There are some “animal-rights activists” who are very vocal in support of cute ducklings, puppies, dolphins, baby seals, kittens and so forth…but when in the presence of a spider? Screech, panic, scream, kill the spider. Even if it’s an endangered species of spider.
What about the hyenas, rhinoceros, warthogs, skunks, Gila monsters, wild boars and deep-sea anglerfish? “Uh, no, ugly things, why should I care.”
So what such people are saying is, animals are only worth protecting and defending if they are cute. (It’s symptomatic of culture and society as a whole, actually - what’s cute is good, what’s not is worthless - but that’s a different topic.)
If you only care about cute animals and not the ugly ones, then you can’t call yourself a **true animal-rights activist.You’re a pro-cute-animals-only activist. ** That’s different. And that’s a very shallow, appearance-based activism. If you’re going to support animals, then support the ugly ones, too.
OP, I have the sense that you may be setting up a straw man. Can you, in fact, produce any of these so-called “selective” animal rights activists? I recognize that it may be particularly difficult to do so, simply based on the fact that animal rights activists tend to protest the exploitation of critters, and critters, as a rule, tend to be exploited for their “cute” qualities.
Still, you did raise the issue of spider-killin’. Please produce a spider-killin’ animal rights activist.
Actually, quite a few of those have hatched in my basement growing area* and spun cute little baby webs, which I am constantly ripping out along with the cute widdle spiders. Large ones in season can go outside, but become pests in my home and it’s another story.
*for ornamentals. Get your mind out of the gutter.
There may well be such people out there. But it’s important not to conflate them with genuine animal rights activists who selectively target cute animals precisely because that tactic is more effective with the general public. It makes sense to choose elephants as your example of poor zoo conditions, because people love elephants, even people who don’t really give a shit about animal welfare. You don’t choose the gila monster because it gets less love.
Do we really need a cite for this? Just look at all the people who are crazy to rescue every damn dog and cat in the world but don’t care about the abused birds, or even worse, are terrified by them. (I will never understand being afraid of birds but not dogs. The dog can rip your face right off!)
It’s a problem that many true animal rights activists have encountered. We spend so much time on the panda, for example, because he’s cute and cuddly, but there are a ton of noncute endangered creatures that no one advocates for (or very few).
I haven’t met this horde of puppy-saving ornithophobes. But assuming for the sake of the argument that they exist, they have fuck-all to do with the OP.
Velocity, you seem to be having trouble recently coming out and actually saying what you mean. Between this and that “objective morality” thread in GD, you seem to have scored a really great deal on gently used straw at Big Lots.
That’s just a phobia, a pretty common one, in fact. So yes, some people hate birds or spiders, but I think that people who in general only care about cute animals at the exclusion of others aren’t really common. That said, I’m sure that even though they sort of care about all animals, many will only act (for instance part with their money) when cute ones are involved, which, in practice, is the same as not caring.
Note that I don’t care much about animals in general. I especially don’t care about cute animals because the animal lovers often irritate me, to say the truth, when for instance they want to save not endangered baby seals or things like that. I care about actually endangered species, but not enough to do anything about it, or to give any money for it (in fact I would feel guilty if I had given money to an animal cause when I could have donated for a human cause), so it’s not like my caring is relevant, as I wrote above.
