Objects

1927:

An animal should never be just a dispensable, replaceable property. The difference between various consciousnesses - my table, the living tree, the sentient creature, the human being, may be obvious, but each level of consciousness deserves respect.

There’s a lot of difference between an abusive relationship and a loving one, between the parasitic and the symbiotic. It seems that we humans haven’t yet learnt how to maintain a symbiotic relationship with those animals which happen to be useful to us. And as for having consideration for other levels of consciousness, forget it.

Valuable resources and useful animals we take for ourselves. We think they are ‘there for the taking’. It’s all part of the rich bounty to which we believe we’re entitled. And with a mixture of minimal respect, lack of appreciation for what we already have, and greed for more, it leads us to be never-satisfied. Anything we want, we take. We use it up and keep wanting more. So, we graduate towards indifference, then abuse, and then alienation.

The deadliest disease amongst humans is dissatisfaction. We open a big gift box on Christmas Day, containing a puppy dog, and a year later, you’re off on holidays and taking the puppy (now-dog) to the vets to be put down. You thought it would be for the best. It’s-only-an-animal syndrome! This is, admittedly, an extreme case.

If we tire of something, we develop a contempt for it so that we can distance ourselves from it - in this case the no-longer-so-cute dog. Any similarity between human and victim is downgraded, so that we can dispose of it, or abuse it, and all with a good conscience and justification. Companion animals have no rights, but farmed animals have zero-zero rights.

The so called ‘food animals’. We see no similarity at all between ourselves and them. They are so downgraded in our minds that we don’t have any need to consider them as beings at all. In fact, they are merely alive in order to make them useful to us, dead.

As addicts of animal products, like anyone addicted to anything, we must make double sure of supply, so the chain of animal to farmer to animal-industry to shop keeper is a line of service, set up to maintain a lifestyle. One faulty link, and it’s a catastrophe! Imagine, for instance, a shop being out of ice cream.

It’s unthinkable!