Sympathy for the Spotted Lanternfly

Think Tank #121

Alright, before anyone starts on a rampage of lanternfly-hatred, don’t get me wrong. These things are the worst. Kill ‘em dead.

For those reading whose hometowns haven’t become infested with these pests, the spotted lanternfly is a distinctive moth-looking insect that’s actually most closely related to the cicada, which is native to southeastern Asia but has a penchant for invasive… exploration. First the species took Korea and Japan, and over the last couple years, it’s found its way into the northeastern United States.

The reason we don’t like them (in addition to the fact that they apparently excrete a sticky substance that turns into a type of mold… ew), is that they’re growing unchecked, and they literally suck the life out of the plants and trees that they feed on.

These things nearly killed our fig trees last year (the trees were covered in nymphs, and within days, the previously-healthy leaves had wilted and fallen off). This, of course, gave John and I a personal vendetta against them. But it’s not just us. The Department of Agriculture has actually issued out notices telling people to kill them when they see them. There are signs posted up in public parks. There are almost a dozen articles from The New York Times alone urging obedient citizens to kill these pests.

Some people (myself included) have taken these orders very seriously, which is when we all found out that the little bastards are pretty tough to kill. They have extraordinarily quick reflexes, and since they’re “plant-hoppers,” they can jump really far.

Not to brag, but I’ve figured out a technique. You lift your leg comically high and then smash it down as fast as you can before the fucker can even see you coming like Lucille Ball in a vat grapes.

Anyway, I digress.

This is where it gets weird. Yesterday, I committed my daily lanternfly-murder (first try; I’m getting good), and I realized—this is how genocides happen.

I know this is a bit melodramatic, but bear with me. I’m typically reserved about killing bugs. In fact, earlier that day, before John and I took the walk in which I realized that I take a little too much pleasure in killing these things for sport, there was a bug in our apartment. A little beetle—one of the harmless, helpless guys that you can’t help but feel bad for, whether you decide to spare their lives or not. He instinctively squashed it, and then afterwards, remarked that he felt terrible. We were actually somber for a few seconds. Why did we feel the need to murder this helpless creature, just because he ventured somewhere he didn’t belong?

Where does it come from? Where do we draw the line between a life being sacred and expendable? Why would most of us cringe at the idea of killing a dog or cat? Maybe it’s because people keep them as pets—they’re friends. But then why do rabbits toe the strange line between cute friendly animal and delicious meal? And why do we find bugs (with the exception of ladybug or fireflies or butterflies) not only okay to kill, but often necessary?

Is it beauty that gives a life value?

Maybe somewhat. It gives a good explanation for why we’ll kill a cockroach more readily than a butterfly. But these rules are not fixed. Why are deer so often hunted for sport when they’re such beautiful animals?

How much of the remorse comes from the consequences? How much of our sanctity for human life comes from an instinctive reverence for members of our own species, and how much of it comes from the fear of what would happen if we dispensed with this reverence? Gang violence is common because there is a social reward. People kill one another in wars rather readily.

The same thing could be applied to killing animals. If you kill a dog or cat for fun and go and tell your friend, they’re probably going to think you’re a psychopath. While it’s probably easier to cover up than, for example, killing a human, there might still be some animal cruelty laws you have to contend with. Then you have to clean up the blood and guts before they start to smell, which depending on the size of the animal can be quite cumbersome.

The social consequences differ by culture, of course (another thing to support the ‘consequence theory’ over the ‘beauty theory’), but one thing’s for sure—killing a mammal will always cause more of a mess than killing an insect.

No wonder we can kill a bug and forget about it two minutes later—all we have to do is scrunch it up into a napkin and put it in the garbage and it’s gone. Every time we buy some borax to control an ant infestation, we’re committing a genocide that we don’t even have to witness. The biggest reason why we kill them when we see them in our house is because it’s easier than scooping them up and putting them outside.

This brings us to the utilitarian justification for killing. We kill for food. We kill to keep our houses clean. With the case of spotted lanternflies, we kill to protect our ecosystem and our fig trees. We also administer the death penalty for the purpose of justice and deterrence, and we kill in wars for the purpose of defending our nations against invaders (or, conversely, expanding an empire).

However, there’s something so strange about the lanternfly in particular, and how we’ve made this vendetta about this entire species simply because they’ve gotten the opportunity to grow unchecked in a way that is inconvenient for us. Do we have the right to determine whether this species has the right to exist?

If there is a universal code of justice in the universe that dictates whether it is okay to take a life, would all of the lanternfly blood on our hands be excused? If so, and the ecosystems humans have destroyed found some way to get together squash us just as easily, they’d have exactly the same justification for killing us.

Then we come back to the age-old question that no one has found a definite answer to: is there something special about human life? Is it our ‘souls’?

Does my dog have a soul? How about the dove that used sit on my windowsill every morning, or the pigeons that always wind up dead underneath the BQE?

Maybe nature doesn’t draw the line. Maybe we’re all equally insignificant, or, conversely, equally significant.

People descend into nihilism based on this line of thinking. I reckon, like the question of whether we should go out of our way to stomp on invasive pests, it all just depends how you look at it.

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You can also buy me a coffee. Or a pint of white vinegar to control the lanternfly infestation on our fig trees.