You're either a human or you are "just another animal"

[SemiCharmedQuark]

Im tired of hearing both "Well, I'm just another carnivore, it's natural to eat meat" and "I can treat animals any way I want because I'M a human and THEY are just animals". Both are fallacious statements, but for the moment forget that.

You can't have it both ways, either you put yourself on the same "I can't help it, I just do what I do because I'm just another animal" level as other animals OR you can go the "Well I'm a human and I have higher thinking" route. If you put yourself on the same level as animals, you have absolutely no right to treat them like shit because you are the same as them. When was the last time you saw a gorilla walking around draped in the skin of a snake? Fur, leather, pelts, "sport" hunting, "sport" fishing, etc. etc. etc. do not fall under the "I'm just doing what nature tells me to do" tent.

If you cast yourself as better than other animals because you are human, you can't sit there and shrug and say "I can't help eating meat, I'm just another animal" because you have already said you have higher thinking and THAT means you can choose what you you do or do not do.

[friesianrider]

1. I've always felt the same way

I so understand what you're saying. If you have the "right" to eat/dominate animals because it's survival of the fittest or whatever arguments they use because you're human and somehow better, then you also are also better enough to choose an alternative diet or at least be more humane in the slaughter.

[smbolisnch]

2. Good post.

I hear the "I'm higher on the food chain" excuse most often.

And I love the gorilla with snake skin analogy. So true. I have come to the conclusion that people have an instilled sense of guilt over their use of animals, and so THAT is what nature is teling them....that it is wrong.

Think about it - when you were a kid, and you disovered that your cheeseburger was a cow, you felt terrible. Then all of the adults said "oh no, it's ok, we are higher on the food chain and it's NATURAL." So, people go through their entire lives with that interal guilt, but blow it off by saying what their parents told them - "I'm higher on the food chain."

And of course, some people just don't care. :(