A Formula for Violence (and Its Antidote)

The intensive confinement of both human beings and animals is a recipe for aggression.

Today is Wayne’s sentencing hearing where the judge from the Sonoma Rescue Trial will determine how much of his nearly two year maximum jail sentence he will serve.

We expect a decision by noon. For the latest updates, follow the trial Twitter here. (From Wayne’s team)

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“I’m going to kill you.”

On November 10, I received my first death threat in jail. Before I could stop myself, my face broke into a slight grin. I am three inches taller and much stronger than this man. He has seen me doing 500 push-ups a day. He knows I am more than his match. But the last thing I want is a fight in my first month in jail. I erase the smile and ask what I’ve done to offend.

“You think I’m joking? When you’re sleeping or taking a shit, I’m going to stab you in the eye with this.” He pulls out a sharpened wooden pencil and snaps it at me. The snarl on his face tells me that he’s serious.

But the aggression in this jail cell is not a product of poor character or bad upbringing. It’s an entirely predictable result of the intensive confinement of sentient beings, a de facto formula for violence: V = mc² 

• (Violence) = (Mass of animals) x (Degree of Confinement)²

This is true even at the “generous” standards of Prop 12, California’s renowned animal welfare law that was passed to take certain animals out of cages. When 600+ pound pigs are given just 25 square feet of space (then Prop 12 standard), they will tear at each other’s ears, tails, and reproductive parts — causing the industry to mutilate the animals as babies to avoid mayhem when they’re adults. With just 144 square inches (or one square foot, also the Prop 12 standard), chickens will begin pecking at one another and even eating each other alive, driven to madness by the mass horde of flesh. (It’s equivalent to raising a chihuahua on a legal-size piece of paper for life — but with tens of thousands of other chihuahuas crammed in the same room.)

And humans are not exempt form this formula. Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical account of the Holocaust describes a young man viciously mauling an elder in a crowded cattle car, as they fight for scraps of bread thrown into the train. Only when he looks up, greedily clutching crumbs in his hands, does he realize the one he has mauled is his own father.

We say we want peace. Yet, too often, our society operates by the formula for violence — inflicting cruelty, confinement, and sheer terror on the beings we deem “less than us.”

What can be done? Quite simply: fight violence with kindness. Instead of tormenting those who are different — and feeding into cycles of aggression — we can care for them instead.

I discovered that the offending slight on November 10 was that I had dropped a book in front of my fellow inmate. He said he was furious about the disruption caused by the noise. But I understood a deeper grievance. While we were both trapped in the cage, I had mounds of mail and books being sent to me. In contrast, he heard not a word from anyone who showed care.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Is there anything I can do to make amends? Can I get you a book?”

His scowl lightened.

“There is one author I like.” A faint, hopeful look appeared on his face, as he wrote the author’s name down. He offered to help me find vegan soup.

The formula for violence was erased. In its place was a formula for care.