My chosen research question — “To what degree, if any, does cultural conditioning and childhood indoctrination influence attitudes towards non-human beings and killing?” — is a tricky one to answer because of the very strong hegemonic ties that almost every person, scholars included (especially social science scholars), has to culture and the almost sacrosanct respect for culture that permeates the halls of academia. It is my thesis that no action, practice, custom or belief should be afforded respect simply on the basis of culture or tradition but should instead, be evaluated on its own merits. My opinion, however, doesn’t matter, what matters is my investigation into the question. Short of conducting a study of unsocialised human children myself which would take many years and is clearly beyond the scope of a post graduate research program, I have to rely on the accounts of others, both first and second hand. I consider the shedding of respect for culture to be a foundational prerequisite to the process of freethought, and acknowledge that such a concept is very new to most people, including many of those authors whose works I shall reference.

By way of example, allow me to recall a conversation from a previous MAIS course which centered on female genital mutilation of young girls. I was astonished and dismayed to find several people, women especially, defending this barbaric practice on the basis of cultural relativism. Their respect for culture trumped their respect for the bodily autonomy of a minor. Their position was that it’s none of our business what those in another culture do to their children. I wonder if they’d call the police if they discovered their neighbour torturing and dismembering their children.

When even scholarly individuals can become so enthralled to this framework of acceptance we call culture it is easy to understand how much evil and harm is perpetrated worldwide in its name. However we have to work with what we have and although it may be difficult to perform any kind of absolute, grounded, research on this subject (due to the difficulty in finding examples of people who have never been influenced by culture) it may still be enlightening to do a comparative study of various cultural traditions that cause objective violence, harm or suffering in the wider context of the various disparate cultures.

So, how can a critical evaluation of culture as an enabler of animal cruelty be pursued? It has, also to be acknowledged, that cruelty and killing to animals can not be equated along with other cultural traditions and practices that impose a cost on the participant (such as religious tithing, fasting, or other expensive or onerous cultural observances). This is because cruelty to animals carries apparent benefits without any negative consequence to the perpetrator and is furthermore, usually carried out behind closed doors. This provides a psychological barrier against the contemplation of such cruelty and these two factors combined can help to promulgate cruelty even in societies which appear to be relatively unencumbered by cultural obligations. Thus, we cannot assume that meat consumption would necessarily be higher in societies where culture plays a more obviously dominant role (such as countries with Sharia Law). North America and Europe lead the world in meat and dairy consumption and so it clearly isn't just a product of a violent society, there are economic, religious and other social factors at play. Perhaps capitalism and the marketing of animal "products" and processed foods plays a significant role, perhaps it is the addiction to high salt, sugar and fat junk foods that is able to force denial in consumers as the primary cognitive dissonance resolution technique.

As I said, it’s a tricky question to investigate. If any insight can be shed into it I’ll be happy.