Ship of Fools: Ethical question

Thread: Ethical question Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

What exactly is the ethical problem with spraying graffiti on a dead stranded whale or taking selfies with it? There seems to be a lot of outrage over this, but I can't see very well what the problem is.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

Would you feel the same about a dead human body?

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

People would have no problem with butchering it and eating it. But that act would be (unless filmed or selfie'd) relatively private. It is the public display that offends. Even people who eat beef object to film about meat processing.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Amanda B. Reckondwythe: Would you feel the same about a dead human body?

No, I wouldn't. It is obvious that we have feel differently about human corpses and dead animals. I can also understand that if somebody held their pet very dear, then it would not be nice to do this kind of things with it.

But these animals belonged to no-one. Here is another person taking a selfie with a dead animal. I think that's the same as with the whale, or not?

quote:
Brenda Clough: People would have no problem with butchering it and eating it. But that act would be (unless filmed or selfie'd) relatively private. It is the public display that offends. Even people who eat beef object to film about meat processing.

So what exactly is wrong with it? If people had taken a piece of the whale and sprayed graffiti over it in the privacy of their home, would that have been OK?

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I put it down to David Attenborough. I cite him as representative of an attitude towards Nature which is inquiring, respectful, non-interventionist and fairly conscience-stricken. In what you might call the Awed Whisper school, charismatic megafauna are the gods and heroes of our world. Trophy hunters are the ultimate villains. But not far above them are those who see in a large dead animal not an occasion for mourning, but a canvas for their own shallow vulgarity.

It also picks up an idea - current from the 18th C at least - that behaviour to animals is indicative of behaviour to humans. Cruel to a cat, cruel to child. Selfie with a whale - why not with the drowned migrants further down the beach?

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Firenze: I cite him as representative of an attitude towards Nature which is inquiring, respectful, non-interventionist and fairly conscience-stricken.

Hmm, but in this case we were to going to interfere anyway. The carcasses are being removed right now. In accordance with this attitude, we should have left them there to rot.

quote:
Firenze: Trophy hunters are the ultimate villains.

I also think so. But that's because they kill animals, not because they take pictures.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

It depends on the graffiti, for me. I saw some that blamed humans for whales dying. I think this is OK, although the connection may be incorrect.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

I think posing it as an "ethical" issue is the problem. It's hard to come up with what's wrong with it from an ethical perspective, since you're not really harming any living thing.

It's more a question of whether or not it's appropriate. It seems to be making light of a serious and sad situation, treating it as a touristy circus sideshow. That's inappropriate, and may suggest something about the people who would fail to realize that.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

[replying to Firenze]

I see the reverse about David Attenborough. He was always attempting to get much too close to the animals for the sake of the TV cameras - totally unnecessarily, in my view. The sequences where Attenborough was not in shot were usually less staged and a lot more interesting than the ones where the aged TV executive looms into the shot stage left for his few seconds of camera time.

On the substantive point, I think these dead whale bodies are just the latest thing to come along to break the monotony of life, so of course people are going to be taking selfies. That is what most people young people do in almost all circumstances "Look, I'm here!".

No big deal in my view: the animal is dead, taking photos is not going to make it more dead and the more people that can get close to this majestic sea creature, the more likely they are to appreciate it. I don't have any issue with people looking at this as a wonder of nature.

The reports about spray-painted graffiti and of people cutting off the jaw-bone are slightly more disturbing, but only really because we don't tend to get many large sea mammals coming ashore in the UK. If one was to live in places where whales often die (and/or which had a history of whaling*) then I'm sure old bits of whale can be seen being used for a range of purposes - road signs, used as gates, for flower bedding etc.

It seems rather shallow, of course, to do this to a whale body, but in response to the question above, I'd see this as completely different to abusing a human body (although, interestingly, I think it is a bit different if the human concerned has given their body to be used in this way..) which I regard as a desecration.

But then it is quite hard to know how to deal with dead whales. They tend to come ashore in places which are hard to access, they tend to go smelly very quickly and they are hard to dispose of. I'm not really convinced graffiti on a whale body is really much worse than dumping it in a landfill or leaving it to explode on the sea shore.

*Of course at one time the UK had the world's biggest whaling fleet due to the massive demand for their high-quality oil and, weirdly, for use in margarine. The reason we don't have many relics of whale bodies around is because the bones were extremely valuable and crushed into fertiliser. A lot worse things were also crushed into fertiliser at the time. Only ask me if you really want to know (and be prepared to be revolted).

[ 28. January 2016, 14:02: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

The graffiti seems to me to be a lack of respect. You have a dead animal, and you're reducing it to a message board. (Using the whale for environmental slogans seems a bit better than using it for commercial advertising or 'I was here' writing, but I still think it's a lack of respect.)

At the level of property - which is only a small part of the question - it's a matter of appropriating the commons. You've got something on which everyone could project their own meanings, and you've turned it into a bearer of your own meaning. For a similar reason, it would be wrong for someone to project an advertisement onto the moon.

Another, third, factor depends on it not being property at all: its value comes from existing independently of our concerns, and writing on it reduces it to our concerns.

I'd like to think that the lack of respect is the largest part of it, although some of that respect is bound up with recognising the thing as having value independently of us (the third factor).

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Firenze: I cite him as representative of an attitude towards Nature which is inquiring, respectful, non-interventionist and fairly conscience-stricken.
Hmm, but in this case we were to going to interfere anyway. The carcasses are being removed right now. In accordance with this attitude, we should have left them there to rot?

While marvelling at the array of scavengers who gather to feed, and fascinated by the intricate way the death of one creature is woven into The Web of Life. Admittedly the inhabitants of Skegness have to put up a beachful of stinking fish guts for 6 months - but this is Nature!

And of course the Attenborough Attitude is a romanticised and glamorous view, a world away from the reality of co-existing with any actual smelly and inconvenient creatures: but it's a highly influential one, and responsible IMO for the reaction you are questioning.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I am with Dafyd that the issue is respect. Taking cheap photographs lacks respect for an animal that has sadly died. Painting slogans on it does the same.

I think there is a real problem with the "news-selfie" - where people insist on taking selfies with major news events in the background - because this reduces the events to being about "me me me". It is "look, I was there" but not doing anything. This is different to taking pictures of major events, which are then about the events.

These actions trivialise the events taking place. They reduce a once-living thing to a billboard or a photo-opportunity. But they are more than that, they deserve more respect, because they are Gods creatures. I think it is ethically wrong because it fails to give the due respect to these creatures. It is not unlike the hunters who pose for pictures having killed some beast from half a mole away with a high-powered weapon. It is, for them, all about the photo, the image, the moment, not about the animal that has died, not about the loss that this means to the world. Of course the trophy hunters are worse because it is a deliberate aim to kill an animal, but the sense of loss that many people feel about the whales is, I think, much the same.

Yes, their disposal will be ignoble. There is no way around that. But it shouldn't be celebrated.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

ISTM that size, rarity and suffering are three relevant factors here.

Taking selfies beside, or spraypainting, a stranded whale could be seen as trivialising its (presumably) protracted suffering before it died.

And yet any creature with an adequately developed nervous system is susceptible of protracted suffering, but it is unlikely that we would be affronted by the undignified treatment of the corpse of a mouse which we knew of having endured a (relatively long and agonising death, because mice are small and common.

[ 28. January 2016, 15:31: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
but it is unlikely that we would be affronted by the undignified treatment of the corpse of a mouse which we knew of having endured a (relatively long and agonising death, because mice are small and common.

If someone were, for example, to find a dead mouse, shove a stick up its behind and use it in a puppet theatre, I'd feel uncomfortable.

On the other hand, I don't feel any kind of discomfort about schoolkids playing games with the pig hearts from the dissection class. Schoolboy pranks with the skeleton from the biology lab don't feel any different whether the skeleton in question is plastic, or whether it used to be in a person.

I'm not sure I can explain the difference.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

The whole topic illustrates the disconnection from the natural world and the living creatures in it. It was common, and in some places still is, that when hunting to eat, once the animal is killed, to make an offering for the life taken. I know it is said "take what you need, and need what you take", but this is definitely not the western way, where want and need are not known as different.

This disconnection comes in many forms. People are so out touch with nature, that they don't know what is appropriate or inappropriate. One of my children worked with a wildlife rescue line, where they kept having to put baby animals people thought were abandoned.

I'm also reminded of stories of tourists killed by elk (wapiti) as they tried to get too close for pictures.

As an antidote to nature disconnection, here's the treatment: Nature-RX (3 minute video spoof ad).

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

I see this as an issue about the dignity of living creatures. If there is an ethical issue, it might have to do with encouraging less-than-admirable behaviors in others. I can imagine a child, influenced by such behavior, wanting to draw fake whiskers on his grandmother's corpse.

I also see this as an example of giving preference to some species over others. I think many people would react strongly if the dead animal being desecrated (or even displayed) was someone's pet cat. People care for and respect some species far more than others. I probably do the same.

I don't think it is only an issue of displaying the picture of a dead creature. I have often seen pictures of fishermen proudly displaying the fish they had just killed. I think one could find pictures of loggers showing off the trees they had just killed, or farmers proud of their harvests of grain, killing the plants involved. In those cases, people have killed other creatures for actual reasons and are not just idly playing with the dead. Indeed, the fisherman, logger and farmer may actually care a great deal about their prey, in the same sense in which the wolf loves the sheep.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

There is a brisk business in taxidermy -- preserving animals for display and decor. From there it's a small jump to taxidermied mice topping your wedding cake.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

A lot is in how you're raised. Any kid around me gets busted for treating any living creature with disrespect, or for killing without need--even if it's ants. No dancing on ants on the sidewalk, for instance, where they're doing no harm. And I'm afraid I would have something to say to school children who played disrespectfully with their once-living lab specimens--that is what rubber snakes and plastic tarantulas are for.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
But these animals belonged to no-one.

Well, they belonged to God, as do we.

I don't know about whales, but there is evidence that dolphins make friends and call each other by name.

And if extra-terrestrial beings do exist and may invade earth some day, how would you feel about them desecrating the corpses of humans they killed? We don't belong to any of them after all.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I have often seen pictures of fishermen proudly displaying the fish they had just killed.

And what a sick and repulsive sight it is.

The only excuse for killing fish is to eat them in order to survive, and such an unavoidable necessity is nothing to be proud of.

Tricking a sentient creature into transfixing itself through the mouth or entrails on a barbed hook, then jerking it around on the end of a string for as long as it still has any ability to resist, and then allowing it to die through protracted suffocation, is not "sport" but sadism.

Anyone who did the same to dogs dog or cats would be locked up, with the approbation of a nauseated community.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

The point I think we are trying to make is this: to assume that creatures other than of the species Homo sapiens are not entitled to -- indeed, not worthy of receiving -- the same dignity that we afford ourselves is insufferably smug at best and a sin of pride at worst.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

But here we are, eating hamburgers and wearing leather shoes.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
ISTM that size, rarity and suffering are three relevant factors here.

Taking selfies beside, or spraypainting, a stranded whale could be seen as trivialising its (presumably) protracted suffering before it died.

And yet any creature with an adequately developed nervous system is susceptible of protracted suffering, but it is unlikely that we would be affronted by the undignified treatment of the corpse of a mouse which we knew of having endured a (relatively long and agonising death, because mice are small and common.

I think you're right that size matters.

I read a theory once that people have a number of basic categories into which they place animals:
- some are food
- some are pets or workers for us
- some are pests and vermin
- some are threatening and dangerous
- some are noble and beautiful
Etc
and people feel quite disturbed if an animal is put in the wrong cultural category. Whether it's eating horses and dogs (food or pet/worker ?), or hunting foxes (vermin or noble beasts ?). Or when it's time for pet lamb to go to market.

Whale clearly belongs in the "noble beast" category (now that we no longer consider it food).

And bigger animals are more likely to qualify as threatening or noble, and small ones as pests...

Disrespecting the corpse is something warriors do to a fallen foe who has attacked treacherously - to someone threatening and ignoble.

But in this case there's another layer on top of the animal category error. Our funerary customs include "lying in state" when the body if a deceased monarch is on display between the death and the funeral, for people to pay their last respects to a distantly-known figure. Here nature has contrived something similar for the most majestic of sea creatures...

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

I don't see any disrespect in turning a dead animal into a hat - the only possible ethical conundrum in my view is where the animal is deliberately killed even though known to be endangered.

If the thing is common, is killed in some other way, was a pet etc - no issue. I see nothing disrespectful about turning animals into works of art.

Mice on a wedding cake (other than being a bit ewww, we all know where those feet have been) is no issue in my view.

I was reading last night some pretty horrendous things about the holocaust, and it seems to me that one of the great banal evils was where people dehumanised other humans to the extent that they were no more to them than animals. To me there is a dramatic difference.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't see any disrespect in turning a dead animal into a hat.

It's not as if we spray it with graffiti and snap a selfie on its way to the hattery.

Posted by Erik (# 11406) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Firenze: I cite him as representative of an attitude towards Nature which is inquiring, respectful, non-interventionist and fairly conscience-stricken.
Hmm, but in this case we were to going to interfere anyway. The carcasses are being removed right now. In accordance with this attitude, we should have left them there to rot.

Not sure about elsewhere but in the UK I think there is an organisation who deal with beached whales, etc, in order to study the remains. Like trying to discover why the animal was beached and better understand any likely impact of human activity.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I think there is a real problem with the "news-selfie" - where people insist on taking selfies with major news events in the background - because this reduces the events to being about "me me me". It is "look, I was there" but not doing anything. This is different to taking pictures of major events, which are then about the events.

Do you feel similarly about people taking pictures of themselves with major world landmarks in the background -- at say the Grand Canyon, or Stonehenge? Does it make Kilimanjaro to be about "me me me" if I take a selfie with the mountain in the background? How would that be any different?

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
It's not as if we spray it with graffiti and snap a selfie on its way to the hattery.

We don't?

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

If we are getting married, and you suggest taxidermied mice on top of the wedding cake, I plan to rethink our union. Just saying.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
If we are getting married, and you suggest taxidermied mice on top of the wedding cake, I plan to rethink our union. Just saying.

If we're getting married then I've missed a rather important set of conversations with my wife. Just saying.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I think there is a real problem with the "news-selfie" - where people insist on taking selfies with major news events in the background - because this reduces the events to being about "me me me". It is "look, I was there" but not doing anything. This is different to taking pictures of major events, which are then about the events.
Do you feel similarly about people taking pictures of themselves with major world landmarks in the background -- at say the Grand Canyon, or Stonehenge? Does it make Kilimanjaro to be about "me me me" if I take a selfie with the mountain in the background? How would that be any different?

To an extent. Although these have not died to provide a photo-op.

I was once - many years ago - in Israel on a holiday. One of the couples there was constantly taking pictures with the wife standing in front of this and that monument. I found it rather self-centred, not least because I could imagine the people they were showing them to being as fed up with seeing her.

So yes, I do find this objectionable.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
[snip]So yes, I do find this objectionable.

I think you're out of touch with 99% of every tourist everywhere. Some boob and his wife will look back 40 years from now and say "Ah, remember when we were in Paris? How young we were! Those were good days!" They'll be happy looking at those photos, and their grandkids will get a kick out of how silly their clothes looked, and maybe they'll want to go to Paris someday too.

And you'll be clucking your tongue at them like a schoolmarm. I don't see what your issue is.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I think there is a real problem with the "news-selfie" - where people insist on taking selfies with major news events in the background - because this reduces the events to being about "me me me". It is "look, I was there" but not doing anything. This is different to taking pictures of major events, which are then about the events.
Do you feel similarly about people taking pictures of themselves with major world landmarks in the background -- at say the Grand Canyon, or Stonehenge? Does it make Kilimanjaro to be about "me me me" if I take a selfie with the mountain in the background? How would that be any different?

Pictures on holiday used to be more "I was here". The selfie craze is more "I was here". The selfie, along with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the rest of social media, has elevated the levels of narcissism in our society.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
[snip]So yes, I do find this objectionable.
I think you're out of touch with 99% of every tourist everywhere. Some boob and his wife will look back 40 years from now and say "Ah, remember when we were in Paris? How young we were! Those were good days!" They'll be happy looking at those photos, and their grandkids will get a kick out of how silly their clothes looked, and maybe they'll want to go to Paris someday too.

And you'll be clucking your tongue at them like a schoolmarm. I don't see what your issue is.

For once, I agree with Mousethief, and not Schroedinger's cat and LilBuddha. Are some of us on this thread, perhaps being a touch pompous with perhaps a smidgeon of self-righteousness and the Pharisee's prayer mixed up in that?

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

To be honest, what mostly spurred me to open the thread is that one of the articles in the Guardian about this showed some reactions on Twitter of the kind "who the Hell *are* these people??" (or stronger). I know I know, outrage comes cheap on Twitter, but this just didn't seem to warrant that.

quote:
cliffdweller: I think posing it as an "ethical" issue is the problem. [...]
It's more a question of whether or not it's appropriate.

I guess I can live with this. In my mind, this puts spraying graffiti on a dead whale in the same category as picking your nose in front of the Queen. Yes, a big boo-boo but you haven't really done anything bad.

quote:
Dafyd: The graffiti seems to me to be a lack of respect. You have a dead animal, and you're reducing it to a message board.

Of course, so do these people. I feel that it's a bit more difficult to put a finger on the thing about 'respect' or 'dignity'. Of all the things we do with animals, dead or alive, what exactly constitutes 'respect' and what not? And why?

Another thing I'm reading here comes down to: if they do this to whales, they'll probably have the mindset of doing other bad stuff too. I don't know, this seems a bit too simple to me. Of course it's perfectly possible for someone to spray graffiti on a dead whale, and not do evil things in his/her life. Causation seems rather weak to me here. I guess that I could kind of see this in terms "better err on the safe side". People who spray dead whales might go on to do bad things, so better say that spraying them is a bad thing. Hmm …

quote:
Firenze: While marvelling at the array of scavengers who gather to feed, and fascinated by the intricate way the death of one creature is woven into The Web of Life. Admittedly the inhabitants of Skegness have to put up a beachful of stinking fish guts for 6 months - but this is Nature!

Hmm, I like this one. Yes, perhaps the best thing would be for everyone to stay away from that beach, and look at the natural processes from a distance. There's a certain elegance about this. But as you said, unfortunately the smell forbids this.

quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
But these animals belonged to no-one.
Well, they belonged to God, as do we.

True. I'm not entirely sure if He is upset by this, and why He would be. But yes, He might be. OTOH, we do things to His creation that are far worse than this. I can imagine a group of people on that beach looking at the graffiti, going "how can they *do* that?" and then leaving their plastic coffee cups on the beach for the sea to wash away.

quote:
Erik: Not sure about elsewhere but in the UK I think there is an organisation who deal with beached whales, etc, in order to study the remains. Like trying to discover why the animal was beached and better understand any likely impact of human activity.

Yes, I get this. I don't know if this was the case here but if they want to study these beached whales, it is better to leave them alone. Agreed. However, I don't think that this is what the outrage is about.

All in all, I feel that these things perhaps merit a stern "tut tut", but not a "what kind of people *are* these??"

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Dafyd: The graffiti seems to me to be a lack of respect. You have a dead animal, and you're reducing it to a message board.
Of course, so do these people. I feel that it's a bit more difficult to put a finger on the thing about 'respect' or 'dignity'. Of all the things we do with animals, dead or alive, what exactly constitutes 'respect' and what not? And why?

I agree that it's difficult to give an algorithmic definition of what counts as treating an animal without respect. There's an element of anthropomorphism in it: would similar behaviour be taken by a human recipient as respectful? That criterion's not so useful for animals bred for slaughter. Even there though I think it's possible to say that there are degrees of respect despite the fact you're going to kill the animal.
Kaplan Corday said that the feeling depended on size, rarity, and suffering. I think I'd add social organisation, intelligence, and independence of humanity (wild animals deserve more respect than domesticated). Why so is hard to put in words in our culture. I'm tempted to reach for the category of the sacred (in a pre-animistic sense of the numinous way), and have done with it, though again there's no algorithmic definition of that either. Perhaps in a post-Protestant secular utilitarian society, you could call it something aesthetic - whales are sublime, and therefore desecrating their corpses makes the world more banal.

To make it clear, I can't feel that any negative reaction I have to taking selfies with a dead whale is anything more than snobbery. Whereas I think graffiti is wrong.

(Whether I'd use the phrase 'who are these people' I don't know. I don't know where on the scale of outrage the people who use the phrase think it's appropriate to.)

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Dafyd: The graffiti seems to me to be a lack of respect. You have a dead animal, and you're reducing it to a message board.
Of course, so do these people. I feel that it's a bit more difficult to put a finger on the thing about 'respect' or 'dignity'. Of all the things we do with animals, dead or alive, what exactly constitutes 'respect' and what not? And why?
I agree that it's difficult to give an algorithmic definition of what counts as treating an animal without respect. There's an element of anthropomorphism in it: would similar behaviour be taken by a human recipient as respectful? That criterion's not so useful for animals bred for slaughter. Even there though I think it's possible to say that there are degrees of respect despite the fact you're going to kill the animal.
Kaplan Corday said that the feeling depended on size, rarity, and suffering. I think I'd add social organisation, intelligence, and independence of humanity (wild animals deserve more respect than domesticated). Why so is hard to put in words in our culture.

Cuteness seems to be a category as well, as we seem to care more about "adorable" creatures like pandas and kittens and hedgehogs and not so much about "creepy" creatures like eels and scorpions and reptiles.

fwiw, my family went through a similar sort of "categorization" a couple of years ago when we were considering our meat intake and what we could/could not justify. I ended up advocating (someone haphazardly, I confess) an ethic based more on the life/death of the animal: was the animal raised for slaughter and then dispatched in a reasonably pleasant way w/o undue suffering. My husband, otoh, drew the line on more biological means: he will eat poultry and fish, but won't eat fellow mammals (my brothers deemed this "don't eat anything with nipples").

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Dafyd: I agree that it's difficult to give an algorithmic definition of what counts as treating an animal without respect. There's an element of anthropomorphism in it

I'd even a bit further. A number of categorisations have been given on this thread about which animals we need to show respect to, and they strike me as rather anthropocentric. It seems to be much more about us, about our feelings towards certain animals, maybe even containing a degree of projection, than about the animals.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Me, I always liked the holiday snaps with people I knew in them, because after you see the Eiffel Tower six or seven times in pics, it's yawn time. And it's hard to contain the yawns when you are looking at page after page of well-known views on somebody's phone, and not a bit of human interest ("Hey! I know her!") at all.

Even the people who never take a picture without themselves in it are, well, a bit self-absorbed, but that's rarely more than eyeroll-deserving. A selfie at Auschwitz, maybe.

The graffiti is more troubling because it seems to be in the nature of an attack on the body. The larger and more aggressive in color, shape, etc. the worse. I'm thinking of the kind of stuff we see on railway cars.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

It's also worth noting that sometimes you need a human being in a picture to give it a sense of scale. A picture of a giant sequoia is a big yawn-- just another pine tree-- until you put a person in front of it and see the immensity.

[ 30. January 2016, 16:02: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
cliffdweller: It's also worth noting that sometimes you need a human being in a picture to give it a sense of scale. A picture of a giant sequoia is a big yawn-- just another pine tree-- until you put a person in front of it and see the immensity.

I guess it's the same with a whale?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
cliffdweller: It's also worth noting that sometimes you need a human being in a picture to give it a sense of scale. A picture of a giant sequoia is a big yawn-- just another pine tree-- until you put a person in front of it and see the immensity.
I guess it's the same with a whale?

Yes, that's what I meant. That to really get a sense of the massive size of this huge animal on the beach, you need to have something in the photo to give that scale. Even if you are going to use the photo to illustrate a blog about how we need to do a better job of protecting marine life.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

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Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
[snip]So yes, I do find this objectionable.
I think you're out of touch with 99% of every tourist everywhere. Some boob and his wife will look back 40 years from now and say "Ah, remember when we were in Paris? How young we were! Those were good days!" They'll be happy looking at those photos, and their grandkids will get a kick out of how silly their clothes looked, and maybe they'll want to go to Paris someday too.

And you'll be clucking your tongue at them like a schoolmarm. I don't see what your issue is.
For once, I agree with Mousethief, and not Schroedinger's cat and LilBuddha.

That is amusing because I disagree with both of them. Holiday snaps have long been a recorded memory, one to strengthen the variable and fading built-in ones we've got. So I think SC is off the mark there.
Selfies are more about the self than the location, event or memory. This is where mt misses bulls-eye.
And this is what this story is about. The narcissism. The dead whale is a showcase for that narcissism. The whale is irrelevant here, it could be a stranded ship or really anything which draws attention that then can be used to redirect that attention to the graffiti maker or the selfie taker.

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

Are some of us on this thread, perhaps being a touch pompous with perhaps a smidgeon of self-righteousness and the Pharisee's prayer mixed up in that?

On this we agree, but probably not on to whom it applies.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

There are one or two places in this country where it's not uncommon for a whole pod of whales to beach themselves. People turn out in great numbers to work around the clock to keep them wet (blankets and buckets etc) until the next high tide and then, with professional help, to refloat them and try to get them on their way. Some are saved, some, having lost their sense of direction (?) or their leader, come right back and die.

You can't imagine any of these people doing the graffiti. You might find some of them on a Greenpeace ship trying to stop Japanese whalers slaughtering whales for 'scientific research'.
But that's a whole other issue.

GG

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Amanda B. Reckondwythe: The point I think we are trying to make is this: to assume that creatures other than of the species Homo sapiens are not entitled to -- indeed, not worthy of receiving -- the same dignity that we afford ourselves is insufferably smug at best and a sin of pride at worst.

This goes too far for me. Yes, we treat dead animals differently from dead humans. But I'm not convinced that this is a bad thing.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
This goes too far for me. Yes, we treat dead animals differently from dead humans. But I'm not convinced that this is a bad thing.

The question is how far differently we should treat them.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Dafyd: The question is how far differently we should treat them.

I agree, and I don't find it easy to answer.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

I rather like the idea of blowing up dead whales, as was done most famously in Oregon in 1970.

It is somehow reminiscent of the ship burnings which were sometimes the form which Norse funerals took.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
A selfie at Auschwitz, maybe.

I've actually seen that - some teenages girls giggling as they posed in front of one of the crematory ovens.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

lilBuddha, I think your position does two things: (1) it draws far to thick a black line between a "selfie" and other kinds of photographs that include oneself. In the old days it wasn't unusual to see someone ask a passerby to take a snap of herself and the old man in front of the Tower of Pisa, etc. Now people can do it themselves without bothering passers-by. Not a huge difference. (2) it smacks of snobbery against the new and/or against the young. We didn't have selfies when I was a girl, by God no. It's a newfangled thing for today's self-centered youth. You rotten kids get off my lawn.

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
A number of categorisations have been given on this thread about which animals we need to show respect to, and they strike me as rather anthropocentric. It seems to be much more about us, about our feelings towards certain animals, maybe even containing a degree of projection, than about the animals.

How can it not be? We're the ones making the categorisations.

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Amanda B. Reckondwythe: The point I think we are trying to make is this: to assume that creatures other than of the species Homo sapiens are not entitled to -- indeed, not worthy of receiving -- the same dignity that we afford ourselves is insufferably smug at best and a sin of pride at worst.
This goes too far for me. Yes, we treat dead animals differently from dead humans. But I'm not convinced that this is a bad thing.

Dignity is a human invention. Small wonder that the species that invented it gets to decide the nature and extent of its application.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Dignity is a human invention. Small wonder that the species that invented it gets to decide the nature and extent of its application.

That's a good point.

I can't see the whales caring one jot what is done with the carcasses.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

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mousethief: How can it not be? We're the ones making the categorisations.

True, but in these cases the categorisation is made based on the effect an animal has on us.

Suppose for a moment that we could measure the exact amount of pain that an animal feels. In this case, we would still be making the call which level of pain would be acceptable to inflict on them.

Now compare this with us making this call based on how cuddly the animal looks to us.

In both cases, we are doing the categorisation. But in the first case, we're at least doing it based on criteria related to the animal.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, I think your position does two things: (1) it draws far to thick a black line between a "selfie" and other kinds of photographs that include oneself. In the old days it wasn't unusual to see someone ask a passerby to take a snap of herself and the old man in front of the Tower of Pisa, etc. Now people can do it themselves without bothering passers-by. Not a huge difference.

No black line, of course there is overlap of motivation in both directions. It is observation which informs my conclusion. How the photos are taken, how they are used and how often they are they are used. You may draw a different conclusion, but I think the evidence is on my side.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

(2) it smacks of snobbery against the new and/or against the young. We didn't have selfies when I was a girl, by God no. It's a newfangled thing for today's self-centered youth. You rotten kids get off my lawn.

This genuinely produced an audible laugh. I said nothing about youth. The aged abuse selfies and social media as well, though in predictably lesser numbers.
I've many negative traits, but neophobe and technophobe are not labels which stick well to my skin.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
No black line, of course there is overlap of motivation in both directions. It is observation which informs my conclusion.

Ah. Anecdote, then.

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How the photos are taken, how they are used and how often they are they are used. You may draw a different conclusion, but I think the evidence is on my side.

That's hard for me to judge as you haven't presented any evidence, only assertion.

quote:

This genuinely produced an audible laugh. I said nothing about youth. The aged abuse selfies and social media as well, though in predictably lesser numbers.

Yes. In lesser numbers. Hence it is associated with youth. You contradict yourself in two sentences. You might as well argue that a diatribe against 20" bicycles isn't directed against young kids because some adults ride them too.

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Suppose for a moment that we could measure the exact amount of pain that an animal feels. In this case, we would still be making the call which level of pain would be acceptable to inflict on them.

Now compare this with us making this call based on how cuddly the animal looks to us.

In both cases, we are doing the categorisation. But in the first case, we're at least doing it based on criteria related to the animal.

True. How would you apply this insight to the question at hand, then? Is it wrong to take a selfie in front of a whale? Most people will never get anywhere near a whale unless it's dead. Taking a selfie in front of a dead dog or a dead mayfly doesn't have at all the same motivation. How do you see it?

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
mousethief: How would you apply this insight to the question at hand, then? Is it wrong to take a selfie in front of a whale? Most people will never get anywhere near a whale unless it's dead. Taking a selfie in front of a dead dog or a dead mayfly doesn't have at all the same motivation. How do you see it?

It feels a bit like you haven't read the thread. I started the OP by saying that I don't see what the ethical problem is with spraying graffiti on a dead whale or taking selfies with it. Implying that I don't have a problem with these things. After having heard the opinions of various people on this thread, I found that maybe I could see it as inappropriate (but still not as unethical).

PS It's funny that you put the example of the dead dog and the dead mayfly here, because I made a similar argument in my second post in this thread, where I posted a link to a selfie someone had made with a hamburger. (One of the search terms I put in Google Images to find this picture was 'meat selfie'. I do not recommend it.)

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It feels a bit like you haven't read the thread.

I assure you I have suffered through every blistering word.

quote:
PS It's funny that you put the example of the dead dog and the dead mayfly here, because I made a similar argument in my second post in this thread, where I posted a link to a selfie someone had made with a hamburger.

I'm not quite sure I see the connection. Now if they had posed with a cow carcass, perhaps.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
And what a sick and repulsive sight it is.

The only excuse for killing fish is to eat them in order to survive, and such an unavoidable necessity is nothing to be proud of.

Tricking a sentient creature into transfixing itself through the mouth or entrails on a barbed hook, then jerking it around on the end of a string for as long as it still has any ability to resist, and then allowing it to die through protracted suffocation, is not "sport" but sadism.

Anyone who did the same to dogs dog or cats would be locked up, with the approbation of a nauseated community.

Actually, in areas where there are many fish, we commonly use barbless hooks and do put back fish we are not going to eat. Fish vary greatly in size and awareness. I have had fish in the boat, in the air and one has swallowed the other like sized one with only a tail sticking out of its mouth. I have also caught the same fish twice, which jumped up to grab a lure above the water's surface that had just been removed from its mouth.

Responses like your's usually signify inexperience with actual wild areas and animals living there. The comparison with pet animals makes this plain. Dogs and cats have been socialised as companion and working animals by humans.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Responses like your's usually signify inexperience with actual wild areas and animals living there. The comparison with pet animals makes this plain. Dogs and cats have been socialised as companion and working animals by humans.

So it's OK to torture unsocialised animals, including feral cats and dogs.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

@mousethief: I have the feeling that we're talking past each other. I can't follow you very well, I have no idea what argument you want to make.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Responses like your's usually signify inexperience with actual wild areas and animals living there. The comparison with pet animals makes this plain. Dogs and cats have been socialised as companion and working animals by humans.
So it's OK to torture unsocialised animals, including feral cats and dogs.

Cats outside of their middle eastern range are all domestic within a generation or a few. They will easily redomesticate. Dogs are quite similar in this regard, except that they will routinely pack-up (form a hunting pack) in the Canadian north if turned out and gone wild and will kill other dogs and at times people (usually children) and eat them. It is common for northern settlements (villages and Reserves) to have a employee whose job is named "dog shooter" for this reason. There is an interesting line between wolves, dogs and coyotes that is crossed. Shot dog meat is either discarded or fed to other dogs.

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

All God's creatures dwserve repect in death and in life. I have no issue with using animals for food, work and companionship but I draw the line at subjecting animals to a stunt such as has been described. One would venture to ask why the perpetrator found it necessary to indulge in such behaviour. What do we do about such 'low lives'?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
No black line, of course there is overlap of motivation in both directions. It is observation which informs my conclusion.
Ah. Anecdote, then.

Not precisely. It is more a casual study. Unfortunately, studies are few, do to the newness. However, the studies that have been done show a correlation, though to varying degree. And, that also includes Self-Objectification, which I admittedly lumped into narcissism to save keystrokes.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
How the photos are taken, how they are used and how often they are they are used. You may draw a different conclusion, but I think the evidence is on my side.
That's hard for me to judge as you haven't presented any evidence, only assertion.

Sorry, now that I have finished reading through the counter-claim documentation, I will provide a link.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

This genuinely produced an audible laugh. I said nothing about youth. The aged abuse selfies and social media as well, though in predictably lesser numbers.
Yes. In lesser numbers. Hence it is associated with youth. You contradict yourself in two sentences. You might as well argue that a diatribe against 20" bicycles isn't directed against young kids because some adults ride them too.

Lesser numbers because lesser numbers of older adults posses the main instruments of selfies; smartphones. Percentages of are of more use. Unfortunately, studies of social media and narcissism focus on younger people.
This study of texting and driving indicates that the typical association with teens is not as tightly linked as generally thought. Though not directly linked with selfies, it does show that expectations linked with age are not necessarily accurate.
You made the assertion that my comment had to do with age. It didn't. If anything, I give you oldsters just as much credit for being as messed up as the rest of us.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Sorry, now that I have finished reading through the counter-claim documentation, I will provide a link.

So, correlation. Perhaps. They only studied males, and only relatively young ones. Study has not been duplicated. Was based on self-reporting, so hardly double-blind. But it is, as you say, a link. (I refer to the first article on your link -- I did not read them all.)

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
@mousethief: I have the feeling that we're talking past each other. I can't follow you very well, I have no idea what argument you want to make.

I'm not really making an argument, truth be told, as much as pointing out fallacies where I find them.

My own position is rather muddled. Like someone above, I sat down and figure out what I would or wouldn't eat, and decided I would not eat horses, or animals with paws. Add to that some things I find icky, but that's for aesthetic, not moral-ethical, reasons. I clearly don't have a problem with people having their picture taken (by self or others) in front of famous monuments. I think spray-painting dead whales is at the very least in very bad taste, certainly disrespectful, and possibly unethical, although I couldn't really pinpoint what ethical boundary it crosses. I am against killing animals you're not going to eat, or eating animals that are endangered. Other stuff too that doesn't immediately come to mind.

[ 01. February 2016, 02:20: Message edited by: mousethief ]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Responses like your's usually signify inexperience with actual wild areas and animals living there. The comparison with pet animals makes this plain. Dogs and cats have been socialised as companion and working animals by humans.
So it's OK to torture unsocialised animals, including feral cats and dogs.
Cats outside of their middle eastern range are all domestic within a generation or a few. They will easily redomesticate. Dogs are quite similar in this regard, except that they will routinely pack-up (form a hunting pack) in the Canadian north if turned out and gone wild and will kill other dogs and at times people (usually children) and eat them. It is common for northern settlements (villages and Reserves) to have a employee whose job is named "dog shooter" for this reason. There is an interesting line between wolves, dogs and coyotes that is crossed. Shot dog meat is either discarded or fed to other dogs.

I am still not clear what point you are trying to make.

FWIW, I have no problem with feral animals being eradicated, so long as it is done as quickly, efficiently and painlessly as possible.

What I object to is the deliberate infliction of prolonged pain on birds, fish or animals (feral or non-feral) in the name of sport, such as we see most egregiously in something like big-game fishing.

[ 01. February 2016, 04:39: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Cats outside of their middle eastern range are all domestic within a generation or a few.

Not quite. Scotland has a wild cat which is the same species as the domestic one. Interbreeding contaminating the wild subspecies is a major ecological issue at the moment.

It is said that even if taken as kittens, wild cats will never tame.

As the wild version must originally have had a universal distribution in northern Europe and as it looks like a big tabby, there's quite a reasonable suspicion that there has also been some admixture of genes in the tame direction over the centuries as well.

quote:
Shot dog meat is either discarded or fed to other dogs.

Bad idea, irrespective of ethics. One theory about the cause of BSE was including an element of cows offal in fodder that was fed back to cows.

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