Pet the dog, eat the cow: Our confused relationship with animals

[flvegan]

By Crispin Sartwell
The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Michael Vick dogfighting case, and all of the attention on dogfighting and its attendant practices, show one thing very clearly: As a society, we have no idea what we think about animals. We don't know how much we ought to take them into account, morally. We don't even know how to figure it out.

I watched cable news recently, and almost every anchor interviewed an official of the Humane Society, and all expressed horror, especially that Vick's indictment had accused him and his fellow defendants of executing dogs in ways apparently designed to be as cruel as possible: drowning, strangling, electrocution. One official compared the practice to child pornography.

Then I went into town for some lunch, driving past all of the franchises peddling ground cow for human consumption - the same ones you'll find on every American highway exit.

If killing dogs is the equivalent of child pornography, while eating cows is simply a way to put off mowing the lawn, we seem to be conflicted - or reeking with hypocrisy and confusion.

CRISPIN SARTWELL teaches philosophy at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. He wrote this for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

More at link:
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_6482566

[Robeson]

1. That's a great piece. Though we veggies have always talked about the ....

...moral equivalency between the two, it's very heartening to see that the same arguments are now openly discussed in a major media outlet. Honestly, that's a brave newspaper to allow that much ink to the topic, considering how much that viewpoint must piss off sponsors and readers.

[JudyM]

2. When will more people get it...? Thanks for posting this, it gives some hope... n/t

[idgiehkt]

3. I think these arguments can be circular, though

Cows don't fight each other to the death. I think we should fight for humane confinement, transport and slaughter of food animals, that will happen a lot quicker than converting the world to vegetarianism. There is no reason on this earth why food animals can't be humanely raised, transported, and slaughtered...except for the bottom line. The food animal industry is an industry of suffering, but unlike the dog-fighting industry, the suffering can be greatly lessened, it is not inseparable from it like dog-fighting is. In dog fighting the suffering *is* the industry. I agree it's better to abstain but I do not think that someone who objects to animal fighting while eating meat is a hypocrite to the degree that some would like to believe. That argument strikes me as really disingenuous and an attempt to muddy the waters so the issue can't even be discussed.

[flvegan]

4. Fact is

if dogs and cats at the local shelter were offed after being kept in factory farm-like conditions via captive bolt gun, there would be outrage like none seen before. Little lab puppies blasted in the head? Little kittens kept in cages 4" x 4" 3 at a time? You'd not have enough black ski masks in stock to sell.

I see what you're saying, and I agree in part. However, the point is that there's a disconnect. It's not the person that's the hypocrite, it's the argument that they might make that's hypocritical.

[idgiehkt]

5. yeah

true. I see the disconnect, I just think that for people who don't think about this much, to hit them with these kinds of arguments confuses their emotional reaction to what is clearly gratuitious cruelty, and I'm afraid that some of them shut down their thinking about it rather than explore it further, which may be the point...I know this is a common tactic of those CCF types.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. i think food and sport are very different things.

many animals eat other animals, but how many play sports with other animals?

[flvegan]

7. You're right

many animals do eat other animals, solely out of need...survival. Let me know how humans, en masse, play into that, k?

Thanks.