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!