1477:
Our attitude to animals in
general is a paradox. It’s curious how we humans can be so thoughtless about
animals, keep them locked up in slum conditions and then execute them at
abattoirs and eat them, whilst feeling quite differently about other specific
animals. We can show entirely different feelings for our cats and dogs, even
sometimes closer than with human companions. In our culture we never eat them
(whereas in other cultures humans do see them as food). We might do everything
for them to make their lives happy, despite the fact they only offer us
companionship (‘only’!) and produce no useful products for us to use. We call
them pets or companion animals and value them. Mind you, when they no longer
fulfil their role as ‘companions’ they may also be shot, well, ‘shot’ full of
lethal chemicals to ‘put them to sleep’. But when they’re alive, living with us
as working companions, we often try to give them the very best. We give them
love, food, shelter and expensive medical care.
As for other animals, who are
valued not as companions but as property and edible property at that, these
animals enjoy no quality of life whatsoever. Theirs is a life of perpetual
torture in fact. Ending in betrayal by the people who fed them and a grisly
death at the slaughter house.
It's strange, how the human
has such obvious double standards of care and love of animals but thinks
nothing of it.
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