As I wrote in my previous post (The struggle for survival is neither cruel nor triumphant) there was more I had wanted to say but would wait, so here’s the next part of that theme. (You’ll need to read the previous post on this issue to be completely in tune with my ideas here.)

My concerns, with respect to highlighting the struggle for survival as something negative, are multi-faceted so I’ll only touch on one of them here; but they focus on how the image of that struggle is portrayed, in particular how carnivorous animals are characterized in the media and education, and how the hunting of other creatures is portrayed as inherently bad for the prey (in the next post).

Let’s look at the image of carnivores in media and education. To put it simply, the vast majority of carnivores are portrayed by the media and (most primary school) teachers as not only being angry, mean-spirited and power-hungry, hence their need to eat helpless other creatures, but as males with deep voices whereas the prey are innocent females or young males with pre-pubescent voices. Now before you get your knickers in a knot, yes there are some animals in the media that have nasty female characterizations, but that’s rare. Either way, they too are imagined to be angry and mis-guided. “If they only knew better then they wouldn’t eat other creatures.” You can do the research yourself by watching any popular animation, but just look at The Lion King or Happy Feet to name two.

The argument is: Females are good and caring, males are cruel and individualistic. Rubbish. Are female lions, tigers and orcas vegetarians? Of course not, so why should those animals be characterized strictly as males in the media and education? My hypothesis contends that this portrayal works for compelling children to emotionalize and anthropomorphize nature, these are strictly human attitudes and don’t belong in nature. Like it or not, nature (and that includes us at times) is simply about eat more than others, avoid being eaten while others are eaten, and procreate more than anyone else. That’s not cruel, it’s causal.

Causal?

You’ll have to read the next post.

John Daicopoulos