Lesson 8
This homework assignment sucks. Mostly because of the page restrictions (2-3 pgs). I couldn’t go into great depth or define things things as deeply as I would have liked. On that note, please don’t flame me until you’ve read and understood everything that I’ve written (ask me questions before jumping to assumptions). To my vegan and vegetarian friends: this is not a smack in the face to you. I hold no disrespect to you for your choice. These are simply my opinions.
The instructor (or the question I chose) deals with the rights of animals (as in, do we eat them, use them for clothing, hurt them for pleasure, etc?). She wanted us to give our two cents on the subject.
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When you’re young, the world is an adventure. Children show off humanity’s curiosity in the oddest of ways — catch a grasshopper or pull up a flower; examine it in anyway possible, which usually required observation with dissection. As we grow older, we become more sensitive to the things around us. We move away from our, then “barbaric”, acts of exploring the world. With this growth — this new revelation — we have to ask ourselves: where do we fit in the grand scheme of things?
Animal cruelty and the rights of animals has always been a heavily debated topic. Do animals have rights? Should we eat animals? Use them for clothing? Peter Singer doesn’t think we’ve a right to treat animals the way we do. Then again, it is clear from one of many essays that he has written on the subject that we should become vegan and repress our natural instincts. Our natural instincts date back to our ancestors. Our ancestors hunted for their meat and gathered their food. Meat was a necessity for survival. It certainly could feed a family longer than gathered fruits and vegetables.
While some of Singer’s points are valid in the area of animal cruelty, I do not agree with him when it comes to using animals as a means to an end. By science, humans are omnivores. What is an omnivore? An omnivore is a creature who must eat both meat and plant in order to survive. Yes, it’s proven that a person can substitute the need for meat with soy products. However, this isn’t that great healthy solution everyone thinks it is. Over consumption of soy products can cause digestive problems later in life. It also affects the thyroid, which can lead to involuntary weight gain and a sluggish physical life (Daily Health News). Some individuals who turn to vegetarianism have such an imbalance in nutrient that their skin turns yellow, their bones brittle, and they have no meat on them causing them to look like unhealthy toothpicks. Surely, by these simple observations, eating just plants cannot possibly be the solution to decreasing animal cruelty.
As it is, if vegetarians are so concerned about meat eaters, then shouldn’t they be concerned about eating plants? Aren’t plants sentient creatures just like animals? Granted they cannot cry out distress or move about on their own, they have natural instincts (to grow and reproduce) and provide an important role in our ecological system – just as animals do. Thomas E. Hill believes that by saving plants, we save animals as well. By not tearing down our rainforests, by not turning that front lawn into an asphalt eyesore, we are helping everyone: nonhuman and human. It’s been scientifically proven that plants provide the valuable exchange between carbon dioxide and oxygen. Oxygen is so valuable; I have to wonder if we shouldn’t ban the eating of plants! I think I would rather be able to breathe air than be concerned about wrongly eating animals. The defining question raised then is what defines a sentient being?
The main requirement for living is the need to survive. Both plants and animals demonstrate this — animals by the need to reproduce and eat, plants by the need to absorb nutrients from soil and spread. Do we not find ourselves in a catch 22 then? By giving up one thing, in favor of another, can prove just as harmful as keeping both things. Everything connects to form a balance, which helps the world function. By neglecting one part of the world by increasing the consumption of another (more plants than animals), we find that the balance becomes upset. Therefore, by denying our natural instinct to eat meat, we cause another thing or sentient being if you will have it, to suffer.
This is not to say that being vegan or vegetarian is bad. Animal cruelty, however, should be the concern, not whether or not humans should eat animals. Testing products like make up, drugs, shampoos, etc on animals is wrong. Keeping beef cows pinned in a stall so they can’t move is wrong. Puppy farms and kitten farms are wrong. Stomping on chickens to kill them is wrong. Finding the alley cat and trying to light him on fire is wrong. Not eating meat isn’t going to solve the above listed problems. If anything, the controversy over to be a veggie verse a carnivore overshadows these more horrendous acts of cruelty, since most will look to it as an escape goat before they’ll openly admit their son/daughter likes to kick stray dogs.
What is the solution or the middle ground? Where is the impartial median that lets everybody do his or her thing? The answer is not that simple. However, one thing is for certain. Out of all the sentient beings on the planet, humans are quite clearly the superior species in terms of technology, creativity, and thinking. We are destroyers and builders. Our actions and decisions are what cause future solutions or problems. As the superior species, we have a responsibility not to ourselves, but to everything: plant and animal alike. This responsibility should be taken into consideration when it comes to deciding how to solve the problem of animal cruelty or even protecting our environment.
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Edited Thursday 11:09am: I didn’t realize that blogger had messed up my dashes and apostophees (sp?). I’ve fixed that and my apologies. It looked fine last night when I posted it.