1417:
Humans are the most important
(read dangerous) beings on Earth. We
have dominion over all other beings, which is how we get away with doing what
we like with animals. It means we can
put them in cages, mutilate them and control every facet of their life and
death. It’s to our advantage to be in
control to that extent.
In this highly competitive
animal-food market, it makes economic sense to keep animals in slum conditions,
and to kill them with speed and efficiency, without considering their feelings.
How do we justify it? By thinking that “animals lack self awareness
and therefore can’t foresee their coming execution, so they don’t suffer until
the very moment of death”. And anyway,
who is to stop what we do to them? The
public is largely unaware and unwilling to know more. We, the public, never get to see them dying
and so we don’t experience their reactions.
Which in turn means that we aren’t haunted by having seen what happens
to them, leaving the way clear for us to enjoy eating them. For those on the front line there’s another
factor, making it easier to keep them and kill them - they know that they can
get away with it since it’s all legal. The
Law can’t touch them, and since animals can’t fight back, there will be no
repercussions.
On a smaller scale, we’ve all
experienced a similar detachment and de-sensitisation, when we drown ants in
the kitchen sink or crush a cockroach under foot. We aren’t in danger of being troubled by doing
this, because we don’t really experience
them dying; they show no signs of suffering because they’re so small and,
because of their size, they make no audible noise. And it’s upon that same sort of principle that
slaughterhouses work. This is the main
function of the closed doors of abattoirs; when there are killings of larger
and more vocal animals, no one can see, no one can hear, and therefore no one
can speak about what they haven’t witnessed.
By not having to think about
the irritating ‘pest’, it is destroyed without our feeling the slightest qualm,
apart from the mess that the squashed or poisoned body might make on the floor.
Similarly, with the killing of any food
animal, for example, the no-longer-economically-viable dairy cow, where her execution
is not seen. We are kept separate from it, and this helps us to disengage our
imagination and neutralise our empathy. In the case of the dairy cow, we see
her milk as a benign product of a benign dairy industry. We remain aloof from
it all.
The same aloof feelings are
evident when we separate from fellow humans, in order to treat them in a way
that better benefits us. Racism helps us
to separate from our coloured neighbours. By regarding them as ‘pests’ we more easily
establish our superiority over them. They
become more pliable and easier for us to ‘employ’ on our terms. We don’t have to be too obvious about it
either, because they’ve probably experienced racism before in their lives - so
all we have to do is not get too friendly with them. By showing that we’re not interested in them
as individuals, we maintain an advantage over them.
Whether it’s animals or
humans, by making them feel inferior
or frightened of us, they can be handled more easily and made more useful. The first rule of racism is to never treat our
inferiors as our social equals. The first rule of speciesism is never to think
of animals as anything other than our inferiors.
Vegans, who refuse to enjoy
taking advantage of exploited animals, act more sensitively than most. It’s likely their attitude to exploited
animals is transferable, so they’d have a similar attitude when they see a
forest as a thing of beauty, rather than a collection of log-able trees. With people of other cultures or with trees or
animals or with children, it comes down to marvelling at their innocence and
beauty, without entertaining thoughts of intending them any harm.
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