Humans have always been advantage-takers and
inferior-bashers, whether in the name of racism, speciesism or religious
superiority. In particular circumstances, we are hardwired in favour of
separation and inequality. It is so much easier to exploit animals if we think
they are inferior to us.
Just look at the way most of us treat new people who are
different to us, by practising ‘separation’ on them. We don’t admit to this,
and in fact we might even appear benevolent or compassionate to show off our
liberal credentials. But in our private feelings we still practise separation,
to mark our difference between us and them. We do the same thing with animals,
in the belief that they are ‘brutish’ and insensitive to pain. This allows us
to exploit them and feel no pity for them.
Separation-beliefs are integral to hierarchical systems – if
we are on top of the pile we consider certain humans and absolutely all animals
as inferiors, allowing a markedly different treatment from that we lavish on
‘nearest and dearest’. We often show more respect for our companion animals at
home than the human next door; but we show far less respect for wild animals
and zero respect for the animals we eat.
1071: Posted Tuesday 3rd June
Animals’ use-by date
Once we make any part of our living from ‘animals’, it means
we align with and feel safe to be involved with those who exploit them. You can’t afford to be sentimental about
animals, and it’s essential to be able to feel separate from them to enable the
transition which is essential for all farmers of animals.
Separation is essential too with humans, if we want to
control or enslave them. First we must
establish a separation, so that we can put
them in their place. In one way it’s
much easier with animals, they’re afraid of humans but they’re sometimes cute
and cuddly. Above all, farmers must
steel themselves against this since farming is about business, and animals are
there to be managed. Often they’re controlled
with violence, by way of rough handling and shouting, or with electrified prods
or biting dogs. These measures guarantee
docility, and that makes manageability easier.
But the farmer must withhold friendly feelings, otherwise
he’d never be able to have his cute and cuddly lambs executed. Perhaps it’s the same on the factory floor,
where the dependent employee, in fear of losing her job, always obeys and never
expects to be befriended by her employer, who pushes her to her limits, for
sound economic reasons.
Much the same thing happens on animal farms. The farmer has biological control over the
animals’ bodies. They can be fed and
bred at will. Animals can be made to
pull carts, produce eggs, fatten, reproduce, make milk, and all to create maximum
profit. And once spent, the animal is
liquidated. Similarly, but on a much
smaller scale, at home, it’s sometimes easier to have our companions ‘put to
sleep’, when the vet bills get too high.
Determining the fate of animals is what humans do, all the
time. We underline our superiority by
emphasising their inferiority. The more
inferiority, the lower the sentience, the more we-the-consumer pragmatically justify
what we do to them.
The animal farmer is a big-time pragmatic; if he
notices a reduction in the productivity of one of his animals, he has them
extinguished. They become redundant
property. To any farmer, they’re never anything
other than easily replaceable objects.
They’ll defend their actions with a supporting line like: “They’re ‘put
here’ for us to do with as we please.”
Perhaps animals are the spoils of a species war, long since
won. The theory is: we won that war,
giving humans the right to dictate the entire fate and current existence of the
animals we’ve taken. And so we’re
entitled to seal their fate. Animal
Liberation is attempting to unseal it, for the animals’ sake alone.
They, their fate, their offspring, it is determined by the human,
by force.
Whenever people get around to talking to vegans, about it
all, they usually get a big surprise to hear how the cow is artificially
inseminated to produce calves, and often these calves serve their only real
purpose in embryo. Before they’re born, the foetus triggers high
lactation in the mother’s body, thus releasing huge quantities of milk (not ever
meant for the by-now exterminated calf, only for the human market). The cow is as powerless to stop her calf being
born (and then disposed of) as she is of any other biological function of her
body. She is our ‘convenience store’. We’ve turned her into a machine which lactates
and bears a calf every year. The dairy
cow would normally live for around twenty years but she’s ‘put down’ at about
half that age. She’s too exhausted by
constant pregnancies and milking and therefore no longer economically viable. Here’s where the farmer has to be particularly
pragmatic, when he decides she warrants no more life, since she can no longer
earn her board and keep.
There’s not much of a loving relationship between landlord
and tenant, down on the farm. The
animals are just there to be exploited for profit. And when we buy the products of animals, all
this is what we give our financial support to.
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