on other people is just too hard. In response, we instantly latch onto the simplicity of people hurting animals.

In war, when a drone strike mistakenly takes out an innocent wedding party, or US soldiers accidently shoot civilians, or bombs drift too far afield and destroy a hospital, there exists significant complexity. Complexity around the rules of war, the rules of engagement and the blurred lines between civilian and enemy combatant.

With inner-city violence, there is complexity as well. Complexity about guilt or innocence, the role of police, the role of guns and the role of poverty.

In short, caring deeply about people we don’t know personally is harder than caring for animals we’ve never met.

People come with faults and prejudices and meanness and hate. Animals do not. There are many people who are “not on our team” – people outside our class and station and ethnicity and nation of origin. Animals aren’t on anyone’s team and therefore are benevolent free agents that we can instantly care about.

If I care about a single young black teen gunned down on the incredibly violent streets of Chicago, must I care about all street kids – even thugs and gang-bangers?  If I care about massacred civilians in Syria, do I also have to care about the “bad guys” who are legally targeted by our military? If I care about the wife or girlfriend abused by a famous athlete, must I care about all victims of domestic abuse, even if they live in my neighborhood or are a part of my own inner-circle? For many people, that gets complicated very quickly.

But caring about a lovable gorilla, or a majestic lion, or a stable of fighting dogs?  That’s easy.

The same calculous that makes it so difficult to really care about unknown humans works fine with animals.  We can care about the euthanized gorilla, because we can care about ALL gorillas.  We are decidedly pro gorilla and there are no exceptions or caveats with that caring.

Because no gorilla ever did us wrong, we can go ahead and love them all. No strings attached.

Yet isn’t it strange that unconditional love is really only paid out by us when it comes to inter-species affection. As people, we find it so much easy to care for animals then our own kind.