I try to understand what the problem is but can't. It is always useful to identify the traits of a problem. Labeling the problem is the first step to understanding.
I don't know if there is already a scientific name for the traits that it exhibits so I did my own assessment and came up with "delusional sadistic necrophilia". As a necrophiliac derives satisfaction from dead people (I widened the definition from sexual pleasure to any pleasure) and a sadist from causing pain, beings who get their jollies by hurting the dead are sadistic necrophiliacs. As most people believe that it is at the least very difficult, and in my view impossible, to hurt dead people from the instant of their transition on, a sentient entity (it) that believed it truly could pull it off would certainly be labeled delusional.
Further study requiring line of sight viewing has become so distasteful that I can no longer work with it using my 11 foot pole. The subject is so disquieting to the average individual that I have only been able to discuss it with immediate family, my very closest friends and all the guys at the bar (I'm no lawyer).
I plan to look at existing research to find if other examples exist, if it has been studied and if a diagnostic label has already been applied.
I did find a reference to similar behavior in a poem by Kipling. Although the poem refered to the animal world, the last quatrain sent chills down my spine. Could there be a lifeform so base to be capable of eating the flesh and defiling the name?
The Hyaenas
by Rudyard Kipling
by Rudyard Kipling
After the burial-parties leave
And the baffled kites have fled;
The wise hyaenas come out at eve
To take account of our dead.
How he died and why he died
Troubles them not a whit.
They snout the bushes and stones aside
And dig till they come to it.
They are only resolute they shall eat
That they and their mates may thrive,
And they know that the dead are safer meat
Than the weakest thing alive.
(For a goat may butt, and a worm may sting,
And a child will sometimes stand;
But a poor dead soldier of the King
Can never lift a hand.)
They whoop and halloo and scatter the dirt
Until their tushes white
Take good hold in the army shirt,
And tug the corpse to light,
And the pitiful face is shewn again
For an instant ere they close;
But it is not discovered to living men
Only to God and to those
Who, being soulless, are free from shame,
Whatever meat they may find.
Nor do they defile the dead man's name
That is reserved for his kind.
I'll keep you posted on my findings.
My French version of Kipling's poem:
ReplyDeleteAprès le funèbre au-revoir,
Les vautours restent sur leur faim.
Les hyènes sages, sur le soir,
Viennent s'occuper du défunt.
Les faits de son heure dernière
N'ont pour elles aucune importance.
Leur museau pousse branches et pierres
Creusant toujours vers leur pitance.
Ce qu'elles veulent, c'est manger,
Que du groupe la force augmente.
En cadavre est moins de danger
Qu'en la moindre chose vivante.
(Cornes des boucs, dards des cloportes,
Même un enfant se bat parfois;
Un soldat, quand sa chair est morte,
Ne lève pas le petit doigt).
Glapissements dans la poussière.
Leurs blanches canines saisissent
Le mort par l'habit militaire,
Hors de la fosse elles le hissent.
Reparaît le pauvre visage
Un instant avant l'hallali.
Mais ne le voit nul personnage,
Seul Dieu et les démons salis
Qui de vergogne ou d'âme n'ont
Et mangent de toute charogne.
Hyènes ne tachent point le nom
Du mort : c'est humaine besogne.