by Dr. Michael Fox
Dear Readers • Humans, like other animals, have so-called mirror neurons in their brains that instantly process the emotional state of another deciphered through their facial expressions, vocalizations and body language. This happens to facilitate communication and appropriate action/reaction.
When signals of distress and suffering are processed, empathetic concern is evoked, as is fear. Sociopaths and psychopaths may respectively feel nothing or some perverse pleasure. Empathetic concern, which can include sympathy, outrage, remorse, anger, guilt and disbelief, can lead to denial or appropriate action to help, save, protect and defend by direct action.
While the print and TV media increasingly limit public exposure to extreme human suffering, there are even greater limits imposed, at least in America, on showing documented cruelties and suffering of animals. Ironically, some newspapers —
including my local edition — have no qualms publishing photographs of a 12-year-old girl with a deer she had shot and a wildlife biology student grinning with a wolf he had shot draped around his shoulders. This establishes a culturally accepted norm, but images of animal suffering and cruelty — of animals in traps, in factory livestock and fur farms, puppy mills and slaughterhouses — are rarely shown by the mass media. We should ask why, and who is protecting whom.
Censorship of animal cruelty and suffering by the mass media parallels the atrocious record of state and federal law enforcement agencies of anti-cruelty laws. Janelle Dixon, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Animal Humane Society, recently reported how her organization spent $225,000 caring for dogs from a puppy mill, while the operator of this commercial dog breeding operation received a charge of a year’s probation, a 90-day suspended jail sentence and a $50 fine.
Clearly, America must wipe its mirror clean when it comes to animal and human suffering caused by how, as a culture, we choose to do our business. And the media must begin to act responsibly rather than entertain, distract and continue to promote consumerism and biased information.
Exposing the Big Game 
Well stated! I’ve been trying to find if anyone has published research on the personality type of trophy and ‘sport’ hunters. I’ve thought that anyone who gets a thrill from killing has a brain that functions differently than mainstream society. It’s only a hunch. I’ve not found peer reviewed research for that specifically, but surely someone has explored this.
Sure, it will be dependent on cultural mores and what things they were raised to accept as normal behavior. I still suspect there may be neurons that synapse differently, or malfunctions in the part of the brain where sympathy and empathy manifest.
I think you’re right. I’ve also thought that shoving more and more violent media in our faces has a numbing effect.
Fuck America. The country sucks. And the NSA probably just picked that up with their listening devices. We need some new kinds of burner phones. The current ones have serious drawbacks.
And why hasnt this guy had a hunting accidents?
normal persons smile , Gives delight to whoever sees, it,
the smile of a hunter looks and is idiotic and sickly
And a normal person does not get a feeling of happiness from it..
That is so true. You read through the media about certain things but your rarely see anything to do with actual footage how these animals are slaughtered! You won’t find it if you do not look! I have found another website that does show brutal, horrific, inhumane killings of animals. Most are of pet Dog’s & Cat’s. Change.org is one website that show’s how S. Korea slaughters dogs & cats on a daily bases for human consumption! There are many more out there if you want to find it. What I found interesting reading this article was the fact that it confirms our beliefs, these trophy/game hunters do in fact have a name? (Sociopaths and psychopaths) and it even goes to the extent of explaining what these two words mean! Quote: may respectively feel nothing or some perverse pleasure. We have seen this in the pictures they are displayed in, holding, or are sitting, smiling next to dead animals. Neither, trophy/game hunters can deny such expression & how they felt at the time of the killing. Some even go to the extent to defend such murderous acts, claiming it is for the good of society, which in fact is not! Somehow this gives them (Sociopaths and Psychopaths, or Game/Trophy Hunters) pleasure in killing, are based on their own agenda. The fact they have an emotional attachment to the pleasures of killing, that is far from norm! Now if only this information was taken seriously by those in Government Departments, or do (Sociopaths and Psychopaths) also exist in them too? A big Thank You to Michael Fox for sharing.
There’s no question in my mind that sociopaths and psychopaths are common in state and federal wildlife “management” (=killing) agencies. In fact, they are the loudest voices promoting hunting and trapping and doing everything possible to recruit and groom young killers, all in the name of the public good.
I suspect that there are clinical terms for hunter/trapper personalities and characteristics. The FBI Behavioral Science Unit has a document about serial killers (http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder/serial-murder-1#four) that I’ve been meaning to explore, and I’m sure clinical definitions/descriptions of psycho and sociopathic characteristics would put hunters & trappers — dare I say it? — right in the crosshairs. After all, they are deviants and serial killers, aren’t they?
Looks to be of good reading Pamela W. I will read some tonight. And yes I truly believe they are serial killers.
Reblogged this on Time for Action.