From boiling lobsters alive to measuring happiness of cows

Happiness = Respect + Compassion = Kindness

Respect and compassion are the two key properties of a benevolent society. To have happy citizens, it is essential to have both.  China is respectful but not compassionate, the US is compassionate but not respectful. And citizens of both countries are not particularly happy, at least compared to small Northern European countries like Denmark, Finland, Iceland, or Switzerland. Finland makes sure that workers in less qualified professions still get a decent wage sufficient to lead a dignified life. Switzerland is compassionate even with lobsters, it is the only country on the world with a law that forbids to boil them to death alive. Unfortunately, in this regard the two most powerful countries on Earth, both vying for global leadership, still have a long way to go.

Americans are empathetic to their weak, but show no respect to their unqualified workers. Living in the US nearly half the time over the last twenty years, I observed that people with low professional qualifications, like janitors, waiters, and cleaners, get little respect. People on the higher rungs of society try to pay them as little as possible, so much so that it is impossible for members of these poorly paid professions – essential for the functioning of cities like Boston, New York, or San Francisco full of millionaires and billionaires– to actually live there. Rather, they have to either sleep in shifts in one-room apartments in windowless basements, or spend many hours per day in gruelling commutes from poorer towns far away to get to their jobs. Children from such backgrounds, mistreated by their peers from kindergarten, then take their frustrations out in school shootings, or by robbing high-end stores as flash mobs. 

On the positive side, in the US, there are numerous charities and individuals that engage in acts of kindness and benevolence, assisting the homeless, mistreated animals, and others hit by misfortune through no fault of their own.

China is the opposite. The Chinese treat each other with respect independent of where in the social ladder somebody resides, but they have little compassion with animals and people who are seen as outsiders. In my frequent stays in China over the last eight years, I observed that my hosts, usually well-paid academics, company executives, and bureaucrats, treat others of lower social status with much more respect than their US peers do. Unfortunately, I did see little of this compassion against animals and outsiders. In a monastery I saw vendors offering caged birds whose freedom could be bought by tourists as a good deed, for the vendors only to go catch the birds again for the next tourist. Similarly, I was shocked that in a restaurant I could choose from pigeons sitting in a cage, which would then immediately be grabbed by the cook to be slaughtered and brought back to my table plucked and grilled twenty minutes later. Even worse, workers disinfecting an apartment vacated by a Covid-quarantined dog owner, bludgeoned her dog to death with iron bars, with the horrified quarantined owner forced to watch the scene over a remote camera. Unfortunately, that was not an isolated incident. Chinese are also really stingy when it comes to giving money to a beggar. This has been confirmed by the World Giving Index, which ranks the US as the most generous country, while China has been among the ten least generous countries on the world ten years in a row.  

Therefore respectful China shows little compassion, while compassionate America shows little respect. In the end, it is in society’s best interest to show respect and compassion to all.  Treating others with respect is the best antidote against a violent society where the one who has lives in constant fear of being robbed by the have-nots. At the same time, treating others with compassion ensures that if misfortune hits, others will return the care that one has previously shown, leading to safer and happier lives for all. The world would be a better place if more people would show compassion with lobsters. In a similar vein, we are about to start a project where we read the emotions of cows through AI and image recognition, aiming to recognize and reduce their stress as much as possible.