{Fox-hunting [continued]}[24th March 1970]

[Redbook1:135-137][19700324:0000b]{Fox-hunting [continued]}[24th March 1970]

Thursday 19^th March 1970.

[continued]

 The real trouble lies in our instinctive identification with victims.  This is one of the things which I believe still gives this nation the right to be called "Great"; but it has its drawbacks.  A picture of a child being torn to pieces is not the same as a picture of a fox being torn to pieces; anyone who believes that it is will find himself on scientifically and therefore ethically very doubtful ground.  It is significant that the animals whose plight arouses such a furore all have large eyes -- like humans.

            Personally, I dislike unnecessary cruelty to animals, not least because I think it may harm the person responsible.  On the other hand, it may well sublimate his more vicious tendencies instead of feeding them -- that depends on the individual.  I do not think you will make people love animals by banning the hunting sports.  The hunting instinct exists in all men, and is near the surface in many; there is little difference in motive between the keener members of a fox hunt and the leaders of a terrorist teenage city gang, but I infinitely prefer the results of the former.  You cannot change mankind’s deeply rooted characteristics overnight, not even by education, though you may conceal them; but above all you will not change them by bare legislation.  Like the oversize parcel, if you wrap it up tight at one end it will bulge out somewhere else -- in violence, in private and public life.  Of course I am not saying that this is the only reason for urban violence; there are plenty of other possible ones: the territorial instinct and the frustrations caused by advertising among others.  But most stem from the basic hunting, owning, thrusting aggressive instinct in Man.

[end]

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