Human kindness is known as an act of concern for other people. Some have shown a little bit of kindness towards someone else here and there, but what about towards animals, do they count as someone or something important to care about? Nowadays humans have become the deciding factor in an animal’s life. They are the ones who seem to be making all the decisions for the animals. Having them for the only purpose of serving ourselves seems to be our selfish needs talking.
And we are making a choice in letting the cycle of abuse continue for them, while animals are being abused through circuses and farms, for entertainment and food purposes all around the world. When in reality animals have feelings, just like humans do, even if animals may not look exactly like humans it does not give us the right to mistreat them. People who stand by and say nothing are part of the problem. The desire to be entertained overpowers the reality that circus animals are being abused.
A few hours of watching elephants walk in the circle, monkeys juggle and other performances will be the demonstration of even more hours of practice on their part, which can and does consist of animals being physically abused. Not only are they physically abused, but they are locked in cages for long period of times. According to Emily A Beverage, “On average, circus animals were found to spend just 1 to 9 percent of their time training, and the rest confined to cages or enclosures” (1). What we don’t see behind stage is shocking and sad.
People either know what is happening to the animals and decide to standby as the abuse becomes the new norm, or they are being kept in the dark as the laughter and claps of the audience hide the truth. In both cases, nothing is being done to put an end to this. In the article, Animal, Vegetable, Miserable, in Chapter 16, Gary Steiner a philosophy professor at Bucknell University, talks about animal cruelty and what people seem to be thinking about the suffering of animals in the hands of humans. People are using animals “as a source of satisfaction.
Not only for food, but as beasts of burden, as raw materials, and as sources of raw captive entertainment” (772). Some may argue that there is nothing wrong with animals being trained to perform in circuses. The truth is that they are right, some animals love it and are very great performers, but that is as far as the trainers should go. Once they start noticing any signs of rejection, then the fact that a circus life may not be for the animal should be accepted rather than forced on, because once you try to use force on hem, they will also be forced to use it against you. Once in awhile you see cases of animals fighting back and even killing their trainers. When this happens, people may look at the situation and think only about the trainers well-being, and not as an act of vengeance. In reality this rebellion towards their trainers may be the result of a tired animal. Sometimes by looking at an animal it is difficult to determine how they are feeling or know exactly what they have gone through, just like a human being.
We have grown accustomed to the ways our factories and farms work that “[The] uses of animals are so institutionalized, so normalized, in our society that it is difficult to find the critical distance needed to see them as the horrors that they are: so many forms of subjection, servitude and… outright murder” (772). Knowing that things like this happen remind us that animals can be dangerous and that we should be careful around them, but the same thing goes for us human beings. We can sometimes be seen as dangerous and cruel people in the eyes of the animals, that is something we don’t think about.
We usually care more about how we feel than how animals feel. What does that make us, inhumane people for being the abusers or the observers? It is a yes to both. It goes to say that even if you’re indirectly involved in something you are still a part of it. Animals are living things, just like human beings. They have the same senses as humans- some more enhanced than others-they feel and they are able to love, the same goes for plants. In the book, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? , Susannah Gibson talks about the three kingdoms of animal, vegetable and mineral and about the truth in its similarities.
She argues that, “many plants (like animals) seemed to show awareness of their surroundings, and could sometimes even react to them”(177). One thing some people seem to believe is that animals and plants feel nothing similar to human beings, but that is not completely true, she then goes on to state that Percival and Tupper, two men studying sensitive plants believe that plants have a life form perhaps that similar to an animal or human soul (177). This raises the question to if animals and plants are actually quite similar to human beings.
If that is so, then why are we treating others like ourselves so poorly, just because they are different life forms? One reason that contributes to the way people have been treating animals is from past behaviors. One way to understand the reason people do things, is to find out their motivations. In the online journal, Examining Demographic and Situational Factors on Animal Cruelty Motivations, by Christopher Hensley, Suzanne E. Tallichet and Erik L. Dutkiewicz, they state different reasons as to why humans do what they do.
Even if we will not be able to understand a human’s mind entirely, you can still find a lot of information, Hensley et al discuss that, “ the reasons for committing animal cruelty are diverse and complex… many key questions in understanding acts of animal cruelty remain unanswered (493). There are a lot of reason why someone would mistreat an animal, some people just do it for the pure enjoyment of it, others do it for sport, or because they see others do it and decided to join in. So one way or another they may be directly or indirectly influenced to mistreat animals.
One way to get some answers is if we try to,“… understand the perpetrator characteristics and the situational circumstances of the act of cruelty, along with the abuser’s motives for committing the act itself ”(493). The truth is that this is a sad, cruel world. Not only do we see the abuse happening in circuses, but it is happening in farms all around the world. For example, chickens are being kept in the dark all of their lives, confined to living in a small space with their excrements. They are given hormones to increase in size and appeal more to the eyes of the consumers.
Because of all the hormones they are given, chickens are unable to walk due to the massive increase in weight around their breasts, which causes their legs to break and they are bound to stay in one place for however long they have to live. They are living their lives in misery and pain, awaiting their death. Even though chickens are not human beings the way they are being raised and slaughtered is disgusting and the fact that we allow it, is even worse. The thing we tend to miss is that not only are we hurting the animals, but we are hurting ourselves in the process by purchasing animals full of hormones along with other things.
The living conditions for chickens is unacceptable and downright horrible, just think about it, we are eating chickens who lived in misery and full of stress. It seems a bit unfair to ask humans to stop consuming meat all together, but a more reasonable request would be to stop eating as much as they do now, because the more we consume the more cruelty happens to animals which the numbers have gone way up these past years (Mo 1). Eating less than we do now on meats seems to be more duable than stopping completely.
If we all pitch in and decided to do our part by limiting the amounts of meat we eat, then maybe a difference can be made. Fish and cows that are being taken care of in farms are living in misery as well, but that doesn’t stop us from wanting more meat. Even if we have federal laws to protect the farm animals, they are not 100 percent protected. According to Donna Mo, an editor of the UCLA law review, “Public enforcement of these laws is weak because prosecutors are subject to political pressure and are often too overworked to prosecute animal cruelty cases.
Moreover, state and federal agricultural departments are ‘closely allied to the meat industry’ and are therefore poor candidates for policing the industry”, these laws require enforcement by government officials, but it does not appear that a change will be made. It does not help the situation of animal abuse when farms and companies that treat their animals humanely are losing market share to their inhumane competitors which charge less (Mo 1). As a result of the difference in cost, consumers are more inclined to buy the meats that cost less than the ones that are more expensive.
What some people fail to see is that the meats that cost more is due to the fact that animals were treated humanely. People tend to be more interested in money than the well being of others. One way to stop our inhumane ways is if we become informed with the type of lives these animals live and the way they are killed. For example, some people may not know that, “Many of the confined animals exhibit stress behaviors such as pacing up and down for hours on end”(Beverage 1), that is a very horrible way to live.
In farms or factories some workers are overwhelmed with the demands of animals they need to kill, that they become sloppy with the way they kill them and simply stop caring. It is illegal for them to kill an animal while it is conscious, but since workers need to be quick, they really don’t care for the animals pain and suffering, which is inhumane of them. Some are simply scalding chickens alive, or repetitively slamming animals in an attempt to kill them. The sad truth is that some people know about this, but still decide to ignore it because it doesn’t affect them.
Instead of standing by and making no effort in changing the way animals are killed, we should look into different humane alternatives when it comes to killing animals. The way veal is raised is an example of how we can change a few things to make the lives of the animals more comfortable. For example, instead of raising veal in a confined, isolated place with not enough room, which according to Tamara Scully, the author of the article Raising Veal, is the exact way the United States is raising veal.
The American Veal Association has created the solution for veal producers to transition from raising veal in a restricted place to group housing by December 31,2017 (1). Right now there are various ways one can raise veal, one of them is group housing. Group housing is when calves are kept in pens of two or more and there is less competition for food and more comfort than individual calf housing. This is a perfect example of how the farmers took into consideration the animal’s feelings and made the choice of making them more comfortable.
There are some consumers who are not thrilled to hear the cruel ways animals are raised, and for that reason decide to not stand by it (1), when a large group of people unite and stand by a cause, they can be heard and even possibly make a small change. There are only a few people who have had enough of hearing or knowing what is going on to the poor animals, that they decided to do something. Some may protest outside of circuses or restaurants like Mcdonald’s, in an attempt to be the voice of the animals and to inform others of what is happening in today’s society.
This is one way people can be informed a little bit about what is going on, but at the end of it all, it is a person’s own choice to decide what they are going to do. Either ignore what they heard and pretend nothing is going on, or investigate a bit more and be informed of the truth. Other animal activists decide to take a different approach by using state unfair competition laws, which forbids deceptive business practices (Mo 1). This can be the first step in making a difference for the animals.
Part of the problem with animal abuse is the fact that people are doing and saying nothing to help the animals in need. We should stop doing nothing and not only be well informed about the abuse towards animals, but stop and think before we enjoy our next meal or before we go eat out. Circus animals are being abused for people’s entertainment, which makes us part of the problem. And when animals react to what humans are doing to them, we seem to be shocked, when in reality it should have been expected.
The thing we seem to misunderstand is how similar animals are to humans, just because some people may have issues in their past life does not give them the right to want to hurt animals. One way to be of help is being informed of the cruel ways animals are killed and the alternatives to help them so we can make a difference in their lives. People should stop standing by as the abuse continues to go on every single day and actually take action to make a difference.
