In Jeremy Rifkin article, A Change of Heart about Animals, he believes animals should have rights in the constitution. That they should be protected and that we should acknowledge that animals do feel pain and have emotions just like humans. He presents his argument by using a variety of experiments. I understand that we harm animals and let’s face it we don’t take their emotion and pain into consideration as much when we are eating delicious food and devouring our faces into wonderfulness. We are humans trying to survive. But, at times we do take into consideration on animal’s pains and emotions when it’s OUR pet. We treat our pets like royalty, protect them, and talk to them like they are humans. If it’s not a meal to eat we care more for the animal. But if it’s providing us food and allowing us to live our views are differently on the animal. In my opinion, I believe the way the animals benefits us is the way we treat it. I think we should just be more aware on how we treat animals and not use them for foolish tests. Be more cautious and aware of what we are doing to the animal and acknowledging what we are putting the animal through. Realizing if it’s worth it or even reasonable. In one of Rifkins experiment, it was about a pig needing 20 seconds of play time and human interaction. When I first read it I thought it was hilarious. 20 seconds. That is ridiculous an actual kid would need an hour or more of playtime to keep a kid happy. That is where an animal and human are different. A human needs much more attention and have more needs than an animal. The second experiment that surprised me the most was the gorilla Koko. It’s crazy how smart that gorilla is. I would have never expected that from an animal. I knew animals can understand but never figured their brain development is just like ours. (Not saying we have the same brain, but rather the processes of learning). It is amazing, to see that Koko was able to learn several English words and learned how to sign more than a thousand sign. I guess they can be like us; just those animals are special and unique. Lastly, I guess we don’t really care when we kill an animal because the animal kingdom does the same. They kill their pray in order to survive I don’t think they would be aware of the difference of killing an animal and a human being. Their mind is not developed to see the difference. They just see human and animals as food (meat) and they would do anything in order to survive. So why can’t we do the same without having activist getting all crazy about us hurting an animal if the animal does the same thing.
I agree with you on this topic as well. The reason we eat animals and use them for experimentation is for our survival. Which is the same reason why they hunt other animals. We should give them the benefit of the doubt because most animals are not aware that they are physically hurting another animal because they just see them as a meal. And yes I do treat my dog with royalty because I do see her as another member of the family. So I feel hypocritical eating a cow, yet putting my dog on a pedestal. And we humans are more needy than most animals. Like you said the pig only needs 20 seconds of attention, yet we need a lot longer than that to be satisfied. I think animal brains vary when it comes to comparing theirs and ours. Some, like the gorilla, are just like ours but some are very different than ours. In conclusion I believe that as long as we are using the animals for survival purposes then it is okay, because like you said they are doing to same. We just need to be more cautious of the animals feelings and treat them with more respect.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with what you said. Experimenting on animals other than for the purpose of finding a cure or surviving is wrong. All pet owners know that their animal feels emotion, and I would like to believe that other animals (typically not considered as pets) feel emotion as well. Plus, the articles we read give examples of some that do. Whether they are conscious of their emotions is another story. But in any case people should be considerate of them.
ReplyDelete