Would you drown puppies? I doubt you would, but if you would not drown puppies, would you eat cows? If you would not eat cows, would you drink their milk, would you wear their hides?
If you would go to the Gulf of Mexico where the BP Oil well disaster happened, and save oil-soaked Pelicans if only you could, would you still eat chickens? A bird is a bird, after all. If you would not eat chickens, would you eat their eggs?
If you think one form of use of other animals is wrong, would you think other forms are not?
Is there any real difference between caging a gorilla in a zoo, or hunting a whale, and allowing the dairy industry to profit from the slaughter of veal calves or allowing egg-laying-chicken hatcheries to grind day-old male chicks into fertilizer while they are still alive?
Does it matter, to the individual lives themselves, whether they meet their deaths at the medical experimenter’s scalpel or the Matador’s sword?
If you can justify why we should not drown puppies while at the same time you can justify we should use, abuse, misuse and take the lives of other animals by the tens of billions each and every year, please explain to me how you do that. I would honestly like to know.
If you don’t want to bother with me and my questions, to be left alone to eat your ice cream or watch your horse racing, is that because you don’t know the answers or because you are just too comfortable living as you are? Could it be that you just don’t care?
Gary Francione talks about “moral schizophrenia” by which he means that people often hold two different views about the status of other animals – some we take into our homes and love, while others we kill for food & sport or lock in cages for life as entertainment. I’m sure that such cognitive dissonance is at play in many cases. But I am also just as sure that many more people suffer from “moral indifference” in that they know intuitively that it almost never makes any real difference how someone is killed, it only matters that they are killed. And yet the killing is allowed to go on and on, in our names and for our benefit.
That’s not craziness, that’s apathy & nihilism.
If it is immoral to treat living conscious beings as though they were nothing more than machines made out of blood and tissue – for us to do with as we please, how we please, whenever we please – then we must stop doing so now. And if it sounds judgmental or offensive to vegetarians for me to say it, so be it I apologize*, but we must stop completely and in all cases. Taking their eggs from chickens or stealing a mother’s milk is just as wrong as killing them. Half-measures and compromises, while appearing to be better than the status quo, ultimately only reinforce and further entrench it.
A commitment to the rights of other animals – nonhuman as well as human – requires the abolition of the conditions and systems which allow their use by others as the means to an end. It requires an end to the status of any animal – nonhuman as well as human - as a thing or a resource or a tool. It requires our recognition in all those individuals who experience their own lives of their most basic right — to live those lives, as best they see fit, as free from interference, as far as is possible in this imperfect world.
You would not drown puppies, because you recognize in them that right, and you respect their right to life. You already do it for the puppies. You should do it for all the others as well.
*Vegetarians are, to be sure, well-meaning and good people. I was an ovo-lacto vegetarian myself for 10 years before becoming vegan. I wish that I had taken the time sooner to examine the inconsistencies in my own thinking with respect to what I, and all of us, owe to all the other animals of the world. All other things being equal, vegetarians are doing better by other animals than are meat-eating omnivores, but this is fundamentally a moral question, and better simply isn’t good enough.
13 Comments
I totally agree and often ask myself, if late friends who tell me they don’t care are worse than people who just do their selection. Why is the human bread so selective? We are playing the devils right hand. What would mankind do if a more intelligent bread would do the same to us?
I think u would appreciate this older blog :
http://tinyurl.com/choosevegan
Paul:
You are right. Indifference to immorality may often be worse than actual immorality. Those who stand by while others commit atrocities have the power to stop them, if only they would care. You are also right that we justify our actions because so far we have been the most successful exploiters of the planet. Would an even more successful exploiter deal with us more justly than we have dealt with others? I hope so.
Thank you for commenting,
Tim
Thanks this is a great blog. You should send it in to magazines / papers in the hope of reaching a wider (non vegan) audience.
A superior bread, is that multigrain lol?
Hi I just posted about what you wrote and you are a great writer. What you wrote is true. People love to block out what there actually eating when they eat cow or chicken please read what I wrote and thank you.
http://justyouraverageveganteen.blogspot.com/2010/06/would-you-drown-puppies.html
Hi Chris:
Thanks for sharing the post on your blog and for the nice compliment. I read your post and I agree with you. There is something when we think it okay to treat some individuals like family while we eat other individuals for dinner.
Tim
There is such a disconnect, as I commented on in your previous post. My husband and I both had it. We see it still in our family and friends.
We have friends who, like we once did, eat and use all sorts of animals products but then will rant VERY strongly and angrily against people who abuse animals in other ways. I won’t even repeat here some of the words they’ve used to describe people who have neglected or outright tortured pets. They’ve even talked about how it’s sick what is done to many animals in the name of research. I’ve asked them, quite frankly, what the difference was between that and what they use animals for. That was…well, a bit awkward and I think we just finally had to let the subject go if we were to remain friends. And I do want to remain friends. I think they’re “good” people, and certainly good enough friends that they still want to see me after that, but they’re good people with a disconnect.
I’ve heard, too, people talk about how awful it is that people in other countries eat horses, dogs, cats, dolphins, whales, and even other primates. The topic came up at a family dinner once, even. And yes, I had to ask, “How is that any different?” (Yeah…I’m just loads of fun at dinner — though it’s rarely if ever me that actually brings these subjects up, I swear. I don’t mind talking about these things, but I know better than to bring up stuff like this over dinner.)
And then there are the lacto-ovo vegetarians who care enough about animals to point out to me that they only buy organic, cage-free eggs (which no doubt cost them more). I can see with them, too, that they do care — just not enough, I guess.
And that’s the problem. Even when these people are shown the connection, they usually have a hard time accepting it. Some people have no problem with it, to be sure. Some people will say, “I’m o.k. with animals dying so that I can eat them. I eat pork instead of dogs because I know I love pork and they don’t sell dogs at the grocery store.” But I think it’s almost encouraging that so many people get defensive, that they see something to be defensive about. But, how do you get people to make the connection when they just don’t want to? When they’d rather suppress the feeling that it’s wrong than have to change?
I had a conversation with my hairdresser this morning when me being vegan was mentioned. Of course immediately she defended her eating meat, she said I only eat meat once a week blah blah. Anyway she said that she had a friend who had a pet pig that she had known for a few years. They then killed it & served it for Christmas dinner. My hairdresser couldn’t eat it as it was abhorrant (her word not mine) to her that she should eat something with a personality & a face that she knew. I quietly explained that every pig in every stall on the planet has a pesonality & a face & they are no different.
Hi Sharron:
Thanks for sharing your story. Isn’t it amazing how easy it is to disconnect things in our minds? One pig is a pet, millions of pigs are just bacon and pork chops.
It’s fantastic that you were able to help educate someone today. You are making a difference!
Nice read. I too wish I learned about the cruel practices of factory farming while I was vegetarian. I was vegetarian for 23 years until I went vegan. Keep up the good vegan word!
Hi Roni!
Thank you for your comment. I had convinced myself for years that eating eggs and dairy products was not a problem because “no-one died” that I might eat those things. I was in denial and it’s good to be out of it.
tim
Dear Mr. Gier! Am thrilled and excited to see this blog post up again. As this course of moral debate here that you have very simply and artfully explained is indeed a very reason am vegan today. Yes after being a vegetarian for sixteen years, I could finally comprehend the imperative argument and reasoning behind the philosophical notion of veganism. I forever will remain grateful for that, as I celebrate my vegan anniversary on June 15th. (the day you wrote this blog post and have my mind change for me for good)
Thank you, wishing you success and continuum in your writings and inspirations. ’Write on’
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