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Does pain pay the income of each precious thing?

When I was a little child, I wondered if all living things could feel pain; dogs and cats were easy: I could just tell. But what about the other living things around me: insects, fish, snakes, worms… everything that moved on its own accord? I’ve written about this at length before (of course) [i] but the subject continues to intrigue me -whether out of maturity, or conscience I’m not sure. But the previous essay was an attempt to disentangle sentience from pain. I’m now trying to unwind pain from sentience, I guess…

After all, if something is alive, it probably shares similar goals with us: a need for food, shelter, and reproduction -although I obviously didn’t reason in those terms as a child. Even if they could ‘think’ would their pain be the same as ours? Their lives are different from us; they play by different rules; they have different ways of being in the world. And anyway, how would we know if they actual feel pain? Or, perhaps more brutally, why should we care…?

Now that I am an adult with promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep as the poet Robert Frost put it, I think of things differently: Age often has that effect I suppose. I mean I can tell if an insect, say, seems to behave differently if I’ve inadvertently stepped on one of its 6 legs -but would that constitute pain or merely an attempt to escape further injury? And what about a freshly caught fish, slapping about in the bottom of the boat in what seems like a desperate need to escape: a desperate need to get back into the water so its gills can breathe again? Or a bee I’ve slapped after it mistakenly landed on my skin no doubt just looking for food, or whatever; it just seems stunned, but is that reflexive, or purposive…?

I suppose the reason I’m asking about trans-species pain is our burgeoning need for finding food that has less severe environmental consequences than what we have depended on so far -like crickets, a good source of proteins, for example. The infliction of pain, or even the hidden consequences of our actions, are usually ignored, or discounted in our quest. But, as I’ve covered in other essays, pain is difficult to quantify, or even identify because it is subjective; I can never know what it would be like to be that creature. I can only infer pain from its behaviour, liken what I see to how I might react to whatever I have inflicted on it.

I know, I know: I have to be careful about anthropomorphizing things, applying our human lens to anything with agency. But empathy -or perhaps more accurately sympathy- is hard(or soft) wired into us; we are inherently relationists -behavioralists, I think. To understand whether creatures can feel pain, scientists often look to their behavior. They specifically search for signs of “flexible self-protection,” such as grooming or cradling a certain area of the body. Over time, research has shown that using those criteria, numerous nonhuman species, including invertebrates like crabs, octopuses, cockroaches and mosquitoes, seem to feel pain.[ii]

In a previous essay, I had in mind a friend who took pity on earthworms stranded on the sidewalk in the heat and whenever possible she helped them get over onto the dirt. Sympathy for a fellow traveller, or whim…? I suppose it doesn’t really matter: she took pity on hot stranded worms because of an experience with a severe sunburn she herself suffered when she was old enough to have known better.

Jilian had been visiting Florida for Spring Break with some friends from University and as usual a lot of alcohol had been involved. Her friends had all come as couples, and by noon she was becoming uncomfortably lonely watching them snuggling and giggling, then disappearing into their rooms for what seemed like unnecessarily prolonged interludes.

She was still hung over but decided to inform her friends that she was going for a walk along the beach in her bathing suit to go for a swim and then find some space to be by herself. Unfortunately, even in the morning, both solitude and shade were in short supply on the beach. Still, after a long stroll, she managed to find a seemingly abandoned beach umbrella and curled up under it and promptly fell asleep.

The company that rented the umbrella only came out to claim it in the evening and found her shivering, badly sunburned and confused, still lying under what shade remained. They summoned a paramedic who, judging the severity of her burn, took her to the Emergency department of the closest hospital. They only kept her there for observation and treatment for a few hours until her friends could come and take her back to their hotel. But, before they arrived the Emerg docs decided to use her for a teaching moment and a two junior medical students were led in to see why frequent application of sunscreen was so important.

“Hi,” one of them said. “My name’s Cecelia. We’re both medical students,” she explained timidly and in a small voice. “We just wanted to ask you about what happened. Why didn’t you move into the shade, or maybe leave the beach? It was a really hot one today…” she asked as she stared at Jilian.

“I fell asleep,” Jilian answered, uneasy about the criticism.

Cecelia shook her head unbelievingly. “I would have thought that somebody would have noticed you and helped…”

The other young student standing beside her shrugged. “None of their business, I guess…”

“I still don’t understand why anybody wouldn’t try to help!” Cecelia, said, taken aback at the thought. “I suppose that’s why we’re in medicine though, eh Judy?”

Judy just shrugged, obviously embarrassed. “And why they’re not Cessy…”

“God, I hope I never get like that,” Cecelia said, sounding shocked.

Jilian smiled at the group, although it hurt her face. “Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum, as Seneca said… I think I’ve learned a lesson at least…”

“Huh?” -Judy this time.

“It means to err is human, but to persist is diabolical,” Cessy explained to Judy, and then turned to Jilian with a smile. “I did classics in my undergrad… Even we classics scholars sometimes go into Medicine to justify our otherwise useless knowledge. It proves that nothing is ever wasted…”

With some difficulty Jilian nodded her head. “Neither are stupid mistakes… I think I’ve actually learned something today: compassion.”  She risked another painful smile and then glanced at Cecelia. Have you ever studied Shakespeare?”

Both of them nodded.

“Well, remember in his Merchant of Venice when Portia disguises herself as a lawyer and begs Shylock to show mercy to Antonio: ‘The quality of mercy is not strain’d. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.’ I know I’ll never forget that now…”

And, maybe fifty or so years later, neither will I…

[i] https://musingsonwomenshealth.com/2020/02/11/masters-of-their-fates/

[ii] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/can-insects-feel-pain-new-research-suggests-that-crickets-do-180988752

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