Kinship

Although adults have more life experience than children they nevertheless don’t differ from kids in one particular way - both adult and child have an innate sense of kinship. They enjoy each other’s company. They have a sense of guardianship for each other, the elder for the younger and vice versa. In the same way humans, although very different to animals, can have a strong sense of kinship with their companion animals, the family dog being like one of the kids in the family. Humans seem to be naturally wanting to protect these vulnerable ones from being hurt or exploited. So why do we feel different about other animals, in other places? It’s in the culture. The hardwiring is something most people accept. They don’t think they can overcome it. Many don’t want to because, to date, it seems to have worked well enough for almost every consumer on the planet. Animals have provided humans with so many convenient materials for food, clothing and medicine.
For just about every human living today, it’s vital to think that it’s okay to exploit animals if you eat them and especially if the animal industry provides us with our weekly salary. If you work in some branch of this industry, it’s hardly likely that you will have a highly developed guardian instinct for the animals you’re helping to exploit. That same lack of protective care is not much different for consumers of animal products. It’s little wonder, therefore, that we almost forbids each other from discussing welfare issues (concerning those animals we use for food and clothing) 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 wild or companion animals. 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. Since just about every person either makes a living out of animals or eats them, there has to be a conspiracy of silence concerning ‘animal issues’. This is what vegans are up against.