Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:10:54 -0400
From: Brenda Denzler
Subject: FW: Animals don’t know….?
Jeanne,
Don’t underestimate what animals perceive. (1) If animals truly didn’t know what was going on *at some point* during the slaughtering process, why the need for Dr. Temple Grandin’s services to design more humane slaughter facilities? Yet her services have indeed been very much in demand. (2) Grandin herself speaks very eloquently to the issue of animal sentience. See her *Animals in Translation* or several of the chapters in her *Thinking in Pictures.* (3) Check out Dr. Marc Bekoff’s *The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy — and Why They Matter*. Bekoff is an ethologist.
On a purely physical level, there is a scale of increasing sentience among living creatures. I won’t speak to the issues of the microorganisms beneath our feet (yes, I was aware of that) or the life in a carrot that I choose to eat (yes, I’d already thought of that, too). It would make this post too long, and I frankly feel that at least a couple of the posters who have brought up such issues have not done so in order to truly pursue a dialog, but have done so in order to ridicule HipVegan and any who might agree with her. Ergo, I shall choose to use as my inspiration for action the Biblical injunction to “Answer not a fool according to his folly.”
For me, the bottom line is that sentience (on a physical level) appears to exist on a scale from much lesser to much greater. The animals we factory farm and slaughter for meat are very high up on the scale, very close to humans. For people to make this radical distinction between us privileged, elitist humans (“I don’t care how the meat gets on my plate, just so it’s there by suppertime!”) and other animals is unfounded and unjustifiable, in my opinion. Such an attitude makes it far too easy for us to mistreat animals. And we do. Far, far too often. Far, far too readily.
Now, if we want to talk about sentience on another level–a spiritual/metaphysical level–that adds a layer of complexity. And this chatlist is not the place to do that.
As I have said before, I’m *not* arguing against eating meat. I eat meat. I *am* arguing for a very respectful and humane approach toward the production of that meat. When I sit down to a steak or a chicken breast, I
am very mindful that something/”someone” has died so that I can continue my physical existence by eating them. I am also aware that the carrot or the potato was a living thing that I intend to consume, for the same reason–so that I can continue to live. That’s the way life in this physical world works. I don’t particularly like the fact that my continued existence is “bought” at the expense of other life, but it is a fact. So….
To get back to the comment that originally sparked this discussion: In my opinion, it is not elitist to ask that animals be raised and slaughtered as humanely as possible, with due respect for their sentience. It is, in fact, elitist to suggest that human beings and their dinner plates are the only things that matter, the only things that feel, the only things that count.
Brenda
A meat eater
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