Karen Dawn on Animal Issues v Human Issues
Even somebody who does nothing to end human hunger wouldn’t justify his apathy by telling relief workers that there are more important things to worry about. That’s because society as a whole acknowledges that human suffering matters. Animal suffering, however, is treated as trivial, even as billions of beings endure unimaginable institutionalized cruelty. To those touched by the suffering of animals, the injustice of the suggestion that animals just don’t matter is a call to action.
The question, moreover, is based on a faulty premise. It suggests that compassion is like a pie we must divide into parts, and that if we offer big pieces to some, others will get left with slivers. But compassion is not some sort of finite substance that might run out. It is more like a habit we get better at as we practice, and the animals are a good place to start exercising it -- for their sake and for ours. George Angell, the founder of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, put it well when asked why he focused on kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to people in the world. He said, "I am working at the roots."
Compassion and cruelty are not species-specific. Most of us have heard that serial killers usually start by killing animals. The same compulsion drives the killer’s behavior when he moves on to humans; the urge to hurt just becomes so strong that it outweighs societal norms and fears of legal retribution. So it is with less active cruelty, with the closing of our hearts that has us sit by as others suffer. The compassion shutdown switch that allows us to chew pieces of veal while blocking out thoughts of baby calves alone in crates is the same switch that guides us to change TV channels away from news of children starving in Darfur. We don’t want the images to hamper the taste of the meat or our enjoyment of the wine we are drinking, a bottle of which costs more than it costs to feed a child in Darfur for a month. When we disengage that switch, when we get out of the habit of closing our hearts, the world will be better for the calves and the kids.
The question, moreover, is based on a faulty premise. It suggests that compassion is like a pie we must divide into parts, and that if we offer big pieces to some, others will get left with slivers. But compassion is not some sort of finite substance that might run out. It is more like a habit we get better at as we practice, and the animals are a good place to start exercising it -- for their sake and for ours. George Angell, the founder of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, put it well when asked why he focused on kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to people in the world. He said, "I am working at the roots."
Compassion and cruelty are not species-specific. Most of us have heard that serial killers usually start by killing animals. The same compulsion drives the killer’s behavior when he moves on to humans; the urge to hurt just becomes so strong that it outweighs societal norms and fears of legal retribution. So it is with less active cruelty, with the closing of our hearts that has us sit by as others suffer. The compassion shutdown switch that allows us to chew pieces of veal while blocking out thoughts of baby calves alone in crates is the same switch that guides us to change TV channels away from news of children starving in Darfur. We don’t want the images to hamper the taste of the meat or our enjoyment of the wine we are drinking, a bottle of which costs more than it costs to feed a child in Darfur for a month. When we disengage that switch, when we get out of the habit of closing our hearts, the world will be better for the calves and the kids.
posted by Cape Cat at 2:33 PM
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