radiokunlun:

Y’all, I could have written some beautiful meta sentences about monstrousness or something, but because people are making trouble on the Internet, instead I have to step up and talk about cannibalism.

CANNIBALISM, Y’ALL. Deal with it: it’s a real thing. In the past it has sometimes been a thing that people did to show reverence for and connection with the dead. It has also been a thing that people did to demonstrate dominance over their enemies, as a mark of humiliation, or to vanquish their spiritual power. Sometimes it has been a thing that people did to survive, because guess what: we’re meaty animals.

However, I used the present tense: it’s: because it continues to be a thing. Here y’all go: cannibalism in the Syrian Civil War. I picked this instead of the more notorious example of consensual cannibalism in Germany, because the latter seems more rooted in profound mental illness, while the former is more closely akin to what American soldiers have done by making body parts from Vietnamese and Afghan soldiers into trophies.

Cannibalism is not a universal taboo. It’s an extremely powerful taboo that has been extraordinarily successful as a meme. But I confess that I am disturbed by those who react as if the act of cannibalism itself (separate from issues of murder, separate from issues of violation) is an abominable thing— because such a reaction carries a significant echo of a colonialist mentality.

Please stop and think about what you’re actually objecting to when you object to things. Where is your objection coming from? What do you find offensive, and why do you find it offensive? How would your reaction be altered if the circumstances of what you’re seeing were different? It’s important to understand these things.

I submit that what people find especially horrifying about Hannibal Lecter is that he treats people as meat: that he does not view them as human/spiritual beings with a right to life, and thus can kill them indifferently; and further, that he eats their flesh as an act of violation, to emphasize their extermination and subhumanity. This is totally valid. This is totally horrifying. Maybe you have your own take on where the horror comes from. But please think about these things.