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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Excellent as always, but I must say something of this comparison:

As civilized men, we do not begrudge man-eating tigers their addiction to human flesh, we shoot them on sight.

Jim Corbett, a famed hunter of man-eaters in British India (and later famed conservationist of Bengal Tigers), did not enjoy killing tigers. He knew it was necessary and that was enough, but he also knew what caused an animal to turn man-eater. Corbett wrote of villagers harvesting tall grass where a tiger might be hidden steps away but be no danger to them, tigers fear man. We killed fear into them.

Corbett knew the man-eater is bad luck and imprudence. The fight with particularly aggressive prey that maims the beast, or the shot that permanently weakens but does not kill, from the poor hunter who fails to track down and follow through. The beast lives, but he can no longer catch his natural prey. Even in desperate hunger he still fears man, for the rest of his however shortened life he might, never turning man-eater. Until for some, all at once they lose their fear. The starving tiger surprised in tall grass whose one swipe is still enough to kill. Then his fear is gone. Then he will continue, sometimes to horrific extents. All because of bad luck, imprudence. Because the man-eater is most often made, not born.