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I think there's a common contradictory mode of thinking that animals are treated better than people but also quite rightly realizing that whenever people are called animals, that's a sign the people doing that are up for committing terrible atrocities against those they've labelled as such. This is because, in fact, it is generally not considered wrong to perform those same actions on animals.
Now, what this says to me as a vegan, is that there are many people out there who largely don't care about others, human or not. People eat animals all the time, experiment on them, kill, torture, or maim them for knowledge or sport or amusement. And while in the current era it seems cannibalism is not so common, all the other horrors we visit on animals we also visit upon each other with great frequency.
Even the most cruel often like to imagine that they could never find it acceptable to treat other human beings the way that other animals are routinely treated. But of course the truth is another matter. So they simply change their definition of human. Those it is acceptable to commit atrocities on become animals to them precisely because those behaviors are considered acceptable to enact on animals in general, even if they may have a few favorites they treat well.
There is no special beneficence that humans grant non-human animals. It is simply the case that those special rights that are sometimes imagined to be granted to all of humanity are not accorded to them, either.
Humans have slaughtered more animals than they have ever loved. For every beloved pet that someone will die for, there are countless other animals that will be slaughtered, experimented on, that will never experience comfort or a loving hand from us. The existence of those occassional moments of kindness or devotion, of the pampered lives of the fortunate few, do not negate the considerably more common brutality visited upon them by humanity.
Every time people are dehumanized, I see the same justifications used to kill, torture and maim them that I see used to justify such treatment for animals. Because by the ethics that most hold, humanity must see themselves as separate from nature, from other animals, in order to be worth being treated as something other than objects, as something other than things to be destroyed or discarded at will. I think none of us are free until all of us are.
Now, what this says to me as a vegan, is that there are many people out there who largely don't care about others, human or not. People eat animals all the time, experiment on them, kill, torture, or maim them for knowledge or sport or amusement. And while in the current era it seems cannibalism is not so common, all the other horrors we visit on animals we also visit upon each other with great frequency.
Even the most cruel often like to imagine that they could never find it acceptable to treat other human beings the way that other animals are routinely treated. But of course the truth is another matter. So they simply change their definition of human. Those it is acceptable to commit atrocities on become animals to them precisely because those behaviors are considered acceptable to enact on animals in general, even if they may have a few favorites they treat well.
There is no special beneficence that humans grant non-human animals. It is simply the case that those special rights that are sometimes imagined to be granted to all of humanity are not accorded to them, either.
Humans have slaughtered more animals than they have ever loved. For every beloved pet that someone will die for, there are countless other animals that will be slaughtered, experimented on, that will never experience comfort or a loving hand from us. The existence of those occassional moments of kindness or devotion, of the pampered lives of the fortunate few, do not negate the considerably more common brutality visited upon them by humanity.
Every time people are dehumanized, I see the same justifications used to kill, torture and maim them that I see used to justify such treatment for animals. Because by the ethics that most hold, humanity must see themselves as separate from nature, from other animals, in order to be worth being treated as something other than objects, as something other than things to be destroyed or discarded at will. I think none of us are free until all of us are.