1.
“Animals… we should take care of them, not eat them.”
This quote came from the three year old kid, explaining why he
doesn’t want to eat meat. In all honesty, I dislike this statement. Yes, we
should take care of animals. However, you can’t blame us for having animals as
part of our diet. Biologically, we’re animals too. Are you going to scold a
bear for eating all the fish and tell it that it should only eat berries? I’m
torn in this entire topic because it seems like most people are choosing not to
eat meat because they feel sympathy for the animals. I’m sorry but that’s only
because humans are sophisticated enough to understand what sympathy is. The kid
has a clear emotion that he doesn’t want to eat animals because they die. I
hope he doesn’t find out how many millions of animals die per minute because
they’re naturally eaten by other animals that are above them in the food chain
in the wild.
2.
“I just don’t want them to be chopped up.”
Again, I’m really torn on this because EVERYONE seems to
root for this girl because of the emotional power behind it, when logically, it’s
not enough. So the girl feels bad that the animals are chopped up so we can eat
them. Do you know how lions rip their prey open in the stomach? How tigers drag
their food for miles as they walk back home? How crocodiles spin their bodies
so they can twist and tear the meat right off the buffalo… while they’re still
alive? If humans didn’t have that sophisticated of a brain to understand
systems and processes and consciousness, we wouldn’t question this process of
nature, where whatever’s higher on the food chain gets to eat everything below.
The girl says “[Animals] are nice.” Okay, but here’s where your statement might
contradict yourself. If you think animals are so nice, girl, are you going to
say carnivores are nice? I guess you have to be upset and mad at EVERY carnivore
animal in the world now because they eat nothing but other animals.
Do you feel bad for the prey? Are you mad at the crocodile?
3.
“I saw people putting the bodies of dead animals in their
mouths, as if nothing at all were wrong.”
The Earth has over 250 species of animals putting the bodies
of other dead animals in their mouths too, and they don’t see anything wrong
either. The early stages of homo sapiens did the same thing… because **humans
are animals too**. Melanie Joy describes that there is an ideology that
conditions us to eat certain animals. Um, yeah that ideology is probably
something called nature? But one thing that I absolutely disliked about the TED
talk, and this is the same problem I had with the event that screened Earthlings: Just because you show us
footage of humans being cruel to animals doesn’t mean we should stop eating
them. I can proudly say that yes, animals do feel pain and it is shocking that
we feel no emotion when it comes to killing them. The methods are never
efficient so that the animals die quickly. The *real problem* is the “industry
practice,” not that we have a nature to eat meat. Next, Melanie combines the
moral reason to not eat with the scientific reason that eating meat can
negatively affect our health. I’m sorry but those two are DRASTICALLY different
reasons to not eat meat. Are you showing us the industry practice to prove how
unclean it is or are you showing us the practice to make us cry for the
animals? I’m pretty sure it’s the latter, because Melanie is pretty clear that
we should not eat any meat at all. If you want to make the point that we can
get sick more easily via eating meat, then it is a sanitary problem at the
industry. No longer eating meat DOES NOT solve the disease problem; it only AVOIDS it.
4.
“By viewing animals as objects, we can treat their bodies
accordingly, without the moral discomfort we might otherwise feel.” (page 633)
Now THIS is what I’m against. Any animal that eats meat must
have killed something first. But because humans have the ability and technology
to kill quickly and efficiently, why aren’t we doing it that way? According to Earthlings, it is because they are more
expensive, a shameful excuse. I view animals as food that help give me proteins
and strength. At the same time, I still view animals as living things and not
objects. Therefore, if I had to kill one, I’d treat it with respect and give it a quick painless death. Watch how
the Na’vi gave clean kills to animals in James Cameron’s Avatar.
They talked about the singular flow of energy of Eywa and how they thank the animal, whose spirit will go with Eywa while the body stays behind for the people. This is where I partially support
hunting, the type where you’re only allowed to hunt if you’re going to eat your
kill or give it off. With a license and required target, hunters must kill deer
at a spot where they die fast. Some respectable hunters even given prayers to honor the animal after killing it. Honestly, that sounds a lot better than the
slaughterhouses shown in Earthlings.
5.
“Well, for one thing, you can’t do anything about death, but
we can stop killing animals.” (page 649)
This is said right after Melanie addresses a list of cliché responses,
which included some I mentioned above. I don’t understand what she means by “I
don’t believe any of them,” because there’s nothing untrue or illogical in
those statements. CAN we stop killing animals? Yes we CAN. It WON’T happen,
though. Suppose I’ve been doing Choice A all my life. If I’m told that I’ve had
a Choice B all my life as well, that doesn’t mean I’m going to instantly stop
doing Choice A forever. I’m pretty sure carnivores on this planet have choices
as well. Lions choose to not eat their babies or rival lions. They’re just not
sophisticated enough to think “Oh, I feel bad for this zebra I’m eating. Maybe
I have a choice to eat something else instead.” Once again, it is my firm
belief that the only reason why we humans question this entire thing of eating
meat is because we’re sophisticated enough to question it. Otherwise, we’re
earthlings, like all the other animals on this planet. Earthlings eat each
other in the circle of life. We’re just more advanced with tools and
technology.
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