Thank you for an interesting and thoughtful piece.
I think that the underlying premise of modern life – living in increasingly urban environment – has created this disconnect between hunter/prey and, more importantly, the source of food…
– People want to eat cheap meat (chain fast food restaurants selling burgers for £1/ea) but do not want to face the challenging reality of agriculture having to produce large volumes of cheap beef. Instead we talk of humanising the animals, creating some sense of them as equals.
– Complaints about the changing rural environment to meet these demands are met with complaints from the urban-dweller that the quaint patchwork of fields and woods are disappearing and things aren’t like ‘they used to be’.
…so, we must stop simplifying every argument to a single issue – all things are linked in the complex ‘system’ that makes up the planet. Cheap food has implications (some good, some bad); stopping using plastics has implications (some good, some bad); Hunting has implications (some good, some bad); using the internet/4G/social media has implications (some good, some bad).
As a society we must take a step back and be prepared to face uncomfortable decisions that are a balance between the good and bad – and most importantly accept that there are multiple realities and views on these issues and not troll against those with whom we disagree.
davidbuckingham7
3 years ago
Watch The Penguin and the Fisherman, Short video of amazing relationship between the two. Saving the bird from being covered in oil and feeding it with fish until it recovered, it still leaves to go to it’s breeding ground but swims thousands of kilometres to come back for four months every year to be with his saviour.
We keep getting more and more evidence of how sentient animals are. We should behave accordingly. Sadly Mr Grutt is right about nature, cruel in tooth and claw, and we are part of that food chain. But animals do not pen each other up for months at a time, away from their natural habitat in conditions that amount long term torture before killing them
Arnold Grutt
3 years ago
If one wants to stop animal suffering, the logical thing would be to kill all animals on the planet, since the vast, vast majority of sufferoing is caused by brute animals to each other. I’m unsure as to whom we are supposed to be justifying our behaviour to. God? Each other? Animals? (the latter would be asbolutely useless. Animals are unable to conceptualise a world, let alone the moral scruples that would operate in such a world).
Bacon came at the end of the medieval era, where at some points animals that had killed humans were put on trial for murder. Of course modern sophisticates laugh at this,thinking medieval people were somehow ‘thicker’ than we are. But the trials had a clear point. Thery proved that reciprocal rights between humans and animals were a waste of time. There is no point trying to explain to say, a tiger, that killing huimans is wrong. They cannot understand reciprocity, or contradiction, or indeed any logical thought or argumentary process. Thereore giving them ‘rights’ might make us happy. It will not make a shred of difference to animals. Bacon was right. Humans and animals are inexorably, and inalterably different in kind from one another.
Different animals have evolved different capabilities to adapt to their feeding environments.
You type cast and compare different animals to the human capacity to think conceptually.
However, if you compare animals with humans on the basis of physical agility including the ability to fly then your notion of human superiority suddenly becomes human inferiority.
The fallacy here is assuming that humans ‘evolved’ to become more animal and to fit their ‘role’ in the world better. This is false. The whole point of human evolution (assuming one accepts the theory, which I’m not sure I do) is to deny the world as it offers itself to us. If we weren’t so inclined, no-one would ever talk, at all. What you are offering is merely a anti-intellectualist ‘naturalistic’ fairy tale.
Trevor Q
3 years ago
This article has crystallized a lot of ideas floating around in my head and I found it very rewarding- so thank you. I have also just finished reading the excellent Rebirding by Benedict Macdonald which has convinced me of the need for a radical shift in our attitude to nature.
mimb1011
3 years ago
Am all for truth and she appropriateness. Do wonder if sweet child will want to love and attach as freely in future.
Geoffrey Simon Hicking
3 years ago
Invest in technologies that produce vat-grown meat. If you feel squeamish about animals, do something about it!
rh445566
3 years ago
Hopefully your daughter will grow up to be an anti-natalist.
Thank you for an interesting and thoughtful piece.
I think that the underlying premise of modern life – living in increasingly urban environment – has created this disconnect between hunter/prey and, more importantly, the source of food…
– People want to eat cheap meat (chain fast food restaurants selling burgers for £1/ea) but do not want to face the challenging reality of agriculture having to produce large volumes of cheap beef. Instead we talk of humanising the animals, creating some sense of them as equals.
– Complaints about the changing rural environment to meet these demands are met with complaints from the urban-dweller that the quaint patchwork of fields and woods are disappearing and things aren’t like ‘they used to be’.
…so, we must stop simplifying every argument to a single issue – all things are linked in the complex ‘system’ that makes up the planet. Cheap food has implications (some good, some bad); stopping using plastics has implications (some good, some bad); Hunting has implications (some good, some bad); using the internet/4G/social media has implications (some good, some bad).
As a society we must take a step back and be prepared to face uncomfortable decisions that are a balance between the good and bad – and most importantly accept that there are multiple realities and views on these issues and not troll against those with whom we disagree.
Watch The Penguin and the Fisherman, Short video of amazing relationship between the two. Saving the bird from being covered in oil and feeding it with fish until it recovered, it still leaves to go to it’s breeding ground but swims thousands of kilometres to come back for four months every year to be with his saviour.
We keep getting more and more evidence of how sentient animals are. We should behave accordingly. Sadly Mr Grutt is right about nature, cruel in tooth and claw, and we are part of that food chain. But animals do not pen each other up for months at a time, away from their natural habitat in conditions that amount long term torture before killing them
If one wants to stop animal suffering, the logical thing would be to kill all animals on the planet, since the vast, vast majority of sufferoing is caused by brute animals to each other. I’m unsure as to whom we are supposed to be justifying our behaviour to. God? Each other? Animals? (the latter would be asbolutely useless. Animals are unable to conceptualise a world, let alone the moral scruples that would operate in such a world).
Bacon came at the end of the medieval era, where at some points animals that had killed humans were put on trial for murder. Of course modern sophisticates laugh at this,thinking medieval people were somehow ‘thicker’ than we are. But the trials had a clear point. Thery proved that reciprocal rights between humans and animals were a waste of time. There is no point trying to explain to say, a tiger, that killing huimans is wrong. They cannot understand reciprocity, or contradiction, or indeed any logical thought or argumentary process. Thereore giving them ‘rights’ might make us happy. It will not make a shred of difference to animals. Bacon was right. Humans and animals are inexorably, and inalterably different in kind from one another.
I’d suggest you read this from the RSPCA.
What is animal sentience and why is it important?https://kb.rspca.org.au/kno….
Different animals have evolved different capabilities to adapt to their feeding environments.
You type cast and compare different animals to the human capacity to think conceptually.
However, if you compare animals with humans on the basis of physical agility including the ability to fly then your notion of human superiority suddenly becomes human inferiority.
The fallacy here is assuming that humans ‘evolved’ to become more animal and to fit their ‘role’ in the world better. This is false. The whole point of human evolution (assuming one accepts the theory, which I’m not sure I do) is to deny the world as it offers itself to us. If we weren’t so inclined, no-one would ever talk, at all. What you are offering is merely a anti-intellectualist ‘naturalistic’ fairy tale.
This article has crystallized a lot of ideas floating around in my head and I found it very rewarding- so thank you. I have also just finished reading the excellent Rebirding by Benedict Macdonald which has convinced me of the need for a radical shift in our attitude to nature.
Am all for truth and she appropriateness. Do wonder if sweet child will want to love and attach as freely in future.
Invest in technologies that produce vat-grown meat. If you feel squeamish about animals, do something about it!
Hopefully your daughter will grow up to be an anti-natalist.
Children raised on farms know what’s going on!
Children raised on farms know what’s going on!