I Didn't Kill Her, I Just Had Her Over For Dinner!
I know I've asked the question about cannibalism before, but I just love to hear about it! Especially pertaining to moral and ethical standards. I recently learned that cannibalism is NOT a crime in the U.S. What is a crime is actually killing the person you're going to eat. Dahmer never got charged for "eating" any parts of his victims. It is, however, looked down upon by society. One serial killer claimed that raw human meat tasted like steak tar tar.
Women & children in Papua, New Ginuea had been dying in great numbers in the mid-twentieth century from a disease called Kuru, literally meaning "tremors." It attacked the nervous system, and the victim would die within months. They believed it had to do with sorcery. Numerous studies of the Fore culture concluded at first that it was a result of cannibalism: The men, who had acquired non-human meat, would take the choice parts for themselves and leave the women and children with the scraps, lacking the necessary nutrition. Eventually, the women prepared the bodies of the recently deceased (no killing involved) to be eaten, partially a funerary ritual, but also for nutritional reasons.
Much later it was revealed that the Kuru agent was a prion, which is smaller than a virus, and consists solely of a PROTEIN. What is human meat a rich source of? And guess what else can result from prions? Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans (best known for getting it from cows with bovine spongeform encephalopathy, or MAD COW DISEASE), scrapie (in sheep), and wasting disease (in deer).
There. I taught everyone something. That didn't hurt too much, did it? Okay, my head hurts a little.
Now that we know it's perfectly legal to roast up postmortem grandma (whose death we were NOT responsible for!) and that in some cultures it was a sign of respect (much like visiting tomb stones or keeping ashes of uncle Bob on your mantle), not to mention its symbolic prevalence in many religions like the Eucharist (though Jesus did that in opposition to human sacrifice), but that we may not be completely aware of the medical implications (does grandma contain harmful prions?), I'll ask again, and I really want you to think about it (come on, Kevin, I know you've perused my blog or at least have thought about it!):
How do you feel about the ethics of cannibalism, accompanying murder and otherwise?
Women & children in Papua, New Ginuea had been dying in great numbers in the mid-twentieth century from a disease called Kuru, literally meaning "tremors." It attacked the nervous system, and the victim would die within months. They believed it had to do with sorcery. Numerous studies of the Fore culture concluded at first that it was a result of cannibalism: The men, who had acquired non-human meat, would take the choice parts for themselves and leave the women and children with the scraps, lacking the necessary nutrition. Eventually, the women prepared the bodies of the recently deceased (no killing involved) to be eaten, partially a funerary ritual, but also for nutritional reasons.
Much later it was revealed that the Kuru agent was a prion, which is smaller than a virus, and consists solely of a PROTEIN. What is human meat a rich source of? And guess what else can result from prions? Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans (best known for getting it from cows with bovine spongeform encephalopathy, or MAD COW DISEASE), scrapie (in sheep), and wasting disease (in deer).
There. I taught everyone something. That didn't hurt too much, did it? Okay, my head hurts a little.
Now that we know it's perfectly legal to roast up postmortem grandma (whose death we were NOT responsible for!) and that in some cultures it was a sign of respect (much like visiting tomb stones or keeping ashes of uncle Bob on your mantle), not to mention its symbolic prevalence in many religions like the Eucharist (though Jesus did that in opposition to human sacrifice), but that we may not be completely aware of the medical implications (does grandma contain harmful prions?), I'll ask again, and I really want you to think about it (come on, Kevin, I know you've perused my blog or at least have thought about it!):
How do you feel about the ethics of cannibalism, accompanying murder and otherwise?
posted by BoneDaddy at 12:20 AM
6 Comments:
I don't believe in engaging in canniablism(yah I'm too lazy to look up how to spell it right) as just a social event. People aren't suppose to eat other people because there have been even cases of people going crazy and getting all sorts of different problems, medically speaking, from engaging in a lot of that. I don't believe in nature we were meant to eat our own kind. If we could process it right all the time it would actually be one of the best things for us to eat because it holds all the necessary nutrition but if we're not designed for it, we're not designed and shouldn't engage in it. There is also the issue of direspecting the dead and their family by eating the dead (I'm not counting the people who do it as a sign of respect and it's their culture, but you can't just go around and eat dead people as you please.) I would personally never engage in such an act unless I had to for survival and I could never kill someone to do it. I dont' have a problem with people eating other people as a way to survive in an extreme situation. Like the soccer players in that plane crash for example. I watched a really interesting documentary about all the cases of it in the US on the history channel the other day. People use to get hung for eating other people as a way to survive (they didnt' kill them I might add, just ate them when they died) and I think that's wrong.
I would do it for survival also. I don't disagree with it in ritual type ceremonies of OTHER cultures. I hope I NEVER know what human meat tastes like! YUCKY! But if say in a culture it is a sign of respect to eat your uncle Joe and uncle Joe was part of that culture and knew he was going to be eaten.... thats okay. I personally wouldn't care if I was eaten for anothers survival. So to all my buddies, if we are ever stranded on top of a mountain, and I died first (which I would cause I'm a total wuss) I give you permission to eat me.
on that note, my summary: Personally I think it is gross, but don't disagree if it is in a culture's ritual, or for survival.
I disagree with sick, demented fucktards that do it to get off.
The medical problems don't come from consumption so much as contact during preparation. You can get sick from cow meat, too. Human meat is a good source of protein, but it's not like a magic meat that holds all nutrition.
Cannibalism is alot more prevalent in nature than most people realize. There's a mind-boggling amount of different species who eat their young. Call it a survival instinct, a way of reducing the number of deformed births, disposing of still-born young, whatever. The only thing that makes people different from other animals is the fact that we attach cognitive thought to most forms of cannibalism (like ritual and aggression cannibalism), and that when our species sometimes pre-emptively removes the offspring from its mother (abortion) and toss it like madical waste.
As far as the hanging goes, unfortunately I didn't get to see the show on the History channel, but I would ask in what context were these hangings performed? They used to hang blacks for stealing horses (but not whites), and that was mainly mob-mentality. Was there a specific federal law mandating against cannibalism? So many people feel the same way that you do that I seriously don't think they'd think twice if some "cannibal" was brought up on charges for eating someone they didn't kill.
And I'm not saying it's legal to eat someone when you have no say over the fate of their remains. Close family and spouses usually get the say in that, or whatever a will dictates.
I'll ask the same question over and over, but please bear in mind that while I have my own strictly enforced set of moral standards, no one can get away with justifying a point to me by saying "it's just wrong" or "you just can't do that." We're a world full of diverse cultures, many of whom think they (and we) are the dominant, the most advanced, the richest culture of humans. What standards are we basing this on? We tried to set up a universal set of rules just after the second world war, and if you go read it, you'll be quite surprised how biased it still is. I'll look for the website and post it.
As a social event, cannibalism is severely ostracized, even in terms of survival. Most people didn't feel sorry for the Donner party, or the soccer team. They disaproved of their actions. Bottom line: I'm just saying that cannibalism is cannibalism. It's the context and its relation to our culture that makes us perceive it as good or bad. I see it more like sex. Between consenting partners, that's their perogative. Forcing it on someone I don't believe in, and I believe that for every cannibal that feels the desire to kill what he/she eats, there are plenty more sexual deviants out there molesting little children and raping university students, little old ladies, fellow inmates, etc.
Oh I'm going to be so pissed if my last comment didn't post. It was really long and even had a website to go to.
i just can't think about it, I'm sorry. It just makes me feel sick to my stomach. I would really do anything to survive and as long the people waited until I died of natural causes I wouldn't mind them eating me to stay alive but ewwwwwwwww.
Nope I could not eat another person unless I had to for survival. No way. It's just like how eating a pet would be. I could never eat a dog, cat, or rabbit because I've had them for pets. Lots of people eat rabbits, but since I will always think of Nugget and Marshmallow Princess I won't ever be able to try rabbit even though I used to want to.
I don't think that eating other people is wrong or just not right. If other people are into it then fine go ahead. If you didn't kill them then you are free to eat them if the dead person is okay with that I guess. I could never do it just for the hell of doing it. Although maybe I could if it was served to me in a nice restaurant or something. :)
I don't believe in nature that we WEREN'T meant to eat our own kind. Who decided that we shouldn't eat our own children if we wanted to, or our dead parents? I've never heard of this law of nature. Rabbits do it. Mice do it. Lions do it. I can't think right now what other species do it, but so many species eat their own kind. Why aren't humans supposed to? Only because it's wrong. That's why. I'm not saying people should go out and find a dead body and eat them, but I am saying that if someone I knew ate a dead person that they hadn't killed, or maybe even if they had, I would ask them how it tasted. Hoenstly I would.
There are people out there (vegetarians) who say that we aren't supposed to eat any meat. There are even psychotic people who don't want us to eat anything cooked beyond a certain temperature, but I can't remember what they call themselves. I think vegetarians are insane. Of course we are supposed to eat meat you dumbass. Look at your fucking teeth. They are made for chewing meat. Look at the fact that we need protein. Do you think cavemen had peanuts to give them protein? No, they had dead animals.
I think that ethically cannibalism is fine. Well as long as you didn't kill the person to eat them. If you walk upon some dead body with a note saying "Eat me" then go ahead and eat them. Otherwise its nasty to think of. As long as I wouldn't have to eat anything near the anus then I would be fine.
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