The reason for cruelty and oppression is almost always fear, not having an absolute power over the victim or not caring about it/him/her as non-rational people imagine and write.

Actually people very often treat things better they don't care about because caring is basically dependence and feeds fear. Even doctors make better diagnoses the less they are emotionally involved with the patient.

As it is with power. If you can't control something you might have to push it down in order to avoid it becoming a problem.

People are too lazy to crush things and objects just because they think they're somehow inferior. Combs and flowers might be useful or not but not many of us have the energy to destroy them only because we feel we are smarter and stronger than they are.

I'm writing this because I believe the wrong ideas of the reasons of oppression and violence only feed them.

The horsemanship here is a good example. If Erkka was "caring" too much, he'd be thinking "boo hoo the horse doesn't love me" (basically everyone I know who regard their dogs as their friends react this way and yell at their pets all the time) while now he can reason "it's an animal and it reacts this way probably because... I'll better try this..."

Actually he's a good horseman because he's a "psychopath" i.e. nothing the horse can do can hurt his feelings and consequently can't make him angry and lose his rational attitude towards a fine animal he owns.