> Isn't the entire idea of "being mean" an abstract and intellectual idea?

Not really, it boils down to harm prevention.

I believe that, as humans, we greatly overestimate our own reliance or abstract ideas.

If we notice someone is harming another, and we intervene, we simply act.

The explanation for our behaviour (someone was being mean) comes later as post-hoc rationalisation.

Ironically, we then further rationalise and extrapolate from this incorrect idea that human behaviour comes from a fount of abstract values and ideas, and use it to devalue animals and their behaviour (assuming they have no complex cognition, and so must be dumb).