Quote:
Originally Posted by Livia
Humans have a capacity for cruelty not seen in the animal kingdom. There are only a handful of species that will kill you and not eat you. Humans torture and kill animals every day, in every country of the world... not for food, for fun.
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For "sport" which is an unfortunate by-product of intelligence and boredom. Sports (including blood sports) originated as practice, for hunting and for warfare, just like for other animals e.g. all species of cats engage in blood sports (killing for thrills and not eating the prey) but it's not actually for fun. They keep hunting and killing even when they don't actually want or need to eat, so that they'll maintain the skills needed to hunt and kill effectively when they DO need them. I don't think my cat has EVER eaten a mouse, but her campaign against the local mice is sustained and brutal
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I'm not saying that I agree with hunting for sport - I don't, and I think humans at this point are advanced enough that we
should know better (and most people do) but I think the urge to do it, on an instinctual level, is understandable and not necessarily borne of cruelty. Obviously there are some people who are just genuinely and deliberately cruel, but again, I would suggest that the reason most animals aren't "cruel" in the same way is that cruelty involves a more advanced set of emotions and motivations that most animal species just don't have... and if they evolved to the same level of intelligence as humans, it's inevitable that some of them WOULD be cruel, too.