Kinship

1386: 

Although adults have more life experience than children they nevertheless, in one particular way, don’t differ from kids, since both adult and child, especially when related, have an innate sense of kinship and usually enjoy each other’s company.  They have a sense of guardianship for each other, the elder for the younger and, especially when elders are elderly, vice versa.

         

In the same way, each child and adult has a strong sense of kinship with companion animals - the family dog is like one of the kids in the family.  It’s just natural for humans to want to protect vulnerable ones from being hurt or exploited.  But most of us are able to turn that ‘protective-switch’ off when it suits us, especially when entertaining murderous thoughts towards especially strangers or non-humans.

We like to think of ourselves as loving and yet we still have a yen to be brutish.  We let ourselves be persuaded to give vent to hard feelings, when needs be.  When it comes to naked self-interest or self-protection we can be brutal.  But when it’s about food the same thing can apply - we abandon the protective urge and give in to a brutish sanctioning of murder or harsh treatment, as we do when we want to eat them, and as we do when we let others do the murdering and brutalising for us.

In this way, and at that point, we follow the violence creed of our society.  Perhaps this hardness is embedded so deeply in our culture, that in certain circumstances our softness is the first luxury we forgo.  It feels almost natural to switch across.  We accept that we’re  programmed this way and that compassion-oriented behaviour can be sidelined.  Even if we prefer the soft side of ourselves, what we can’t resist is the temptation to validate violence, when it brings us what we want.  Ironically, violence brings us a quiet life.  It helps us fit in, when we're doing as others are doing. Most commonly, we don't see the violence in animal farming, so we eat the animals that others eat, and think nothing of it.  We like to see ourselves as ‘realistically pragmatic’ about the place of animals and animal products in our daily life.

This dispassionate hardness doesn’t always sit convincingly with our own more sophisticated gentler natures.  And in time, of course, we realise that it’s too late to do anything about this disparity in our nature, since too many bad habits have become ingrained.  Violence becomes so much part of our daily lives, that we hardly notice it, and hardly notice that we’ve settled for compromise.  We say, “Yes.  It’s okay to exploit animals if you enjoy eating them”.  Or even more unconvincingly, “Yes, they may be killed but if I do eat them then I believe we should make the fullest use of their bodies", (in the hope that this will exonerate us, somewhat).

Any old proposition will do in our attempts to divert us away from our softer, more compassionate side.  But all this is a greatly magnified for people who are making their living out of animals.

If you are an employee of the Animal Industry, exploiting animals to make your money, it’s unlikely you’ll have developed any ‘guardian instinct’ for animals.  You might be an animal farmer, who might care for ‘your’ animals but since you are exploiting them for profit, you'll have had to squash any hint of being their guardian.  It’s not that much different for consumers, except that theirs is one stage removed from actually dealing with the animals they eventually get to eat.  On the one hand they feel tender towards the animals ("sweet little lambs, darling piglets", etc.) and on the other hand they choose to remain fairly ignorant of what's going on behind the scenes.  

It is little wonder then, that Society is not keen to discuss animal welfare issues, let alone ‘rights’- issues.  State-sponsored education never mentions having kinship with these sorts of animals, only a need for kindness and respect towards certain other animals, be they fellow human (animals) or the wild or companion variety.  Most education revolves around the need for humans to eat meat, milk and eggs, and it emphasises the serious danger to our health if we don’t.  This is misinformation on a grand scale, and it's what vegans are up against.