569
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_60
Chapter 60
Human Cruelty and SARS-CoV-2
60.1 Human Diet in History
Throughout much of our lives, we have tried to rescue animals still breathing from
their fetid cages and from the indifferent, usually impoverished human captors, in
open animal markets from the West African capital of Mali, Bamako, to roadsides
in Kenya, animal hells in Central India, northern Russia, western Saudi Arabia,
across Yemen and Indonesia, to remote villages in China. The syndrome of animal
cruelty and animal consumption has systematically gotten our species to its current
zoonotic crisis, Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) (Figs. 60.1, 60.2, 60.3).
A brief prelude to the 2020 pandemic: Romans, particularly those who sought to
show off their wealth or power, exercised maniacal cruelty to animals. This was carried out every day, for centuries, whether as animals were slaughtered for human
food, chained in captivity, relentlessly pursued by veritable phalanxes of mercenary
sport hunters, being killed and buried with humans as a petition to the gods (e.g.,
mass animal sacrifice, a practice borrowed from 2000 years of Egyptian tradition),
and the constant show of force, so-called, by one insecure Emperor after another
glorifying in the public massacre of thousands of animals, typically imported from
North Africa (e.g., lions, elephants, giraffe).
1
Roman diets included everything from
dormice to ostrich.
2
This Western grotesque relationship with Others is the most seminal throughstory in our history. It touches every aspect of our past, and our present. Great inflection points can be highlighted—like the dietary, human demographic and economic
shifts accompanying the Crusades, the Black Plague, or the Hundred Years’ War.
1 See Dr. Iain Ferris’ Cave Canem: Animals and Roman Society, Amberley Publishing, Gloucestershire,
UK 2018.
2 See “Dormice, ostrich meat and fresh fish: the surprising foods eaten in ancient Rome,” by Erica
Rowan, HistoryExtra, BBC History Magazine, March 19, 2015, https://www.historyextra.com/
period/roman/dormice-ostrich-meat-and-fresh-fish-the-surprising-foods-eaten-in-ancientrome/.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_60
Chapter 60
Human Cruelty and SARS-CoV-2
60.1 Human Diet in History
Throughout much of our lives, we have tried to rescue animals still breathing from
their fetid cages and from the indifferent, usually impoverished human captors, in
open animal markets from the West African capital of Mali, Bamako, to roadsides
in Kenya, animal hells in Central India, northern Russia, western Saudi Arabia,
across Yemen and Indonesia, to remote villages in China. The syndrome of animal
cruelty and animal consumption has systematically gotten our species to its current
zoonotic crisis, Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) (Figs. 60.1, 60.2, 60.3).
A brief prelude to the 2020 pandemic: Romans, particularly those who sought to
show off their wealth or power, exercised maniacal cruelty to animals. This was carried out every day, for centuries, whether as animals were slaughtered for human
food, chained in captivity, relentlessly pursued by veritable phalanxes of mercenary
sport hunters, being killed and buried with humans as a petition to the gods (e.g.,
mass animal sacrifice, a practice borrowed from 2000 years of Egyptian tradition),
and the constant show of force, so-called, by one insecure Emperor after another
glorifying in the public massacre of thousands of animals, typically imported from
North Africa (e.g., lions, elephants, giraffe).
1
Roman diets included everything from
dormice to ostrich.
2
This Western grotesque relationship with Others is the most seminal throughstory in our history. It touches every aspect of our past, and our present. Great inflection points can be highlighted—like the dietary, human demographic and economic
shifts accompanying the Crusades, the Black Plague, or the Hundred Years’ War.
1 See Dr. Iain Ferris’ Cave Canem: Animals and Roman Society, Amberley Publishing, Gloucestershire,
UK 2018.
2 See “Dormice, ostrich meat and fresh fish: the surprising foods eaten in ancient Rome,” by Erica
Rowan, HistoryExtra, BBC History Magazine, March 19, 2015, https://www.historyextra.com/
period/roman/dormice-ostrich-meat-and-fresh-fish-the-surprising-foods-eaten-in-ancientrome/.