Hannibal Lecter and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy)

by Joseph Westfall

  Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

  —GENESIS 9:3

  If you know nothing else about Hannibal Lecter, you know at the very least his rhyming nickname. And knowing his nickname, you know this, as well, that “Hannibal the Cannibal” eats people. You don’t have to dig much deeper into the Hannibal Lecter mythos to recall that indelible line in Anthony Hopkins’s unforgettable performance in The Silence of the Lambs: “A census taker tried to test me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti”—and then that awful sucking noise that remains, so many years later, so intimately associated with the horror of Lecter’s cannibalism. Right at the very heart of Thomas Harris’s character—and brought to the center of his various screen incarnations—is the fact that, unlike most people, even unlike most serial killers, Hannibal Lecter is a cannibal.

  Obviously, murder is wrong, and there is no ethics in the world that seriously questions that point. (This is different from saying, of course, that “killing is wrong,” since there are numerous forms of killing that most ethical systems and many people see as justified—including killing someone in self-defense, if not also killing enemy combatants in time of war, and for some, euthanasia or “mercy killing,” as well as capital punishment.) One need not even broach the topic of cannibalism in order to see something wrong with the way in which Dr. Lecter conducts his affairs, and cannibalism is not even included in the criminal charges against him. In fact, cannibalism is not, in itself and as such, a criminal offense under United States federal law, nor in forty-nine of the fifty states or Europe—although murder and the desecration of corpses certainly are. The only exception in the United States is Idaho, where in 1990 cannibalism (except when “the action was taken under extreme life-threatening conditions as the only apparent means of survival”) was specifically outlawed as a class of “mayhem.” If convicted of cannibalism in Idaho, one can be sentenced to a maximum of fourteen years in prison (Idaho Code 18-5003).

  Yet, as we learn from Thomas Harris, Lecter is found not guilty—by reason of insanity, although that was not his defense—and it seems that the only basis one might have had for judging Dr. Lecter insane (rather than merely murderous) is, in fact, his cannibalism. So, even though cannibalism is not in itself a crime, cannibals do seem to be treated differently in the courtroom—and in the court of public opinion—than other murderers. At the very least, the Chesapeake Ripper was.

  Thus, in addition to sorting out just what sort of a serial killer Hannibal Lecter is, and whether or not he is a psychopath, we must try to engage the question of cannibalism in order to come to a deeper understanding of Hannibal the Cannibal. What is it, to eat other human beings? Why would one do such a (disgusting) thing? And is it—should it be considered—unethical to do so? Despite the fact that eating human flesh is profoundly taboo in our culture and the great majority of world cultures, philosophy often asks us to reconsider our basic beliefs to see if they have a rational basis. In the case of cannibalism, Hannibal Lecter would ask us to reconsider, too—and, generally speaking, it is wise to do what Dr. Lecter asks.

  The Cannibal Within

  The word cannibal appears to have its origin in the writings of none other than Christopher Columbus, who used the Spanish term Canibales to refer to the native inhabitants of the New World. The word is itself a reference to the Carib peoples (after whom their native region, the Caribbean, is named), and has no necessary or automatic connection to the eating of human flesh. There were rumors and legends in Europe during this period, of course, that the “savages” of the Americas were primitive in every way, including that they were anthropophagi (the word at the time for eaters of other human beings), and there is some evidence that cannibalism was practiced by some cultures in the precolonial period. The French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne, discusses one such cannibalistic culture in 1580 in his famous essay, “On the Cannibals,” which describes a people who roasted and ate the flesh of their prisoners of war—after they had been executed, of course. (Montaigne compares this practice favorably with the French practice at the time of torturing their prisoners of war—since the victims of torture were still alive when the French cut flesh from their bodies; the victims of the cannibals were not.)

  Cannibalism was almost certainly not as widespread as Europeans feared it was, although their fears were stoked by the reports of the returning explorers—who were given freer rein in massacring and conquering these peoples by their European patrons when those patrons believed the indigenous people were unrepentant and atheistic savages. In fact, some European powers came to believe that it was their religious duty and divine right to convert (and enslave) the “cannibals,” to “liberate” them from their evil, irreligious, unchristian ways (Avramescu, pp. 106–12). Columbus himself seems to have been skeptical of claims that the Canibales were cannibals—but the truth was less useful to the project of European colonialization than was horrific hyperbole, and the name stuck. It was useful to European interests at the time that indigenous Americans be seen as both savage and, specifically, unchristian or atheistic, and charges of cannibalism were useful for that purpose. And cannibal is a far less cumbersome term than anthropophagus, in any case.

  Historically, cannibalism has been levied as a charge against others, typically without evidence, as a means of demonizing a culture, ethnicity, religion, or country that one wishes to conquer or destroy. European colonialists accused both indigenous Africans and Americans of cannibalism; Christians accused Jews of cannibalism; Protestants accused Catholics of cannibalism; and so on. The world’s first real cannibals were the Neanderthals, however, and there is physical evidence at numerous sites of the attacking, murder, and cannibalization of groups of both Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and humans (Homo sapiens). In fact, according to the paleobiologist Antonio Rosas, “this practice . . . was general among Neanderthal populations” (Thompson). Which is simply to say that, although they may not have enjoyed it, or wanted to do it, and may even not have done it with a high degree of frequency, Neanderthals were as a species cannibalistically inclined. Evidence exists of cannibalism in early human communities, as well, and of the human eating of Neanderthal flesh. Worth noting in this context, of course, is that most human beings today have some Neanderthal DNA (in addition to eating each other, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens interbred, as well). Some of our earliest ancestors dined at least occasionally on other of our earliest ancestors. All of us spring from cannibal stock. We are the cannibals we’ve been looking for.

  The anthropological evidence of early human cannibalism was only relatively recently discovered, however. For most of recorded history, cannibalism was primarily a product of the mythmaking and imaginative arts—that is, there was an idea of cannibalism with very little evidence thereof. While that idea was alive and well in European myths and legends, the first case of cannibalism for which there are multiple historical accounts didn’t occur until the Middle Ages, during the First Crusade. In December 1098, after having sieged the Syrian city of Ma’arra, European crusaders discovered the city was poorer than they had imagined—there was very little to loot, and almost no food. Starving, but wishing still to push on toward Jerusalem, the Christian warriors reportedly cooked and ate the bodies of the Muslims they had massacred. (One source tells of crusaders boiling bodies in large pots, and roasting the bodies of dead children on spits. Another tells of starving crusaders eating chunks of the flesh of their conquered enemies raw.) While most ancient and medieval accounts of cannibalism accuse other people—the enemies, the “savages”—of such grotesque behavior, the story of the Siege of Ma’arra sees European Christians making this accusation against themselves. Despite the starvation conditions, the crusaders willfully defiled the bodies of their Muslim enemies, but in a way they would not have done their Christian comrades.

  Of course, today we are all familiar with two other sorts of stories about cannibalism fro
m history. Stories of starvation cannibalism recur in our culture every few years or so; perhaps the most famous are the story of the Donner Party in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47, and the case of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crash-landed in the Andes in 1972 (later documented in a book which was the basis of the 1993 film, Alive). In both of these cases, the accounts of cannibalism were of already deceased members of the groups in question. A slightly different tale of starvation cannibalism is the story of Alfred “Alferd” Packer, who in the winter of 1873-74 attempted a mountain crossing in Colorado with five other men. After returning to civilization, Packer confessed to having murdered and eaten some of his fellow prospectors in order to survive. He was tried for murder, convicted, and sentenced to death (legend and a local newspaper at the time have the judge poetically addressing Packer with the line, “Stand up yah voracious man-eatin’ sonofabitch and receive yir sintince”—but the judge actually said no such thing). He later received a new trial, was convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter, and sentenced to forty years in prison.

  Finally, and perhaps most like our dear Dr. Lecter’s gourmanderie, are those cases of psychopathic serial killers who take edible trophies from their victims—perhaps most famously in recent times, Jeffrey Dahmer. Numerous such cases—sometimes proven, sometimes merely suspected—appear in Christopher Berry-Dee’s chronicle, Cannibal Serial Killers. The specific details of these men’s crimes are mostly irrelevant and grisly enough not to go into here, but one trait does stand out: in apparently every case, cannibalism is linked to sexual gratification. While Hannibal the Cannibal does share these real-life murderers’ culinary interest, in his total lack of sexual interest in his victims, Dr. Lecter is nothing like them. He is, then, as he might well agree, a cannibal apart.

  That said, we are fascinated by Lecter’s cannibalism, however horrifying we find it to be, in some of the same ways we are fascinated by real-life cannibals, whether prehistoric, ancient, medieval, modern, or contemporary. And in our fascination, in our willingness to buy books like Berry-Dee’s and pore over the stomach-churning details, although we are not complicit in their acts, we find ourselves drawn to these flesh-eaters (if only ultimately to be repulsed by them). As Mads Mikkelsen has said about cannibalism, “There’s something we can’t understand, we can’t comprehend it. And the things we can’t understand tend to intrigue us and make us very curious. And I guess Hannibal is the icon of all the cannibals” (Stephenson, “A Taste for Killing”). The icon of all the cannibals. Face it, Fannibals: we take some (non-gustatory) pleasure in cannibalism.

  Three Kinds of Cannibals

  In that same interview, Mikkelsen makes an important distinction. He notes, “People eating other people has been scaring people since the beginning of days, right? We’ve got gruesome stories of people doing it out of need, out of ritual. And then we also have people doing it for fun.” Thus, we can see in Mikkelsen’s remark, and we also find in the history and study of cannibalism, three distinct kinds of cannibals, whom for ease of reference we might dub: (1) starvation cannibals, (2) cultural cannibals, and (3) hedonistic cannibals. Starvation cannibals eat human beings because they fear that, if they do not, they will starve to death. Cultural cannibals engage in some culturally or socially sanctioned form of cannibalism, whether religious, political, or otherwise. And hedonistic cannibals eat other people because it gives them pleasure to do so.

  (1) Starvation Cannibalism

  Of all the kinds of cannibalism, starvation cannibalism is probably the easiest for most of us to understand and to justify. Pushed to the limit by the possibility of death, many of us are willing to do whatever it takes to survive. And the instinct for survival certainly can push us to do things we would never have considered doing under ordinary circumstances, things in fact that we might have considered disgusting or wrong in any other situation. This is how we feel especially about cases such as those of the Donner Party and the Uruguayan rugby team. Caroline Logan describes a more recent example in “Cannibal Warlords of Liberia” where, in the post–civil war squalor in which many citizens of Liberia live, cannibalism is a last resort for survival for many people. Perhaps it is harder for us to feel the actions of Alferd Packer were justified, but even so, I think many of us would have to think long and hard about whether we wouldn’t at least consider murder—if our only alternative was death. Hannibal Lecter is obviously not a starvation cannibal, but he has met them before—specifically, as a child, in the cold Lithuanian winter that saw the deaths of every member of his immediate family. Vladis Grutas and his crew fight off starvation by cannibalizing children (more than one in the novel), and in this particular instance, little Mischa Lecter. As Grutas succinctly puts it, “We have to eat or die” (Harris, Rising, p. 45). While we find Grutas profoundly unsympathetic, and we might not wish to condone his murder of Mischa (Dr. Lecter certainly doesn’t), we shouldn’t doubt that he is actually starving—and starvation, not a belief system or the pleasure of doing so, is what drives him to cannibalism.

  (2) Cultural Cannibalism

  There aren’t really any instances of cultural cannibalism in the Lecter franchise, which is more about cultured individuals than their cultures, anyway. But historically, most of the writing about cannibalism has been about this second type. By the term “cultural cannibalism,” I mean to include at least three different sorts of anthropophagies: (a) religious cannibalism, (b) political or military cannibalism, and (c) nutritional cannibalism. There is much talk about the first of these, and perhaps the ancient Aztecs are the best example of a culture the religion of which mandated or encouraged the occasional, ritual consumption of human flesh—in the Aztec case, to commune with and feed the sun. A modern example is ritual cannibalism conducted in the belief that killing and eating one’s (typically political) opponents will grant one supernatural powers (as, for example, once again in Liberia; see “Liberia’s Elections, Ritual Killings and Cannibalism” by Schmall and Williams). For a fascinating philosophical account of religious and ritual cannibalism as the basis for understanding cannibalism itself as a cultural system, see Divine Hunger by Peggy Sanday.

  Political or military cannibalism is another form of cultural cannibalism, which is generally more about degrading and demoralizing one’s enemies than it is about nutrition or ritual power. The cannibals discussed by Montaigne are of this sort; they eat their enemies as a way of demonstrating to them that their power is unquestionable. And cannibalism is among the atrocities that occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as a part of a strategy of massacring and degrading one’s enemies, including feeding parts of the bodies of some prisoners to others—cannibalism as a weapon of war, as it were, alongside rape, torture, and other human rights violations (Griswold). As Frederick Chilton notes, “Cannibalism is an act of dominance” (Hannibal, Season 2, “Futamono”). One need only study the civil wars in Liberia and the DRC to see how devastating and gruesome such acts of dominance become when sanctioned—explicitly or otherwise—by rebel factions, by the military, or by the state.

  The last kind of cultural cannibalism to consider is what I call nutritional cannibalism—which is the use of human flesh to supplement an otherwise non-cannibalistic diet. Generally speaking, nutritional cannibalism is a response to hard times—although not the extremity of starvation—and it is the sort of cannibalism most likely practiced by our prehistoric ancestors. Although they did not eat other people most of the time, it appears to have been perfectly acceptable in at least some of those prehistoric communities to resort to cannibalism when other food sources were less plentiful. In the case of the Neanderthals, this seems to have meant at least sometimes attacking and murdering large groups of people in order to use their corpses for food. We might also include in this category the widespread practice of “medicinal cannibalism,” primarily in Europe and Asia, which reached its height in the Middle Ages and early modernity. During this period, physicians often instructed their patients to eat hu
man body parts—often, but not always, taken from mummies and other ancient dead—in the treatment of various ailments. This practice was not uncommon; as the scholar Richard Sugg notes in Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires, “The question was not, ‘Should you eat human flesh?’ but, ‘What sort of flesh should you eat?’ ” (see also Dolan). Hannibal Lecter, acting intentionally and oh-so-independently of the mores of his culture, is not what we would call a cultural cannibal. A cultured cannibal, perhaps, but that’s different.

  (3) Hedonistic Cannibalism

  The third kind of cannibalism, after starvation cannibalism and cultural cannibalism, is hedonistic cannibalism—and it’s in this category that we’ll undoubtedly find Dr. Lecter. A hedonist is just a pleasure-seeker, and so a hedonistic cannibal is someone who eats people because he or she enjoys it—not for some other reason. Although people are very different, and thus their pleasures also differ, there seem to be three basic categories of hedonistic cannibal: (a) paraphilic cannibals, (b) sadistic cannibals, and (c) recreational cannibals.

  Paraphilia is the modern scientific word for what we used to call “sexual perversions,” and psychologists have a long list of paraphilias that they’ve identified in their patients. Paraphilias are what we might call abnormal sexual desires, and they are often characterized by extreme behaviors. One paraphilia is—as you might have guessed—anthropophagy. And as we’ve seen with most of the real-life cannibal serial killers who’ve been identified and studied—think again of Jeffrey Dahmer, or perhaps Albert Fish, “the Werewolf of Wysteria”—hedonistic cannibalism typically presents itself as related in some way to sexual desire or gratification. Cannibals like Dahmer and Fish eat their victims as part of consummating their sexual desire for those victims. Despite the fact that most of the known contemporary cannibals are of this sort, there are no paraphilic cannibals in the works of Thomas Harris—least of all Hannibal Lecter, from whom sexuality is almost entirely absent (until the end of the novel, Hannibal, at least, when he makes his romantic getaway with Clarice Starling).1