I’ve been resisting this post for a while. However, after about the tenth observation that many of my posted images of animal slaughter resembled images from Abu Ghraib, I decided that the post–dreadful as it would be to do– had to be done. Please note: I’m not suggesting that killing/abusing a human and killing/abusing an animal are morally equivalent actions. That is NOT the message these graphic juxtapositions are intended to convey, or the issue I’m hoping to raise here.

What these parallels between animal slaughterers and the Abu Ghraib torturers do point to is the insidious nature of dominance–be it human over human or human over animal. There’s something about unchecked human control that tilts all too easily toward abuse, brutality and, worse, the gut-wrenching celebration of these qualities. As readers know, I do not place these horrific images on my site casually. In no way am I intending to be sensational.

But the fact is that these images are real. They tell us important, if disturbing, things about the darker side of human nature, a side manifested all too easily in control over the most vulnerable– humans as well as non-humans.  On a final note, it’s worth mentioning that, as I arranged this macabre collage, I found myself as disturbed and saddened by the animal images as I did the Abu Ghraib ones. I think it’s the celebration of violence–or at least indifference to it– that really sank my spirit. It was the happiness of it all that clarified for me how easily we dehumanize ourselves under the influence of objectification.