To the editor:

January brought the shocking news that a group of fisherman off the coast of Taiji had drowned a minke whale. The whale had been trapped in their fishing nets 19 days prior, on Christmas Eve. The fishermen tied a rope around its tail fin and forced its head beneath the water, where it took around 20 minutes to die. An animal rights activist filmed the whale throughout its ordeal until its final moments. The news sparked some criticism across the world (even though, this year, Japanese whalers will be permitted to kill 383 whales, including 171 minkes, who will all meet their ends in a brutal fashion, albeit with lesser individual attention).

The irony is that the several hundred pounds of fish caught in the same fishing net met the same fate. The mammal suffocated under the water; the fish suffocated above. Why then does our grief register only for the whale? After all, was it not until 1971 that the U.S. continued whaling? Is it because we now recognize them as socially intelligent mammals? Is it the lengths they will go to raise their young? Is it because we identify with the epic lives they live or relate to the songs of the humpback whales?

Whatever the reason, it did not sway those fishermen, who viewed the minke no differently than the fish — a gift of the sea (though they made half-hearted attempts to cover up the minke with a blue tarpaulin as it struggled). Objectively speaking, what difference is there when you are standing on that deck? None. However, realization of GOOD human values requires that we possess appropriate subjectivity, and that we exercise the discipline of assent, before we assign value to the myriad of things and beings this world presents us with.

In his novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” Milan Kundera writes, “Human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.”

The act of recklessness and cruelty in Taiji, toward this individual whale, others before and many to come, should serve as a stark reminder that we, as a species, are a long way from passing the moral test Kundera talks about. We haven’t even put our whaling days fully behind us. 

My hope is that some day humanity will view ALL beings not as underlings but as brethren whom we find ourselves with, in the same web of life, gifted with its grandeurs and similarly tormented by its great and ordinary tribulations.

(Reference: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55714815)

Regards,

Nandan Pai

Lake Placid