Racism, Vivisection, and Other Horrors on the U.T. Campus

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Ole Miss, THE most Confederate campus in the nation.

When I first toured the University of Texas I couldn't help but notice a pattern in the various statues of men that appeared on the main mall on campus. Most of the men enshrined in stone were either leaders, politically or militarily, of the Confederacy or other leaders, such as George Washington, who "as everyone who has visited his plantation knows, he was a slave owner (Slavery and U.T.?)" . At the time, I thought it a little ironic that these statues were here. What did Jefferson Davis exactly have to do with the University of Texas? Why was Woodrow Wilson, the most racist president in the 20th century, also enshrined?
As a student of history, I soon learned that all of these statues were erected about the same time, around the mid 1910's, the midst of Wilson's presidency and a time when the Confederacy was romanticized. And ever since I learned that, I gave it no more thought. The statues represent an unavoidable history of U.T., much as the proud statue of Martin Luther King Jr. represents another aspect of Texan and American history. Texas used to be in the confederacy. We don't wave rebel flags at our games like Ole Miss, but we will never escape our confederate and slave owning history. I'm not proud of it, but I am also not ignorant of the fact that people a hundred years ago WERE proud of it. And that's the way it is.http://www.acigawis.co.uk/vivisection.jpg
On the confines of my treasured 40 acres another issue is brought up. Animals are experimented on or undergo vivisection in a windowless building where "there is no easily recognizable sign outside (Dissecting Vivisection)." I like to think U.T. is fairly progressive in its endeavors, so to hear that the University engages in possible research describes as "an archaic holdover from a less sophisticated era (Spiegel 71)." So what are my opinions about these suffering animals and the potentially useless experiments which they are subjected to? Well to put it bluntly, I really do not care. These working in this lab have a purpose for their actions, they are not being paid to torture animals for no reason. So I walk past this bland, windowless building, aware of what goes on inside and completely ambivalent. Does this make me someone without a conscience, a care for other living things? Perhaps, but for now, I have finals and passing my classes to worry about, not some decapitated quails.

Animals and Slavery

Wrong.

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Slavery is one of the horrifically ironic aspects of America's early history. In Philadelphia, a group of old white men drafted documents promising freedom and equality for all members of American society. But at the same time, a hundred miles away in the same country, a black man was being forced to work in slavery simply because he was not white and he was from Africa. This dichotomy in taught was never to last, and eventually slavery was abolished, although the scars from this strange time still remain and effect the United States to this day.

So it is little surprise to me that people who regard our current treatment of animals as cruel and believe that animals as requiring many of the same basic rights we afford each other would compare slavery to animal rights issues. The claim is that slavery, specifically the enslavement of African in the United States, bears remarkable similarities to the way we treat animals for economic reasons. The belief is that animals have the right to not be treated as slaves, as objects, as commidites, in the same way that black have the right to not be treated in the same way.

Once again I am unmoved. My main point of contention? Black people were just that, black people. Not black non-humans, but black humans. What is so horrifying about slavery is that it was a system where human beings were willing to put OTHER human beings in such a horrifying system. Yes animals can feel pain, yes Blue the horse may have appeared "like a craze person (Course Anthology 317)," but does that mean they truly suffer like humans suffer? Was Blue aware of his enslavement, or was he simply distressed for an unexplainable reason? We may never know, but I find it a little hard to believe that Blue was dying of a broken heart, as Alice Walker (who I have immense respect for) believed so.

Not Wrong.

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I also disagree with Alice Walker in her claim that animals "were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men (Dreaded Comparison 14)." No I do not disagree with the statement on a factual basis. What I disagree with is the tone that Walker uses in her statement. Animals were not MADE for us, but we can still eat them if we want to, if they will provide for us nutritionally and economically. We cannot use black people as slaves because they are human beings as well. Nowhere in nature do animals use other animals of their own species for their own goals. Yes there is competition, even muder, but never slavery. That is why slavery is wrong: it goes against nature, humanity, and morality. Eating animals and using animal products does not go against nature...in fact, it is completely natural.

And that for me, in a nutshell, is why I will not even consider the "human and animal slavery" comparison.

11-19 Discussion

Just wanted to throw this video in there.

Do we have the right to treat animals however we want?

"Would you be able to call them “just animals” to their faces and ignore their suffering? The unfortunate answer is that this is what we do every day. We are faced with animal suffering, and we choose to ignore it" - Katherine

"It’s almost as if we are refusing to associate ourselves with those to which we belong because of some superiority complex. Maybe this is because there are so many differences between us and them." - Karisma

"Animals cannot mask their feelings, cannot hide their intentions. Do these traits make us human? If the answer is yes, I feel more ashamed than superior." - Maysie

"Regardless of whether you decide that animals are equal to humans, I feel that it's ridiculous that it took until I was 19 years old, in my freshman college english class, for me to become informed about exactly how speciesism is being acted out." - Lauren


How much do injustices towards our fellow humans reflect how we treat animals?

"Like the prisoners in the Stanford experiment, the girls are subjected to physically and “psychologically damaging situations” (Sadism website) early in their lives. As a result, they are “exploited as female body” (Anthology, 389). Women who endure this kind of treatment are viewed as no better than a dairy cow or a bulldog bitch." - Molly

"By blotting out the human like qualities in animals, we silence our conscience and allow ourselves to inflict pain." - Chris

"Language, in this way, proves that treating animals unjustly significantly affects our treatment of humans. Yet, “if our treatment and view of other animals became caring, respectful, and just, nonhuan-animal metaphors would quickly lose all power to demean,” and sexist words, sexism itself, would lose significance" - Helen

Do our higher cognitive abilities give us the right to treat animals however we want to?

"We are dominant; therefore we have full privileges in every arena involving animals. My primary argument to this is: SO WHAT?! So what if animals are on a “lower level” than us in terms of intelligence, so what if they don’t share our exact chromosomes?! It has been PROVEN for a majority of animal species that they have the capacity to feel pain, just like us. So what, because my dog cannot do my calculus homework or speak my language that gives me the right to beat him to a bloody pulp and skin him alive?" - Spin

Animals are just as capable of thinking and feeling as we are. They have shown incredible capabilities of acting humanely toward each other, as proved by the experiment involving macaque monkeys. It was shown that “87 percent preferred to go hungry rather than harm their fellow monkeys” when faced with the choice of eating at the price hurting the others." - Emily

How much power does language have in debasing other humans or animals?

"Dunayer notes that our language, whether we are aware of this or not, works as an agent in assigning social hierarchy" - Jade


"However, we consider animals to be inferior to us and use their names as derogatory terms. "- Hongrak

"These days, jokes are often made about women. However, I really don’t find them funny." - Emily
Are speciesism and sexism truly related?

"Much of this evil, this speciesism, has led to the use of nonhuman animal pejoratives targeted at women." - Helen

"As long as women anywhere are treated as animals, no woman will ever escape the intertwinement of speciesism and sexism. As long as cultures continue to inflict evil upon one another, humans will “‘remain unbridled beasts and will go on producing Hitlers and other monstrosities’” (Anthology, 377)." - Molly

"Regardless we can definitely point to our mistreatment of women and use it as a tool to avoid speciesism. We can use the degradation of our own species through sexism as a warning. Power leads to more power, and unchecked power leads to subservience, and subservience leads to suffering." - Chris (really like the Yoda-like sequence at the end there)

"Additionally, I can see where Dunayer is coming from when he discusses how the decreasing of speciesism can help to decrease sexism." - Emily

What accounts for mankind's capacity for evil and sadism?

"Peer pressure…I like to think this is the reason people can diverge from their naturally good-hearted tendencies." - Chris

"If we are capable of abject evil, we all have the potential for good. I do not think it is beneficial to dwell on the negatives. As I have said before, that engenders hopelessness and maybe even a tendency to accept that that is “just the way it is.”" - Katherine

"Unlike Costello, I feel that evil is nothing but humanity’s suppression of naturally good forces that exist within all of us. Let us work to embrace emotional intelligence and ultimately justice. If we put behind our own wants to embrace the needs of others, there is only room for good." - Chris

An animal rights issue I REALLY care about!

How we treat animals = how we treat people?

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One of the most contested aspects of the animal rights debate is about whether or not animals have the capacity to feel compassion on the same level as people, and in that regard how that should affect how we treat them. As I have said in different posts, I believe this topic of discourse to be irrelevant to the my main point, that we as the dominant species of this planet have the right to eat, wear, and do whatever we need to with animals.

And most people in our class and most people in general will agree with that sentiment. But what most people cannot bring themselves to accept is the enormous capacity for pain we as this dominant race are willing to inflict on animals in general. They do not deplore the steak on their plate, but they deplore the massive factory farms that lead to its creation. This is where the debate on whether or not animals have some of the same capacity for empathy and compassion as we do comes into place.

One of the many tactics used by animal rights advocates is to show the human being's capacity for evil, even towards his own species. The famous Stanford prison experiment of 1971 showed how normal, everyday undergraduates could be transformed into guards that "exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies (Sadism website)." The human capacity for evil is great indeed, and very frightening, but what exactly does this have to do with animals?

Many people would claim that by treating animals as horribly as we currently do will somehow translate to how we treat our fellow humans. They point to the Holocaust and slavery as examples of how, if we treat other humans as animals, our capacity for evil is greatly enhanced.

"How can animals look you in the face (Course Anthology 397)?," Derrida asks. Simply, it cannot. The slave-owners were wrong and Nazis were wrong because they were hurting members of their OWN species, as much as they refused to believe that. A pig is not a human, which is why such comparisons have the tendency to offend people. The belief that mistreating an animal can somehow lead to mistreating people holds little weight in that regard.

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A similarly misleading belief is represented in Dunayer's article where she argues that by insulting woman by calling them specific animals, we are devaluing both animals and woman. I disagree. We are simply ONLY devaluing women. "Cow verbally abuses women by identifying them with the abused cow (Course Anthology 390)" argues Dunayer. Exactly. A cow is not as intelligent, does not have the same moral capacity, does not have the same propensity to think in abstract manners, which is why this insult is so gross and debasing. But to argue that this somehow stems from a cruel lack of empathy is rather ill-founded in my opinion. Animals to animals on a societal basis does not lead to massive cruelty to fellow humans, and and this argument has little weight.

A Less Heated Look at Animal Rights

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Vegans, vegetarians, and proponents of the animal rights movement disagree with me on basic fundamental aspects of human being's relationships with animals. To me, a human being is the ultimate apex predator, a tropic level we rose to that enables us to do whatever we want to with animals. They have no say in what we do to them, positive or negative. A vegetarian who objects to eating animals based on moral reasons has, I believe, a skewed view of ethics and morality.

The animal kingdom (of which we humans belong to) is built upon the foundation of a complex web of inter species relationships. Some species are prey, some species are predators. That is the way it has been since the onset of life on this planet. Is is therefore unnecessary and useless to apply moral issues to the fact that we eat animals. Any animal exhibits pain and the will to live, but how much of that is a conscious feeling or simply instinctive reactions to specific situations? We will never know, and it will never actually matter in the web of life.

Morality only applies to interactions between human beings. Even before humans entered this world, the lion has always mercilessly stalked the zebra, the newly hatched chick of a sea bird has always pushed out its weaker siblings from its nest as their mother watched, the wasp has always layed its eggs in a spider as its offspring eat it alive. Nature has no room for morality when it comes to animals eating each other, and it never will.

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I'm not saying that people can have personal relationships with animals. Or that humans need inflict unnecessary pain on any animal. Ted Hughes beautiful description of a captive jaguar, whose worn down body is adorned by his head, which "is like the worn down stump of another whole jaguar. (Course Anthology 376)," sent shills down my spine. In fact, I've had many personal relationships with animals myself. But it in the same way that I have never once felt compassion for the terrorist our army mercilessly destroys, I will have no empathy for the cow who had to be slaughtered for the meat I eat for enjoyment and nourishment. The relationships I have with animals are different than the relationships I have with people. I care about Dimitri because I care for him, I am responsible for his well doing, and I think he's cute. But I would never for once consider him as being the same level as my family or deserving of the same treatment. If he was a random tortoise with no relationship to me, I would do nothing from preventing a fox from cracking his shell and eating him. That's how nature works, and I will do nothing to change it, and I value animals from a purely "elementary, unreflective level (Coetzee 110)."

Grumpy Ol' Jose, sitting in the corner, munching on some pork rinds

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If anyone read my last two blog posts, you would know that I started them off with disclaimers about my potentially offensive diatribes. I lead this post with the same warning. I am not trying to offend anyone in our class, or anyone outside of our class for that matter. I am simply stating my opinions as a rational human being, the most intelligent and powerful creature on this Earth.

Which leads me to my first point. Animals ARE inferior to people. Thus we have the right to eat them, hunt them, use them for clothing, test medicines or perform experiments on them that could be beneficial to human beings. The value of using animals in entertainment is slowly but surely losing supporters, including me. There is no reason to have elephants and tigers perform idiotic tricks that serve no purpose. I do believe the world would be a better place without Shamu or circuses, if only because they are completely unnecessary. Go on a safari or go whale watching. That is a much better alternative than seeing elephants stacked on top of each other.

But I digress. I still believe that eating animals is in no way a moral issue that human beings must face. There may be a day that animals are no longer needed to be killed for meat, a day when a cheaper, more healthy and tasty replacement for meat is found. But for now, I will look forward to crawfish season the same way I look forward to football season.

Eating animals is something that is necessary for my diet and something I enjoy doing. Plain and simple, and that will never change. I do not care how the food is prepared and I never will care. I also find comparisons between animal slaughters and mass murders such as the Holocaust asinine and should be prevented at all costs. Elizabeth Costello asks me to "pardon the tastelessness of the following" claim about Treblinka's similarity to a slaughter house (Coetzee 66). No, Elizabeth, I will not pardon you. Even if all of the 11 million people slaughtered by the Nazis in the "Good War" were able to pardon you, I would not. By pardoning you, I am entertaining the idea that somehow pigs are equal to human beings. I am not saying that you should not have the right to compare the Holocaust to animal slaughters. I am saying that I believe that your argument has no ounce of credibility when you bring up the holocaust, and I am personally offended.

And in the issue of clothing and scientific research. If researching and torturing animals (I will not dance around this word, what animals go through in those labs IS torture) can benefit even ONE human being, than it is worth it. That's all I have to say about that. But clothing is another issue. I do not agree with the practice of fur farming because it requires the use of wild animals for a wasteful and unnecessary industry. Plus, furs look f-ing stupid. But I do not at all have any moral qualms about wearing leather. Leather comes from cows, which are domesticated and anything but facing extinction. I do not care how it is made, as long as it is made. Leather makes for great boots and great belts, part of my everyday attire. I therefore have no reservations against the leather industry.

Animals will always be a big part of my life, that is without doubt. They feed me, they clothe me, they spark wonder and fascination with nature, and they wonderful to care for in specific situations. But I will never believe that animals have anything resembling the cognitive abilities of people. Doniger's interesting observations about animal language includes a thought provoking line: "[animals speak], and we refuse to grant them the dignity of listening to them. (Course Anthology 355)." This may be the case, but I will never think a dolphin will have anything relevant to say to me other than "Feed Me" or "Don't Hurt Me." A dolphin may wish to communicate to me that it wishes for me not to hurt it. But if the dolphin is tasty, nutritious, and has enough members in its fellow species that harming him would not endanger his species existence, than I will harm it without hesitation. I bring back the same analogy from my last post, does a dolphin EVER show sympathy or mercy for the thousands of fish it will inevitably kill in his life? No. As a fellow "Earthling," a fellow animal, how can anyone expect me to show mercy for a dolphin if I need to harm it for my personal benefit?
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I think one fascinating aspect of this discussion that I have not yet touched on is how I feel about eating dogs. Well to put it bluntly, I don't care at all. Dogs are loyal and fun, but they have been bred to be that way. Their ruthlessly efficient predator cousins, the wolf, is not nearly as loyal or charismatic (in most people's minds, to me wolves are beautiful example of evolution at its best: fierce, determined, powerful). Our society does not eat dogs simply because we view them as pets, and it would be strange indeed to eat animals which most members of our society share emotional ties with. But if another society somewhere in the world feels the need to raise dogs for consumption, I can say nothing about it. Indians can just as surely attack me for eating and wearing their sacred cows, so how could I attack a Korean for eating dog meat?

As disorganized and messy as this post was, I hope it helps explain my viewpoints. I also hope that anyone reading this appreciates my frankness and honesty. I do not care about animals I eat, wear, or benefit from experimentation on them. And I never will.

Respone to entirety of Earthlings.

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Watching this film in class, I was well aware that I was the minority in my opinions and how I was reacting to the entire film. I hope anyone who reads this is aware that I do not mean to offend or simply provide a contrary opinion because I find some sort of pleasure in doing these things. I am giving my honest reactions to this film and how I feel about animal rights.

I decided to wait until I saw all of Earthlings before I decided to respond to it. I went into this film having seen select parts on the internet (namely the fur trade section) so I was well prepared for the graphic images that were to come. I had also spent much time viewing videos on websites such as PETA about animal rights abuses (some, like the cows hanging with their throats slit, were recycled into this film), so the graphic nature of the film did not affect me very much.

I finished the viewing feeling surprisingly unmoved by what I had just seen over these last two class days. It was evident that many of my classmates were deeply moved by what they had seen. It was testament to the power of images and media in eliciting certain emotions in people. But I left the classroom completely unaffected, and I hope to explain why in this post.

In a similar response to our class's trip to the PETA stand on campus, I did not agree with many of the basic messages the movie was trying to send. I do not, and never will, consider animals equal to humans and am a self proclaimed "speciesist" (which according to the Microsoft Word is a word that does not exist) and have no moral reservations about it. I do not care in the slightest how my food is prepared, as long as it is tasty and will not make me sick. This may sound astonishingly harsh to someone who had just seen the disturbing and graphic images of this film. But I feel that anyone who lives in our modern society, eats meat, and thinks nothing about it shares the same opinion as me. If they say otherwise (especially after seeing this film), they are truly, and sadly, lying to themselves. They do not care about how food is prepared and they never will.

I still think it is important for people to see this film however. I agree with some issues that the film brings up, like how factory farming can lead to serious pollution and disease epidemics, but this is a completely separate issue from whether or not the animals should suffer. If someone makes the commitment to eat meat or use animal products or go to zoos and circuses, they must be aware of the suffering that animals go through in all these industries. It is than up to them to respond appropriatly. If one were to see this film, deplore the suffering they see, than head to Chick-fil-A after wards, they are hopelessly lost on where they stand on any animal rights issues.

Besides my lack of concern for animal rights, one of the main reasons I was not moved by this movie was because I disagreed with how the movie was put together. Frankly, in a simply critical analysis of the film, I felt that it too often appealed to people's weak emotions rather than stating real and concrete concerns about animal rights, and the film was hopelessly disorganized.http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3046/3049364690_6a110a267e_o.jpg

The moment I realized that I was at odds with what the film was trying to tell me was the scene of the Japanese dolphin slaughter (again, images and movies of which I had seen many times in my life before). The narrator, to a background of convulsing and dying dolphins, states "these are benign, innocent creatures, and they deserve better." At this moment, I began shaking in anger and quickly scribbled "HOW ARE DOLPHINS INNOCENT OR 'BENIGN'"? One of the main tenets of the film was that humans do not have the right to consider other animals as inferior and such we do not have the right to harm them. At the same time, we cannot apply human morality rules to animal behavior and cannot use the excuse that just because animals sometimes treat other animals just as callously as we do it does not give us an excuse to harm them. But "Earthlings" will not hesitate to call a dolphin "innocent" or "benign" using the same descriptions of morality that we are not allowed to apply to them in order to justify harming them. If you are going to consider a dolphin an innocent creature, than I have the right to ask: Would a fish who lost his entire family to a dolphin consider dolphins innocent or benign? Probably not. But fish aren't cute and can't do awesome tricks, so who cares, right?

The point I am trying to make here is that it is unfair to apply human emotional and moral attachments to animals, when it is natural for animals to consume and harm one another. I do no agree with the dolphin hunt from a PURELY conservation standpoint: it is simply not sustainable to kill that many dolphins every year. But if dolphins were as numerous and easy breeding as, say, deer, than I would have no obligations with this hunt. Animals will always be killed for the benefit of another species of animals. Always.

As the final montage of animals living out their lives in peace, away from the clutches of the tyrannical human race, I began to notice an interesting trend. Barely ANY of the animals shown were anything other than warm-blooded birds and mammals. Why? Don't reptiles, fish, and invertebrates have the same right to not be harmed as mammals and birds. According to Earthlings, yes, but at the same time the film producers are not above to appealing to people's sympathy with cuter and more beautiful animals than, say, the common house fly. Who cares if a fly gets zapped, right? They're just useless germ spreaders. But when a horse gets slaughtered for its meat, it is a crime against nature.

So I leave Earthlings steadfast in my opinions regarding animals. I still love studying and learning about animals, and love my pet tortoise Dimitri more than anything in the world. But I am aware he is just a turtle, and that's all he ever will be. He means something to me because I have invested a relationship with him. If I did not consider him a pet and if he were as tasty as pork, there probably not be much stopping me from firing up some turtle soup, as heartless as that may sound. I will never understand the point Earthlings was trying to make by showing long graphic videos of what goes on in animal industries. It serves no purpose, and to someone like me who does not have a weak stomach and is confident in his feeling towards the meat, fur, leather, medical, and animal entertainment industry, it is hardly an effective tool to make me change my opinions.

Compassion, Empathy, and Sympathy

There are many words for the different emotional responses that human beings have towards one another. Empathy, sympathy, and compassion are just a few of these responses that define human interactions with one another and with other living thing. In many ways, the ability to empathize, sympathize are strictly human traits, while at the same time it is difficult to acertain if these traits are what truly makes one "human."
One of the most interesting aspects of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" is the question of what truly makes on human. Phillip Dick contends that is the ability to feel compassion and empathize with other beings is and integral part of the human condition. In the dystopian future, Androids are judged upon their ability the feel compassion for animals and humans alike. But technology has advanced so much that fake humans and animals are almost indistinguishable from the real thing, as Milt points out, "with those disease circuits they're building into the new ones!" (Dick, Chapter 7) It raises an interesting dillemma, one that modern man rarely has to deal save for specific situations.
One of these situations is in the form of the difficult issue of people with certain defects that can render them virtually lifeless vegetables, completely dependent on others to survive. Is it fair to consider these people "human"? In many ways, they share traits with the androids of Dick's future world, the inability to express compassion or even emotions, not because they're not programmed to, but their physical and mental disabilities prevent them from being able to. But in most circumstances, most people would find it despicable to treat these individuals as anything less than human, and the only time anyone would find it ok to allow these individuals to die would be out of an empathic justification that death is a less painful and more humane existence than the one they have now.
So what is about these people that provokes empathetic emotions from others? I truly believe it is because as fellow human beings we can see ourselves in these people. Any simple genetic defect or disease could reduce us to the same state as them, so they deserve nothing but the upmost respect that we afford other human beings. They are equal in our eyes, as they HAVE the innate ability to empathize like us, but simply cannot because of a defect. Androids on the other hand, have no such ability and will never have such an ability. They are machines created by mankind and their emotions and behaviors have been prescribed by humans, whether intentional or not.
It is this fundamental difference that also applies somewhat to animals. While androids are a unique circumstance that we as humans have not yet had to deal with, our interactions with animals are a daily occurrence in our lives. Most people are not entirely certain if animals have the ability to feel for others, to see themselves in others, or to feel anything resembling compassion other than other members of their own species, which may simply be instinctive behavior that they do not fully process. Animals, unlike the theoretical android, cannot speak and thus it may be easier for humans to brush them off as emotionless or feeling-less. If one is to believe this, it is much easier to treat animals as nothing else other than food, target practice, or entertainment. It is in many ways a similar concenpt to the idea that "one effective mode of persuasion in the arts and humanities is the history of a person, for the history of a few specific people may call forth more of a genuine reaction than endless summaries of statistics about millions of people in general." (Abstractions website)
I personally believe that animals do not have the ability to empathize, to feel for others, or to sympathize, to be "affected by the suffering or sorrow of another (Course Anthology 274N)" in the same vein as human beings. Therefore, they do not have the same rights as human beings. At the same time, I do believe that animals have the ability to suffer, and thus is I believe it is important that we as an empathetic and intelligent species do our best to reduce suffering in all walks of life. Does that mean I'm going to put down my juicy angus steak burger anytime soon? Well, you're going to have to convince my taste-buds that the potential suffering of a cow is not worth the deliciousness. And that's a battle I do not think anyone will be able to win.