Symbiosis essential for mutual survival

1415: 

Holding onto the egalitarian ideal is never going to be easy, but here in Australia, with our natural flair for rethinking everything, we’ve made certain break-throughs.  One of them seems to be in forging healthy relationships between each other (compared to the rigid and unfriendly social systems in other economically advanced nations).  Snobbery doesn’t exist to any great extent here.  We’re more inclined to build mutually-benefiting and symbiotic relationships.

It’s not quite the same when animals are brought into the picture though. They are simply part of an exploitation culture - there’s not much ‘symbiosis’ there, and in this respect Australians are the same as any other nationality.  In theory, animals and humans could be mutually beneficial, but that’s a million miles from what we have today - we exploit them and we allow them no privileges.  Even the apiarist, who transports his hives of bees to good feeding grounds doesn’t do it for the bees’ sake but in order for them to make even more honey, which is then stolen from them for money.

Any animals, even after they’ve been exploited and used up, are granted no consideration, for their own sake.  After the last vestiges of usefulness have been drained from the body, or after they’ve put on sufficient weight, they’re slaughtered.  Nothing of them is wasted, and that’s considered to be ‘virtuous efficiency’.  How inefficient then, would it be, to retire the poor exhausted animal to an animal sanctuary, to live out its life in peace - ya gotta be jokin’!!