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Sacrificial Symbolism in Animal Experimentation

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Sacrificial Symbolism in Animal Experimentation SACRIFICIAL SYMBOLISM using an X in written form. “Sacrifice” is also still IN ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION: used in discussions at scientific meetings and in manuals on the handling and dissection of ani- OBJECT OR PET? mals (e.g., Hebel and Stromberg, 1976). The significance of the term “sacrifice” is not chewed over in laboratory talk nor contemplated Arnold B.Arluke at length. When asked why they use the term and what it means, many scientists and technicians are unable to respond. A few say that it is merely a euphemism. However, the absence of a re- Abstract. Based on ethnographic research in bio- sponse should not necessarily be taken at face medical laboratories, this paper argues that sacri- value. There is more meaning to the term than fice is an ambivalent notion in the culture of ani- most laboratory people can articulate in an inter- mal experimentation, requiring both objectifica- view situation. This is not surprising: the para- tion of and identification with the animal. Because mount realities of cultures are rarely easy to put of this ambivalence, laboratory animals are not into words, especially if they involve paradoxes accorded a single, uniform, and unchanging status and contradictions; this paper argues that, in the but seen simultaneously as objects and pets. Ani- culture of animal experimentation, the notion of mals are objectified by incorporation into the pro- sacrifice is such a paramount reality. tocol, by deindividualization, by commodification, Ambivalence, contends Bakan (1968), is inher- by isolation, and by situational definition. At the ent in sacrifice. The sacrificer is involved simulta- same time, laboratory workers develop pet-like neously in an act of righteousness and one of relationships with the animals, which may be wrongdoing. Regardless of the integrity of the treated as enshrined pets, liberated pets, saved sacrificer and the higher purposes of the sacrifice, pets, or martyred pets. death, and perhaps suffering, is inflicted on an- other being. When humans inflict pain or cause death, they characteristically believe that they do INTRODUCTION so out of external necessity. Sacrifice is done for a In the argot of experimental science, the term deity or for a government. According to Bakan, “sacrifice” refers to the killing of animals. Re- “ultra-realism” buttresses the external necessity of cently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) de- killing, focusing on the construction of a banal cided to prohibit the use of this term in grant ap- world of order, obedience, bureaucracy, sched- plications, requiring instead the term “kill.” Nor ules, files, and so forth. The ultrarealist symbol is does “sacrifice” appear in the NIH’s Guide for the the object—that without life, which can be fully Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (1985). Simi- dominated. larly, medical journals have moved away from this There is also a personal necessity in sacrifice, term because of its religious connotations. De- stemming from another inherent ambivalence: the spite these restrictions, most people in laborato- confounding of self and other in the act. On the ries continue to use the term colloquially, some- one hand, sacrifice is transitive, entailing the kill- times shortening it to “sack.” Those who do not ing of something else; on the other hand, it is in- use this term almost always avoid saying “kill,” transitive, entailing the surrender of an important relying instead on terms such as “terminate” or part of one’s self. To engage in sacrifice is to kill another organism, yet that organism’s loss of life also constitutes a loss to the person who is sacri- Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Northeast- ern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA ficing. Bakan claims that part of the body of the 02115. sacrificer becomes the victim in preparation for its sacrifice. Unless that which is sacrificed is, in Certain details in the cases have been altered to protect the identities of the individuals and the institutions. This some sense, one’s self, sacrifice cannot work. In- work was supported in part by a grant from the William sofar as that which is sacrificed is one’s self, the and Charlotte Parks Trust. realization comes quickly that sacrificing the 98 ANTHROZOÖS, Volume II, Number 2 Arnold B.Arluke other is evasive and that, if one is to sacrifice at This paper postulates that “sacrifice” is more all, one should sacrifice one’s self directly. Re- than a euphemism in laboratories. Beyond the flecting this ambivalence, the personal necessity mere blunting of the word “kill,” it has a symbolic of sacrifice sees the victim as similar to the meaning that reflects the scientific and personal sacrificer, allowing human identification. The per- necessities of the participants. External necessity sonal necessity of sacrifice is buttressed through sees sacrifice as necessary to achieve the higher what Bakan calls “ultra-mythicism.” This relies on purpose of advancing the stock of scientific the construction of a world whose inhabitants at- knowledge and medical progress. To accomplish tempt to express basic truths allegorically, through this, the animal must be transformed into an ob- certain stories, beliefs, or actions. These truths are ject so that it can have a generalized utility for the important for people to hear; they connect the scientific community. The personal necessity of individual and the culture in a manner that is psy- sacrifice makes it possible for people to acknowl- chologically satisfying, by portraying people’s ac- edge the living nature of animals and to identify tions in ways that humanize their motives. The with their victims. Some animals, often of the ultramythical symbol is the living—that with a same species, go through a different metamorpho- will, which is not fully controllable. sis whereby they deliberately are spared sacrifice Sacrifice involves the transformation of the so that they can assume personalized significance victim into both object and myth. As a transfor- for the human community: alongside the sacrifi- mational process, it requires that the victim as- cial victims is a member of the same species, in- sume oppositional meaning, both different from dulged, elevated, even deified. and similar to the community. The victim goes The metamorphic symbolism of laboratory ani- through an objectifying metamorphosis culmi- mals also represents an attempt to manage the nating in its death and contribution to the larger psychological problems of sacrifice. Objectifica- community. It assumes a new form, albeit no tion of laboratory animals provides some degree longer corporeal. This metamorphosis entails the of emotional protection from awareness of the stripping away of the victim’s former nature, such preempted natural death of animals. Yet, although that the purest body remains and can be used in scientists and technicians need to distance them- a generalized manner. Any human-like features selves from the victim, they also find themselves are removed; living beings become objects. At moving toward the victim. The process that trans- the same time, the victim must be linked back to forms the animal into object is not fully effective. the community in symbolic form. This requires a It is not only impossible to deny completely the humanizing metamorphosis culminating in the nature of animals, but many people do not want reintegration of the victim into the community. to make this denial. They like their victims. Defin- This entails the moral elevation of the victim, ing laboratory animals as pets is an expression of such that it can become an object of identifica- these feelings and a symbolic repudiation of ob- tion and attachment. jectification. This metamorphic ambivalence is an attempt The research reported in this paper is part of a to manage two psychological problems of sacri- larger ongoing study of the culture of animal ex- fice. Objectification of the victim guards against perimentation. Beginning in 1984, data have been attachment and fosters sufficient distance for the collected through participant observation, supple- sacrificer to carry out the sacrifice itself at mini- mented by semistructured interviews. Twenty bio- mal emotional cost. Yet sacrifice that strips victims medical laboratories and six animal facilities were of their everyday meaning ultimately is unsatisfac- studied in universities, hospitals, and private re- tory as a psychological mechanism because it in- search centers. The sample represents a wide range volves a surrender of feeling. Although the pro- of basic science and applied medical laboratories. cess protects the human self, it also injures it. Animal models observed include frogs, turtles, ham- Accomplishing this transformation is only pos- sters, mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, pigs, sheep, sible in the presence of a counterforce that resists cows, cats, dogs, and monkeys. Over 110 lengthy objectification. interviews have been conducted with principal Sacrificial Symbolism in Animal Experimentation ANTHROZOÖS, Volume II, Number 2 99 investigators, postdoctoral fellows, research techni- process of converting animals into data does rely cians, animal-care technicians, and veterinarians. on a series of techniques that rationalize the laboratory animal. OBJECTIFICATION AS A SOCIAL PROCESS Incorporation Counteranthropomorphism, according to Milgram Transformation of animals into objects begins (1974), is the attribution of inanimate qualities to long before they enter the laboratory. They are living things. Making animate creatures objects al- incorporated, as objects, into the general idea of lows a denial of the interconnectedness between the experiment during the design and funding subject and object. This denial nullifies certain stages. Proposals to fund animal experiments moral constraints and permits some kinds of viola- evoke a conception of animals as objects. For tion (Keller, 1985). The scientific necessities of re- example, on the budget page of NIH grant appli- search require the objectification of animals so that cations, animals are listed under the category of they can be treated in ways that would be impos- “supplies.” In the same applications, the animal’s sible if they were seen as fully animate.
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