“Hedgehog burned!”, “Cat drowned!”, “Dog poisoned!”, “Cows beaten!” – the headlines don’t stop …
Cruelty to animals is a ubiquitous crime that is committed daily in both private and industrial settings.

What is unimaginable for you as an empathetic person is usually an alleged and extremely perfidious “strategy” to “solve” internal conflicts for those who torture animals.

Psychic crack or ugly character?
What drives animal abusers to their atrocities?
What goes on in a head that feeds on actively exercised violence against other creatures?

Prof. Kolja Schiltz, head of forensic psychiatry at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, is of the opinion that one cannot generally describe animal abusers as “sick“.
Cruelty to animals alone does not justify a psychiatric diagnosis, but is merely an indication of a possible tendency towards psychological abnormalities.
Rather, animal tormentors would strive for a feeling of power in order to push their low self-esteem and to be able to endure themselves, with all their subjectively perceived deficits.

“There are people who seek animals as victims in order to gain a feeling of superiority and omnipotence through the humiliation of the victim, in order to stabilize their self-esteem, in order to be able to cope with themselves at all.
These are people who have an uncertain self-worth, with a problematic personality or even a personality disorder, “ explains Professor Kolja Schiltz, Head of Forensic Psychiatry at the LMU.

In this category one could also classify those people who, for example, lay out poisonous bait to harm dogs whose barking and legacies they perceive as unreasonable.

Animal tormentors abuse animals as frustration valves and act out their inner tensions on them.
Their urge to torture living beings results from a lack of self-management skills, self-reflection and regulation.

They externalize (move outwards) their impulsive emotions and transfer them to innocent living beings by causing them great suffering and humiliating them.

Above all, those animals that are considered cute and not able to defend themselves are victims of animal cruelty:

“We know that pets are particularly popular, especially cats, because they are small and cannot defend themselves as effectively.
Other animals that are also popular are horses, as they are often perceived as cute. You can also experience an increase in self-esteem and an aggressive act if you humiliate, harm or harm other cute animals, “explains Professor Kolja Schiltz.

Source: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/psychiater-was-tierquaeler-zu-ihrem-grausamen-handeln-triebe,Qklcnq1

Factory farming and the animal industry – cruelty to animals as a profitable production model:

The successful business with meat and animal products as well as the cruel production practices, as they are carried out in the animal industry, are based, among other things, on the deliberate objectification of living beings.

In order to be able to exploit these as effectively as possible, cows, chickens, pigs etc. are declassified as “farm animals” – they are denied their ability to suffer and any right to life.
Producers and consumers hide the suffering of the animals in this way – cruelty to animals on a large scale, which is “legitimized” by deliberately devaluing life.

Cruelty to animals is inexcusable!

As the assessment of LMU Professor Schiltz indicates, the “excuse” of the pathological behavior abnormality with regard to cruel offenses does not apply.
Cruelty to animals cannot in principle be assessed as a pathological phenomenon that absolves those who perform them from their responsibility and their ability to make decisions.

Cruelty to animals is an active and willful act of cruelty.
An inexcusable crime against sentient beings.
It is up to each person to take responsibility for how they channel their inner tensions – whether they torture innocent animals or use adequate coping strategies.

Likewise, everyone has the choice whether or not to indirectly witness the collective crime of industrial cruelty to animals.

Whether in the slaughterhouse, in the test laboratory, in a circus ring or in the garden arbor next door – cruelty to animals is a criminal offense and inexcusable!
Do not look away when you witness animal cruelty!

https://animalsunited.de/blog/warum-menschen-tiere-quaelen-warum-das-unentschuldbar-ist/

Additional information on this topic: The dark side of man has many facets.
Psychologists from Ulm, Landau and Copenhagen have now shown that egoists, Machiavellians, narcissists, psychopaths and sadists have more in common than what separates them.
The researchers succeeded in tracing many of these problematic personality traits back to a few basic principles: the “dark factor” (D-factor) of personality.

The study was published in the internationally renowned journal Psychological Review.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-32574-001

“At the core of this dark factor in personality is an exaggerated egoism that has negative effects on others or on society in general.
This is accompanied by convictions that prevent feelings of guilt, remorse and moral scruples, ”explains Professor Morten Moshagen.

When it comes to the D-factor, the scientists explicitly speak of an extreme form of individual benefit maximization, which literally goes beyond corpses, i.e. willingly accepts or even deliberately causes damage to others.
This tendency is accompanied by the tendency to justify one’s own behavior to oneself and to others.

In their analyzes, the scientists examined nine personality traits.
These include egoism, hatred, Machiavellianism, moral disinhibition, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, self-centeredness and exaggerated expectations.
The researchers found that practically all of these characteristics can be traced back to the D-factor as the dark core of the personality.

A new study comes to the conclusion that people with these so-called dark character traits have a tendency to always and above all pursue their own interests. In many cases, such people also like to torture others.

In practical terms, this means that, for example, people with a high narcissistic tendency are more likely to show pronounced Machiavellian and psychopathic personality traits.

In addition, people with a strong D-factor are statistically likely to become criminal, violent, or otherwise violate social rules, according to the researchers.

https://wildbeimwild.com/psychologie/psychopathen-narzissten-sadisten-und-hobby-jaeger-teilen-einen-dunklen-kern/22594/2018/11/24/

My best regards to all, Venus