Humane Humanity?
Have we lost it? Or did it never exist?
This morning I received the following email from an organization lobbying me to weigh in on behalf of mistreated animals:
Wild animals don’t belong in traveling shows or circuses where they are typically subjected to neglect, abusive training and prolonged confinement. These traveling shows present a public safety risk and subject animals to physical and psychological distress. Time and again these shows fail to comply with basic animal protection laws and don’t provide proper care for the animals.
Dangerous incidents involving wild animals in traveling shows have occurred in New York, highlighting the need for action. New York legislators have an opportunity to address this. Please contact your assemblymember and state senator today and let them know that you support bill A.5850/S.3629-A, which will enhance public safety and protect wild cats, bears and nonhuman primates—animals frequently used in traveling shows. It’s not entertainment—it’s cruelty.
At the risk of alienating all those who believe humans are superior to all other creatures, I would like to say that this problem of displaying and observing others for our entertainment is a human trait and not relegated to other species.
When Charlie Sheen was clearly suffering from extreme mental illness, the press and public laughed and made fun of him. I recall writing to one friend who posted some amused meme about Sheen that it struck me like treating the sick man as a zoo attraction. Chastised, my friend agreed . . . but left the post up.
Our human herd’s knee-jerk reaction to the bizarre is to point at it and laugh or condemn it while deriving maximum clicks as we compete with one another for cleverness dominance.
Right now we have a mentally ill, dying old man in the White House. The rest of the world seems to have no problem seeing this and refusing to negotiate with him or invite him to their parties. But Americans? The press can’t get enough of him. The people either shake in their boots, convinced of their imminent danger from a man who is the equivalent of the dementia-ridden uncle who comes from his rest home for his last Thanksgiving dinner, shouting absurdities that everybody does their best to ignore while they shovel turkey into their mouths, or they go nuts condemning him for being insane.
We are a population of voyeurs who cannot see what is right in front of us.
Why?!
Betsy Robinson is an editor, fiction writer, journalist, and playwright (also a former actor). She has written about books for Publishers Weekly, Lithub, Oh Reader, and many other publications. Her novels Cats on a Pole and The Spectators were published by Kano Press in 2024. She writes funny stories about flawed people and examines our herd culture. www.BetsyRobinson-writer.com.
very powerful and a sad commentary on the 'human species' ....
Wow! Powerful!