One major contributor to abuse is the narratives that justify it—carefully tailored to our selfish interests to excuse our exploitation and wrongdoing, much as we choose shoes in a shop that fit our feet perfectly.
For example, the ancient Romans considered all other ethnic groups (except the Greeks) to be barbarians, characterized by letting the mind be driven by the irrational body instead of the body obeying the mind, as supposedly happened among Romans and Greeks. Therefore, they believed they had the right to conquer and enslave them. And with slaves they could do whatever they wanted, as if they were mere objects—even torturing and killing them.
They even said of the Germanic peoples that they were wild animals that walked on two legs and only resembled humans in the voice they made. The descendants of the Germanic peoples and other Europeans have been just as manipulative, since to justify our enslavement of Africans we have put forward arguments as absurd as the following:
Thank you for your altruism! But if that were so, how do you explain rebellions such as Haiti’s, in which they risked atrocious repression? Do you really think having your freedom and dignity stolen, being whipped and abused, makes you happy? Would you like me to give you all that happiness?
And the same happened with narratives used to justify imperialism: it is a noble cause because it is to evangelize, to fulfill a civilizing mission, or, as Queen Victoria of Great Britain claimed, to apply good government. But behind such a noble appearance of disinterested generosity and benevolence toward the colonized lay plunder and exploitation on a massive scale, forced labor, and a high level of oppression and repression accompanied by wars, genocides, torture, and other atrocities. What hypocrisy!
This was especially evident in King Leopold II of Belgium’s actions in the Congo. Under the pretext of civilizing and educating, and with the appearance of a philanthropist who would spend his own money to carry out that commendable task, he maintained a very cruel system of rubber exploitation that greatly enriched him and the concessionary companies. To achieve excessively high productivity from the Congolese, they implemented a system of horror whose hallmark practice was amputating the right hand of anyone who failed to collect enough rubber, including children (in a single day, more than 1,000 hands could be cut off). Other practices included beatings to death, or kidnapping women to force their male relatives to go into the forests to obtain the required rubber. In a few decades, the population fell from 20 million to 10 million.
The Nazis did something similar, as Hitler claimed he was doing Europe a favor by exterminating Jews and that one day they would thank him. And the same with Dr. Mengele, who claimed he was doing his fellow human beings a favor with his painful experiments on Jews. A thousand thanks for thinking of us! How good you are!
Sometimes the narrative that justifies cruelty is disguised as pseudoscience, as was the case with Gobineau, the social Darwinists, and the eugenicists of the 19th century, who—together with that century’s romantic essentialist nationalists—were philosophical forebears of the Nazi racism that has caused so much suffering.
Nowadays, deeply intellectually and scientifically impoverished narratives justifying cruelty are applied, especially to the exploitation and mistreatment of animals, such as:
Therefore, does that mean we can lock children in factory-farm cages to exploit different parts of their bodies? And to be consistent with this narrative, does a highly gifted person have the right to use and abuse someone with an average level of intelligence? And does that person have the right to do so to someone with Down syndrome?
It comes into the world with DNA that drives it to satisfy, above all, its own needs and desires and those of its loved ones and its group. No genetic, biological, physical, chemical, or any other law says that anyone is destined for use and abuse by human beings.
So that means that when you need a medical treatment for yourself that is the result of experimentation on animals, you will refuse it, right? Because you only want it for your loved ones, but not for yourself, correct?
And, on the other hand, if your generosity toward your loved ones justifies abuses—even major ones such as those committed against laboratory animals—does that mean we can steal a car or a valuable piece of jewelry to give it to our loved ones and please them? Because such selfless goodness toward our loved ones must be demonstrated in everything.
Or if our son is frustrated because he likes a girl and she does not like him back, can we kidnap her so that he can rape her? Or if a teacher fails our daughter, can we beat the former or threaten them to change the grade because it is for the good of our dear child? Does the good of our loved ones justify everything?
In reality, these are easy and absurd excuses that people make up in a few seconds, without thinking and much less checking whether they are true. And when I talk about verifying them, I do not mean writing a doctoral thesis, but simply spending five minutes searching on Google whether, for example, animals feel or do not feel.
If those five minutes are not spent, it is due to laziness, traditionalism, following the herd, irrational dogmatism, indoctrination, harmful religiosity and above all self-interest: the current status quo suits me, so it is not in my interest to look even slightly deeper into whether it is right or unjust.
LIVING WITHOUT HARMING: Do not follow the herd in order to harm
HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT HARMING? Let us oppose poisonous dogmatism
FOR A WORLD WITHOUT HARM: Let us be rational
THE ART OF LIVING WITHOUT HARMING: Think for yourself and say no to toxic indoctrination
However mediocre it may be, the positive side of foolish self-justification is that we tend to do it because a part of our brain knows that harming innocents is wrong. Because if it were right, what need would there be to justify anything?
Since that part of our mind knows it is immoral, it has to provide some kind of basis for the abuses committed, even if it is with arguments that have no solidity whatsoever—even if it is by building a mere house of cards that collapses with a simple puff of air.
Specifically, that area of the brain is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, where scientists locate our innate sense of justice—the same one that has led millions of people to remedy abuses and even to fight against them.
And that is why I hope these messages will activate that area of the brain and, as they sink in, will translate into more ethical behavior—like the button on a remote control that, when pressed, turns on the air conditioning to create a more pleasant environment.
Would you like to do the same with the people around you to help create a better world?
Thank you for sharing,
Xavier Paya
LET’S NOT HARM ANYONE, except in legitimate self-defense against an aggressor.
Through the Living Without Harming initiative, we strive to prevent any kind of suffering or harm from being done to you, your loved ones, and others.
1 Mission: A happier world
3 Goals:
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