At 05:47 PM 1/12/99 -0500, Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
>
>> If the study you refer to pertains to modern
>> times, I'd note that most raised as hunters
>> live in rural areas with lower crime rates,
>> so your implication that killing some animals
>> engenders compassion for others could be false.
>
>So you admit that raising a human child (typically male) in a vegetarian
>and/or urban environment without hunting deprives the child from expressing
>his evolved instincts to hunt, and may wind up subliming this repression into
>cruelty to humans and other animals?
IAN: No, I don't admit that at all! What I said was there's lower crime in rural areas per se. I doubt that the reason is because rural people kill more animals. I'd suspect that it has to do with rural people being self-sufficient by nature with solid family support and folks aren't so crowded together. The close proximity of people in the cities maximizes opportunities for thugs to attack and makes a life of crime more economical.
Also, most primates aren't carnivores, and as I recall, if they eat any flesh it's less than 10% of their diet (the great apes are strict vegetarians), and so the idea of a human "hunting instinct" seems debatable.
"He who pursues learning will increase every day; he who pursues Tao will decrease every day."
Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)