Why is it that just about everywhere you look, someone is commiting an act of animal cruelty? Is it inherent; an evolution of the hunter instinct of our ancestors? Because it seems as though that from childhood, we are taught subliminally to mistreat animals: to eat their flesh, to wear their pelts, to take them from their natural environments and use them as slaves, or merely another entartainment medium (such as a circus, a zoo). Why do we do it people, and what will it take to end the suffering?
Discuss
HerbieP on May 1, 2008, 11:13 AM
We are essentially tribal hunter gatherers. We have developed altruism from the gene survival benefits of supporting the family and tribe. Why should we extend it to other species?
Aaron Vallis on May 2, 2008, 12:21 PM
Our hunter/gatherer ancestors had no choice but to hunt animals, I understand that. I also understand that at the same time, they had a great deal of respect for these animals (if cave paintings and egyptian mythology are any indication) and made good use of meat, pelts, and bones. So then why, why nowadays do we skin foxes and minks alive on fur farms, then leave the corpses to rot? Why do we isolate pigs into factory farms, where they spend two years before an inhumane slaughter? Why, in Spain, are bulls beaten and stabbed in a show of mass entertainment before a public execution? I understand that being speceists, we will never extend the same support to animals which we give to our family and friends, but surely no being, whether a rat or a pig or a dog or a boy, truly deserves the sort of treatment with which we subject animals.
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