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| What makes us feel for Cecil the lion but not for fellow humans? | What makes us feel for Cecil the lion but not for fellow humans? |
| (about 9 hours later) | |
| News of the death of Cecil the lion at the hands of an American dentist has been greeted with massive outrage by ordinary people across the globe. This is unsurprising. Cecil was a magnificent creature, languorously powerful, amber-eyed, as much a part of his environment as Walter Palmer from Minnesota, with his baseball cap, his flash white teeth and his loaded crossbow, was a ludicrous eyesore upon it. | News of the death of Cecil the lion at the hands of an American dentist has been greeted with massive outrage by ordinary people across the globe. This is unsurprising. Cecil was a magnificent creature, languorously powerful, amber-eyed, as much a part of his environment as Walter Palmer from Minnesota, with his baseball cap, his flash white teeth and his loaded crossbow, was a ludicrous eyesore upon it. |
| Moreover, Cecil was tricked, lured from the safety of the national park, to be shot with an arrow (the killing was botched), and wander for 40 hours in pain before being finished off with a gun. His beautiful, expressive head was hacked off as a trophy. | Moreover, Cecil was tricked, lured from the safety of the national park, to be shot with an arrow (the killing was botched), and wander for 40 hours in pain before being finished off with a gun. His beautiful, expressive head was hacked off as a trophy. |
| Only last week, the prime minister referred to a “swarm” of migrants in Calais | Only last week, the prime minister referred to a “swarm” of migrants in Calais |
| The outrage at the brutality of it, the pointlessness, is understandable. But the scale of the response to the lion’s death, and the level of upset and anger, are also powerful reminders of the nature of empathy, and of its limitations. | The outrage at the brutality of it, the pointlessness, is understandable. But the scale of the response to the lion’s death, and the level of upset and anger, are also powerful reminders of the nature of empathy, and of its limitations. |
| Of course none of us can really, truly empathise with Cecil. We cannot possibly know what it’s like to be an African lion. But we feel that we can; we imagine his pain and bewilderment, we feel ourselves into his position (the word empathy comes from the German, Einfühlung, literally “feeling into”). Anthropomorphic it may be, but our feelings – our grief and anger on behalf of a lion that a week ago few of us had even heard of – are real. | Of course none of us can really, truly empathise with Cecil. We cannot possibly know what it’s like to be an African lion. But we feel that we can; we imagine his pain and bewilderment, we feel ourselves into his position (the word empathy comes from the German, Einfühlung, literally “feeling into”). Anthropomorphic it may be, but our feelings – our grief and anger on behalf of a lion that a week ago few of us had even heard of – are real. |
| Related: Calais crisis: Cameron condemned for 'dehumanising' description of migrants | Related: Calais crisis: Cameron condemned for 'dehumanising' description of migrants |
| Such feelings are important. They are part of what makes us human. They are even better if they result in donations to the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at Oxford University, for example, which was tracking Cecil when he was killed. But what is striking is the lack of similar outrage at the plight of the people (as opposed to the lions) of Zimbabwe, who through a combination of HIV/Aids, disease and malnutrition have among the shortest life expectancy anywhere on earth. And there’s been nothing like the same level of upset at the fate of the asylum seekers, drowning in the Mediterranean as a direct consequence of EU policy, or the devastating impact of the welfare cuts on the poorest and most vulnerable members of our own society. | |
| The reasons for this are at once complex and shatteringly simple. Cecil had a name. He was an individual (the other animal they killed, the nameless lure, gets barely a mention). With his distinctive black mane, Cecil had become one of the most famous lions in Africa. He had a story: he’d been kicked out of his pride and founded one of his own (legend has it). Stories are an important means of building empathy. He was an animal and therefore blameless, but he was blameless even for an animal, “He never bothered anyone,” the head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF) told us. | The reasons for this are at once complex and shatteringly simple. Cecil had a name. He was an individual (the other animal they killed, the nameless lure, gets barely a mention). With his distinctive black mane, Cecil had become one of the most famous lions in Africa. He had a story: he’d been kicked out of his pride and founded one of his own (legend has it). Stories are an important means of building empathy. He was an animal and therefore blameless, but he was blameless even for an animal, “He never bothered anyone,” the head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF) told us. |
| Related: A dentist not so red in tooth and claw | Letters | |
| If we anthropomorphise Cecil in order to empathise with his fate, a reverse process of dehumanisation serves to distance us from the plight of people we’d rather not think about. Only last week, the prime minister referred to a “swarm” of migrants in Calais. Tabloid columnist Katie Hopkins’s use of the word “cockroaches” to describe asylum seekers was widely condemned, but many subtler attempts to present people not as individuals but as faceless groups, as species, pass almost unnoticed. Think of skivers and scroungers, immigrants, hardworking families (and by implication, the other sort), the disabled, the mentally ill. Empathy works between individuals, one individual feeling their way into another’s experience. You cannot empathise with a group, a fact that has been exploited throughout history with appalling consequences. Of course, we need to refer to people collectively for all sorts of reasons. But groups are comprised of individuals with names and faces and stories to tell. Just like Cecil. We would do well to remember. | If we anthropomorphise Cecil in order to empathise with his fate, a reverse process of dehumanisation serves to distance us from the plight of people we’d rather not think about. Only last week, the prime minister referred to a “swarm” of migrants in Calais. Tabloid columnist Katie Hopkins’s use of the word “cockroaches” to describe asylum seekers was widely condemned, but many subtler attempts to present people not as individuals but as faceless groups, as species, pass almost unnoticed. Think of skivers and scroungers, immigrants, hardworking families (and by implication, the other sort), the disabled, the mentally ill. Empathy works between individuals, one individual feeling their way into another’s experience. You cannot empathise with a group, a fact that has been exploited throughout history with appalling consequences. Of course, we need to refer to people collectively for all sorts of reasons. But groups are comprised of individuals with names and faces and stories to tell. Just like Cecil. We would do well to remember. |
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