Shooting P(h)easants

Posted on February 24, 2004 in Class Morals & Ethics

Many years ago, I heard the story of a Russian nobleman who paid a visit to an English cousin of the same class. Every morning before breakfast the dour Slav went for a long walk in the fields. The Englishman saw no harm in providing his relation with a gun, the theory being that the Russian could shoot any game he saw and bring it home to have it prepared for the day’s first repast.

One morning shortly after this, the Englishman sat down to breakfast and asked “So how was your walk today? Did you shoot anything?”

“I shot two peasants,” said the Russian.

The English baron laughed. “Pheasants, Cousin Yuri. You mean pheasants.

“No,” said Yuri. “Peasants. They were insolent so I shot them!”

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Tonight in the philosophy reading group that I attend, I advanced the idea (based on a reading of Iris Murdoch) that good was based on being aware of your place in the Universe and evil was a denial of that place. I raised — without mentioning his name — the example of a certain politician who spent a day not long ago bagging somewhere between 50 and 100 pheasants as a game park worker released them one at a time like skeet off a trap. One of his fellow hunters described it rated the hunt as exciting as bagging chickens in a Tyson packing plant; another likened it to “killing water buffalo with rocket-propelled grenades”.

The conversation predictably drifted off course with the moderator arguing against what he perceived as my Animal Rights stance*. I meant nothing of the sort and I set him straight. I have no problem if a man shoots a pheasant for his dinner or even a few to share with friends. What happened on that December day didn’t bother me because of the simple fact of individual animal slaughter: it bothered me because of what it indicated that Cheney — oh damn, I let his name slip! Bite my fingers off! — thought of his place in the cosmic scheme of things.

This wasn’t a down home country hunting expedition where you might come back with a few quail or you might come back with nothing. This was a bought massacre whose main purpose was to obtain bragging rights. The Vice President was making a statement about what rights he perceived he had versus what rights he believed other people had. He based those rights not on any concept of equality but on a perversity sprouting from his pathological desire to accumulate large amounts of money. The hungry hunter be damned: Cheney wanted to kill, kill, kill.

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The two events I have mentioned are based on perverse power relationships. The Russian nobleman shot peasants and Cheney shot pheasants; though none of Cheney’s shot pierced a human being, his display of marksmanship was aimed at you and me. He’s Vice President and he’s rich so he can do what he wants, he snickers. By this act, he’s denied the truth about his existence: he is a human being just like the rest of us and as insignificant to the sliding of the continents, the passing of the clouds, and the rhythms of the tides as the rest of us. If you define “good” as being humble and aware of your limitations within the greater Universe, then what Cheney did counts as evil.

It’s not merely the act, but the intention and sense of self behind the act that matter.

Try that attempt to define Good and Evil on for size.

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* I am a confirmed omnivore. Tonight I had ground turkey.