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Fuck Animal-Rights Activists

September 27, 2007 8:36 AM

ou know that stereotype about how all high-school kids dissect frogs in biology class? That's one high-school stereotype I definitely did not experience. My biology class dissected fetal pigs. And it was awesome. My teacher even helped me pry the pig's brain out of its skull for extra credit. How that warrants extra credit, I don't know. But I did it, I got extra credit, and it was awesome.

Anyway, as I was looking around for interesting things to read, I found this article. Apparently, Japanese scientists have found a way to create frogs with transparent skin, which allows the scientists to study the frogs in new ways. They can, for example, track the grown and development of cancer in an animal without having to, you know, kill it. So, aside from the fact that transparent frogs are just plain creepy, I think the whole thing's pretty cool. Then I read this:

Dissections have become increasingly controversial in much of the world, particularly in schools where animal rights activists have pressed for humane alternatives such as using computer simulations.
To be honest, there was probably very little educational value to my dissecting a fetal pig. Seeing how all the organs fit together and stuff was interesting, but it probably wasn't the most enlightening thing. Still, I don't think that it was a completely worthless exercise, and I would hate to see it be replaced with some computer simulation for the sake of protecting some fucking reptiles.

And that got me started thinking about how much I hate PETA.

Animals are essentially biological machines, to borrow a phrase from Mr. X. They respond to external stimulus and react on instinct. Some can even learn. Certainly, some are much more intelligent than others. But none of them deserve the extensive protections that people deserve--regardless of what a bunch of idiot lawyers in Austria think. Sure, people are animals in a sense, but we're beyond that. Humans have hard-wired instincts and impulses just like all other animals, but we can override almost all of our preprogrammed instructions. We have free will in a way that animals do not. Show me a lion that decides, for moral reasons, that it wants to be a vegetarian and I'll reconsider. Put another way, humans are the only species for which moral culpability makes any sense. When a human kills another human, we say that the person is culpable--that they've chosen to do something wrong. When an animal kills a human being, it would be absurd to say that the animal is morally liable. Therefore, it would be equally absurd to say that a human who kills an animal is somehow morally deficient. I don't have a problem with hunting, I don't have a problem with factory farms, and I sure as fuck don't have a problem eating meat.

A human life is worth infinitely more than that of an animal. In fact, human comfort is worth more than the life of an animal--I'm sitting in a leather chair right now, and it's great. Whether human entertainment is worth the lives of animals is a slightly more complicated question. I've seen--and thoroughly enjoyed--both bull and cock fights. And I don't have any moral issues with either. But reading about Michael Vick's dogfights makes me slightly uneasy. Ultimately, though, I have to conclude that this is because I've owned and loved dogs. Like cats, dogs are our companions. My cats definitely have what could be called personalities. And I'd hate to see them suffer. And I'll admit that I generalize my affection for Smash and Lily to pretty much all cats. But that says more about me than it does about their inherent worth.

Certainly, there are limits--the phrase "animal cruelty" is not a contradiction in terms. We should not be cruel for the sake of being cruel. But neither should we elevate animals to some level that they don't deserve.

So I say dissect away.



5 Comments


Kevin Lomax said:

Amen brother. Amen.

September 27, 2007 2:44 PM



lily said:

We dissected cats, and it was great. Dissecting was the only interesting part of science class.

And dogfighting is bad because it encourages violent behavior in an animal that could easily be mistaken as friendly.

September 27, 2007 7:39 PM



kristin said:

I would not want to dissect a cat. I know that it's partly because I have had cats, but it is also because I am morally opposed to dissecting anything I think is cute. And, now that I think about it, partly because of a horrific law school admissions essay I read in 2004 about someone who saw a kitten being tortured. It is definitely not because I think an animal has the same rights as I do.

I would also not want to watch an animal fight, because I wouldn't want to watch any fight. Pointless violence makes me nauseous. A steak does not. For every steak that some tree-hugging hippie does not eat, I will eat two.

September 27, 2007 10:02 PM



Tiffany said:

You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, so I won't bash you on it.

All I'm going to say is that I disagree with you one hundred percent on this matter. Just because we as humans see ourselves as higher than animals doesn't mean that we have the right to go cutting and slaughtering into anythig we see fit.

What gives us the right?

You say animals don't deserve to be elevated to the extent that some peple do, touche...but what exactly have humans done to be elevated to that point? Everything alive lives by nature and instinct.

I'm not a vegetarian but I love animals. Eating meat is instinctual for all animals, be it humans or anything else. And saying that humans can override most of their nsictual habits isn't always true. This is why we have so many rapists and kinappers and murders...becase they cannont control themselves.

April 3, 2008 9:14 PM



Ismael Tapia II said:

First off, I think you're a new commenter on the blog, so welcome.

Second, I am entitled to my opinion, and my opinion, after reading your opinion, is that you are an idiot. Allow me to elaborate.

You asked me what gives us the right go cutting and slaughtering into anything we want. I have to admit that I think that's kind of an interesting question. I would answer that it's not so much that we have the right, but rather that it's not morally wrong to do so. It's not that we have the right to do it, it's that animals don't have the right to not have us do it. That doesn't mean that cruelty is acceptable, but it does mean that animals don't have rights that are analogous to, for example, the right a human has not to be raped.

As for what humans have done to deserve being considered elevated, we have free will and rational thought. The outward indications of the qualities that make us inherently more valuable than animals are things like math, logic, philosophy, and music. The fact that we have the capacity to be ruled not by instinct but by reason makes us superior to those that cannot reason. Period.

Also, you certainly do not mean that eating meat is instinctual for all animals. There is a whole class of animals--we call them herbivores--that don't eat meat at all.

Finally, I didn't say that all humans can override their instincts. I just said we have the capacity to do so. The fact that sex in public is a relatively rare occurrence demonstrates that humans are pretty damn good at restraining their instincts.

But the bigger point is that you've sort of proven what I had to say. Imagine a human being that cannot control himself and must murder. If that person is completely removed from making a choice, then we treat that person differently. We lock them up, but not to punish them. Rather, we do it to protect the rest of us. Contrast that with how we deal with the vast majority of murderers and rapists. In most cases, criminals are incarcerated at least partly because they deserve to be punished for making the choices they made. That notion makes sense where someone chose, but it makes no sense at all where, as with the insane murderer, there's no choice at all. We condemn those who can choose but merely choose incorrectly. We pity those who can't choose at all.

An animal is like an insane killer in the sense that it cannot control itself. It will kill you out of fear, for food, or to protect its territory, but it won't kill you out of malice. It reacts to stimuli based on instinct. Animals cannot do something wrong--that just doesn't make sense.

So, given that we can make the distinction between those who can choose and choose correctly, those who can choose and choose incorrectly, and those who cannot choose at all, it is incorrect to say that we are very much like animals simply because some small percentage of people lack the ability to control their actions. Rather, it seems to me that this is just another way in which we demonstrate the judgment and reason that makes us inherently superior to animals.

April 3, 2008 11:09 PM



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