Empathy, Education, Animal Welfare, Law and Bali Dogs

Empathy, derived from the Greek word “empatheia,” meaning “affection,” bonds with our conscience to act as compassion’s compass in our relationships.  It is the foundation for ethical behavior. Without empathy, we cannot suffer with, or for, others. 

Empathy is felt and expressed differently in individuals and in cultures.  In collective cultures empathy manifests differently to that within individualistic cultures.  Even within those different cultures, individuals will exhibit different levels of empathy or not at all.

​The evidence is already established that beings other than human suffer because of things that are done to them or happen around them.  What’s also unfortunately real and documented is the extent to which humans do not believe or accept the reality of animal sentience.   

Influencing human behavior change to improve the welfare of a societies animals is often tackled through providing education, particularly to children.  In collective societies the value of this tool is diluted as children will typically not act, or react, as individuals.  Despite what they have been taught they will respond to situations as part of their cultural collective. 

Educating adults to feel empathy for another living being is fairly impossible.  Often the only way to influence adult behavior is by applying an unpleasant consequence, via law,  to an undesired action. Laws then become an educational tool that teach citizens to think twice before engaging in a behavior that is not acceptable to that society. 

In a collective culture like Bali you can provide education until the last dog howls but the cultural conditioning that creates the collective disbelief of animal sentience needs to be taken into account when attempting to influence behavior change. 

Bali dogs are the silent subject in this ongoing matter.  Their continued existence is quite unimportant on an island that’s more interested in many other things. There is no statistical evidence yet to show how education has improved the lot of the average Bali dog.  In fact anecdotal evidence, if one can trust the plethora of social media reporting, shows that after years of educating local people welfare for Bali dogs is either stagnant or going backwards.

On Bali Island with its unique form of Hinduism and multifaceted multi leveled existence, life for a dog is dictated by reality and religion.  Are laws the only way to curb cruelty?   

However, Bali runs on its own rules and that’s what is so attractive to many millions of visiting foreigners.  There is a very long way to go and history may just prove that no matter how much education was offered, how much welfare was modelled and how much law was enacted, educating foreigners about where the Bali dog sits in the reality of life on Bali is the only acceptable outcome.