The folks over at The Center for Consumer Freedom could be considered the sworn enemies of activist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
In a post on their site entitled “Adventures in Food Choice”, CCF defends a veterinarian’s choice to eat meat and in turn condemns the PETA/vegan crowd that criticizes “hypocritical” meat-eaters like her. The main point of the commentary is that animal rights activists don’t understand why their philosophy isn’t very widely accepted, which may be why some more… devoted adherents turn to violence.
In essence, I agree with the writer, groan-inducing closing wordplay aside. However, I want to take a bit of a deductive journey and I’d like you to come along with me.
The goal for most animal rights organizations is for humans to treat animals with dignity, and for many advocates, that means for humans to refrain from using animals for purposes that can include animal exhibitions (circuses, zoos, etc.), scientific experimentation and pet ownership.
What groups like PETA are arguably best-known and, in many ways, infamous for, though, are their campaigns and arguments against eating meat.
PETA in particular maintains websites and holds demonstrations that focus on how restaurants like McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken treat animals. However, if they want people not to eat meat at all, railing on the cruelty of the means of killing is disingenuous. In other words, PETA doesn’t want us to shun Ronald and the Colonel because they are cruel to animals in comparison to farms that “humanely” raise animals for slaughter, PETA wants us to not eat at those places because they serve meat. This is easily proven by their well-known and, in quite a big way, infamous “Save the Whales” campaign.
For the sake of argument, let’s take carnivorous and omnivorous humans out of the equation. In fact, if you’d like, we can pretend humans don’t exist at all. Bears would still eat fish, lions would still hunt gazelles and snakes would still make meals out of small rodents. If animal lives are equal to human lives no matter the size, then (actual) whales are worse than humans as they eat millions of plankton per day, and if it wasn’t for whaling, their population would be much greater. Of course, those additional whales would likely be prey for animals such as the orca (which, if you look at its hunting prowess, is an animal even Ted Nugent could love).
In short, even in a world without humans, animals would still be killed and eaten by other animals.
PETA and their fellow animal rights advocates believe that humans are no better than other living creatures. However, if we as humans are indeed equal to other animals, and if other animals eat meat, there is no logical reason humans shouldn’t. On the other hand, if humans are supposed to refrain from meat consumption (and animal testing and all those other “exploitations”) out of empathy, then humans are greater than other animals due to the ability to be compassionate, and the argument that humans as a species are no different than any other living creature falls flat. They can’t have it both ways. Analysis, Commentary food, individual rights
Here’s the problem for me – life is life, and elevating one form of it above another, whether it be human, animal or plant, requires some stretch of logic. You cannot empirically prove that humans are better than, say, cows, unless you bring some sort of belief (or even religious) system into the mix. Saying that humans are greater than animals because we have empathy assumes the answer that the emotion of empathy makes something “great.” There’s just no way to do it, and I’ve tried.
So I can only come to the conclusion that life, in and of itself, is not sacred, not even human life. I’m sure that doesn’t make sense, but think about it. There’s no great force that protects us, even if we pray for the preservation of life, and the very fact that we continue living means that something else has to die to sustain us.
As someone who loves animals as much as anybody in PETA, it’s hard for me to deal with the existence of the meat industry, animal testing, hunting, overcrowded animal shelters, etc., but I understand that these things exist and that millions of animals experience cruelty and there’s nothing I can do about it. Even hating it is a complete waste of time.
Gee, Marcus, thanks for getting me all depressed. Maybe your next blog entry should be on the subject of abortion – you know, something light.
I’m actually not making an argument about my belief of the sacredness or mundaneness of life in any form. My point was that animal rights activists want us to treat (other) animals as equals by a quality that most animals would not (and cannot?) extend to us or other living creatures. Whether empathy makes us greater or not is also irrelevant; PETA, vegans and their ilk believe it should. And when I use what they espouse to attempt to reach the conclusions about the relations between humankind and (the rest of) the animal kingdom, the belief fails.
I agree with you on life for reasons I probably will never explore on this blog (I’m pretty sure I never want to go to deeply into religion here) for whatever that may be worth, but again, that wasn’t my point.
I must say that you made this topic more depressing than I did, so don’t blame me.