OFF TOPIC. PETA or the brutes?
Most children develop some type of empathy or sympathy. (Those who don't often end up in prison).
I'm not an authority on the subject, but just from having been a child in school, and listening to the other kids, I could hear when children began to have feelings for the plight of others.
IMO, the children who first started to feel empathy did so by feeling sorry for the plight of animals - children seem more able to say "That poor dog!" or "Oh, that kitty must hurt - help him!" before they can see suffering in other people.
I don't know why this is. Maybe because some of these children had hard lives and were abused and neglected, and told not to complain about how they were (not) cared for?
Perhaps because children can't usually acknowledge the truth of their own situation in relation to the rest of the world - children are hardwired to get over it, and move on, without feeling sorry for themselves or expecting things to be different?
Or maybe, it is in us, like with so many other species, to not feel too much for others of our own kind because there is a basic conflict and competition between people which we know does not exist with animals - we know that people control animals.
Whatever the reason, many children seem to first feel empathy towards animals. Sometimes people next feel empathy towards the plight of people in other lands, then people close to home, and only very last, towards themselves.
It is hard to see your own suffering, if you have suffered, and not wallow in it, so the mind frequently moves on over it. It is a defence mechanism. It sometimes takes professional help (counseling) for a person to understand the things closest to them and their own life.
Other children, IMO the ones who develop these feelings later in childhood sometimes not until teenage years, develop feelings of sympathy first towards those most like themselves.
They seem to grow their feelings by first identifying with others, and realizing that there are other people out there who are like they are. Only slowly do they spread their feelings out - sometimes not until they have grown grandchildren.
For some people, their sympathies are saved for those most like themselves. It is common to read posts where people clearly hate other people just for being different from themselves, or who hate even close relatives who have different opinions.
This kind of sympathy, where it is reserved for those who we identify with, is NOT strong enough to prevent holocausts, the mistreatment of animals on a vast scale, or the stratification of society and injustices within.
