Pet Evil Complacency as Conspiracy:

Pet Evil

Complacency as Conspiracy: The Need for Responsive Observation in Curing Society's Ills

In her essay on the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Coretta Scott King lays out the principle that the "people who allow pet owners to mistreat their pets" are truly cooperating in evil nearly to the degree that the pet owners are. On the surface, this connection might seem somewhat hastily made; some would claim that they do not have the right to interfere in someone else's business, or that it simply isn't their responsibility to get involved in such a situation. Yet even a cursory examination of the issue reveals that the observation of an evil act without any protest or attempt to stop it, or even a public acknowledgement of its evilness, is in fact a tacit approval of and cooperation with this evil.

The first way in which this acts as a cooperation with evil is the most basic, and the most obvious. One major excuse for not becoming involved is simply that it's easier not to -- there's less direct trouble for the individual that doesn't protest or intervene than for the one that does. But as the saying goes, it takes two tango; more trouble for the protestor means more trouble for the evil-doer. On the most basic level, not saying anything makes it easier for evil to continue to be carried out. Causing trouble is exactly what is warranted and necessary when one witnesses evil being done, because trouble is what stops it.

Another common claims is that it simply isn't one's responsibility to correct the evil done by someone else. Even if one wants to deny any sense of social responsibility, however, this claim can easily be proven false. While there might not be a moral duty to take care of others, there is at least a biological imperative to take care of oneself -- survival is the only ting that makes sense for a biological organism. By permitting the evil act to take place, and making it easier for evil to continue to be conducted in the future, an individual is making it easier for evil to be practiced against themselves. This makes cooperation wit evil and evil of its own no matter what one's sense of responsibility says, as it violates the basic and fundamental responsibility to protect oneself.

Even when a witness to the mistreatment of a pet feels its wrong, they might not think it is their place to interfere. This is different from shirking responsibility; this implies a right on the part of the evil-doer to commit evil. The very concept of a right to do evil negates the concept of rights in the first pace, however. If it is an individual's right to commit evil, then why do we have a society or government at all? The point of these institutions is to hold each other accountable for not permitting evil to be done, and if the individuals in the society are no longer willing to do so, the entire society has become corrupted and evil.