ReedyBear's Blog

Our double standards about animal cruelty

Most of us are strongly opposed to animal cruelty. Some are more in a grey area where it's okay to hit your animal as punishment to get them to behave how you want them to behave. I find this cruel, but I understand we're not all on the same page on that.

But I think we generally agree that it's not okay to just be cruel to animals, especially without a clear purpose. Dog fighting is banned in the U.S. and people go to prison for it. When a mistreated dog makes local news, there is outrage on Facebook.

People want to punish those who harm animals.

But that line stops hard for most people at pet-animals or other non-food animals. I remember the outrage around the "horse meat at burger king" rumor (which I think was partially true from one meat supplier), and there was (manufactured) national outrage when (false) accusations of cat-consumption were widely spread.

But why horses and not chickens or cows? Why your dog or cat, but not pigs or fish?

For me, it's really just comes down to compartmentalization and just, like, allowing a big empty spot where empathy could lie. It's perhaps that same empty-space that allows me to consume horrible news without shedding a tear - yes they dropped bombs today, yes I think it's horrible and should stop, no I'm not going to shed a single tear.

That refusal to feel was broken for me after I watched Cow, a nearly wordless documentary film about the life of a dairy cow named Luma.

Maybe part of it is that I didn't know. I didn't want to know. And I saw it all as sort of a necessary evil.

"Well we need to put animals in these conditions so we can feed the billions of people on the planet."

Except it's not about nutrition, for the most part. Did you know cows are vegan? And even Black & Brown Bears eat 80% plants. Lots of humans live entirely on plants or primarily on plants.

The thing that keeps us eating meat is a combination of our habits, cultures, cooking skills, and most significantly - personal pleasure.

It's easy to justify causing harm to an animal when that harm is literally the way that you survive. I have a lot of respect for this view, and some of us have to take medications derived from animals or completely lack access to plant-based proteins. We (people) are animals. We do need food to survive. There are many many free (undomesticated) animals that kill and eat other animals. I accept this as part of the cycle of life, and I accept that we humans are part of that cycle too. And in that vein, I'm not actually opposed to hunting - as long as the animals are not over-hunted and they are allowed freedom throughout their life.

But eating meat isn't about your nutrition. Its primary nutritional benefit is protein, which is not as abundant in plant foods, but is still readily available through beans, legumes, nuts, soy, and various other sources. Some things may require supplements like Vitamin B12, but there are plant-based sources for these too. You, personally, may not know how to get your protein from non-meat sources. But you probably know that you can learn.

I bet your biggest reason for eating meat is that you like it. You just like how it tastes. If you didn't, I bet you would learn how to cook without meat very quickly.

I want you to realize that animal agriculture is cruel. Some of this requires education. But it also requires you to accept that you're part of the problem. When a cow is restrained and its skull is burned to prevent horns from growing - this is so you can eat a cow. When cows are kept in cages where they breathe toxic air and develop respiratory problems, where they are afforded no freedoms, where they are regularly forced into pens barely large enough to fit them - this is so you can drink their milk.

It's not because you can't get the nutrients anywhere else. It's because you like cow milk and you like cow flesh. But these cows (& chickens & pigs etc) are living creatures capable of suffering, forced into very restrictive lives so that you don't have to learn how to cook with plants, and so that you can experience the pleasure of their flesh.

It's popular in culture to rag on vegans for how mean or judgemental we are, about how we just won't shut up and let you be.

But how would you act if everyone you knew were eating cats and dogs? Or if everyone you knew were eating human flesh? Would it be "right" to shut up and let them be? Or would you be repulsed every single time you sat down for a meal with them? Would you let them gaslight you into thinking YOU'RE the bad one for being upset?

I'm not asking you to overcome your double-standard today - it takes time. But I do want you to see it, recognize it, and own the fact that you are directly responsible for cruelty to animals every single time you eat meat or dairy or eggs or any other animal byproduct like gelatin-based gummies. I want you to realize that the lines you draw between pets and non-pets are arbitrary, and is just a sort of permission-structure you create for yourself so you don't take responsibility for the harm you cause to animals.

It's the same permission structure when we say "I'm just doing my job" to justify doing something we don't agree with.

No, I'm not innocent. I ate meat for the majority of my life. I'm 33 now and I was only convinced by the animal-cruelty perspective in the last 6 months. But to be honest, I wish more people had talked to me about this, in a serious way, long long ago.

If you're going to continue participating in the mass-cruelty against animals, you should at least watch some films or read some books or articles and know what it is you're participating in. If you're going to choose cruelty, it should at least be an informed choice.


Animals

#animals