I grew up in a farming/ranching area of rural southwestern Oklahoma and "fairs" and "fat stock shows" were a pretty important facet of the annual progression of the seasons. There are organizations devoted to inculcating children into the culture of the farm/ranch, the most prominent of those being 4-H and FFA. One of the more important cultural transmissions of values that occurs in these organizations is that animals are property and just about anything can be done to them in the name of efficiency and profit.
The FFA (Future Farmers of America) has an especially prominent role in the schools and lives of students in the rural and small town areas as they age into high school. Back then this was an exclusively male organization. Classes were taken in school and various "educational" forays onto working farms and ranches were part of the curriculum. These "field trips" usually consisted of providing unpaid labor to the farmers/ranchers.
I remember traveling in the back of a pick-up to some farm and wrestling with baby cows and baby pigs....wrestling with them because we were being taught how to castrate them. No anesthesia, just hold them down while they were screaming and bellowing and terrified and....with a hopefully sharp knife blade cut into the scrotal sack, pull out the testicles and cut the tissue attached to the testicle and dab on an antiseptic (or not) and release the terrified, injured, bleeding baby. Joking and laughter about the severed testicles was all part of the experience, "mountain oysters", etc.
The social pressure was considerable on the boys to participate in FFA. Once you reached 9th grade you were subtly and not so subtly encouraged to sign up each year for the FFA elective. One of the only areas of minor pride I have about my high school times was that my best friend and I refused to join FFA our senior year. This was heresy and unheard of in the history of the little school and some serious arm-twisting from the school faculty involved was brought to bear. We resisted (how I don't really know) and completed that last year being the only boys ever (as far as I know) to not be in the FFA our senior year.
I went out to the local county "fair" this past month to see how the animals were being treated there. I knew it would be painful and depressing and disgusting and.......it was.
To the left is a photo of one of the mutilated sheep on exhibition. Notice the rear of the sheep, no tail. Apparently this is a new "fashion", instead of cutting off part of the tail (euphemistically termed "docking") now the whole tail is hacked off.
There are various justifications advanced for either practice that you can find here and here.
Suffice it to say that if sheep had not been interfered with by humans and not bred to grow too much hair (called wool)...no problem with a sheep's tail would exist.
But, as always, human interference creates a problem and resolution of the problem involves doing something painful and grotesque and disgusting to the animal involved.
If the sheep's tail (because of the excessively lengthy hair) collects feces which causes flies to lay eggs there which results in maggots growing......well....cut off the tail. No matter that the mutilation injures the sheep and creates a much greater likelihood of rectal prolapse.
This is what we teach the children in 4-H and FFA. This is what we teach the children that attend the "fair". Mutilate the animal, they are yours to do with what you wish. We don't tell the children that the problem with too much hair was caused by humans in the first place. We tell the children that mutilating the sheep is "for its own good" because the mutilation will reduce the chance of maggots growing on the sheep. What is even more ludicrous is that most humans do not understand that humans caused the problem to begin with.
To the right is the face of one of the victims. I felt and still feel shame and sorrow as I look at her eyes. What wondrous beings we humans are.....we maim and enslave and show off our victims as if they were testament to our worthiness and skill. And we award prizes and honors to the mutilators and animal abusers that have the most "attractive" victims.
There was also a "petting zoo" at the event. Here we teach our children that other animals, usually baby animals are "cute" and there for our pleasure and profit. Often the animals shown are not well cared for and exist only to make a profit for the owner. We don't tell the children this, no, the adults point and oh and ah and smile and tell lies (lies the adults often believe too) to the children. Meanwhile the animals suffer and despair and look back at us with empty eyes, having gone away somewhere inside....as we all do when we are forced into situations we hate but must endure.
And we inadvertently say volumes about ourselves, our vapidness, our cruelty, our utter and total debacle of failing to participate as wanted and responsible and caring citizens of the community of life.
Thus we teach our young ones to not care, to be blind to obvious cruelty, to slavery, to exploitation. We teach them and we twist them and we make liars and insensitive torturers and louts out of them. We educate our children.
At the county fair.
