Human v. animal skin

Great Debates
1

Some animal rights groups have compared the holocaust to the meat/leather/fur/experimental/entertainment industries. I believe that this is not accurate.

I’m a vegetarian and a strong supporter of animal welfare but I’m also Jewish ;j and I’ve spoken to people with number tattoos and countless nightmares. Although animals have just as much capacity for suffering as humans, I believe that to commit atrocities toward your own kind, a kind that you undoubtably understand and can communicate with, is a degree higher in cruelty than to commit those same atrocities towards a species that you may not fully understand.

Despite this, when I hear about human lampshades and the such it disturbs me and also makes me think about cow leather. If I, and most other people, are so disturbed at hearing these Nazi stories and seeing articles made of skin why do we not grimace the same way at leather and fur and cruel animal experiments and circuses and factory farms? These beings may not speak our language or solve complex math problems but neither do infants and toddlers and the mentally disabled and yet we do not subject them to the same sufferings. This doesn’t seem logical to me.:smack:

I own a pair of leather sneakers and I feel like such a hypocrite for not being as disgusted by them (originally). :frowning:

What do you guys think?

Why do you feel ok wearing leather, supporting factory farming, going to the circus, and supporting animal experiments? :confused: Or why don’t you?

2

This is probably better off in GD, but most likely I (and I want it to be clear that I’m just talking about myself here and this is not to be generalized to speak for anyone else who’s okay with all this) I am a huge asshole. :smiley:

3

I’m agreeing with Mathochist, that while this does has some technical relationship to Cecil’s column, it belongs in Great Debates.

4

What about the other?

5

It’s not, and it’s insulting to a whole lot of people. Holocaust survivors and victims, their families, and people who eat or wear animal products to name a few billion. I’m a vegetarian, by the way.

I think the big difference is that the Nazis slaughtered Jews, Communists, homosexuals, gypsies and others out of sheer cruelty and hatred, maybe mixed with greed. They felt they weren’t human beings because they were the wrong ethnicity or had the wrong beliefs. This is not comparable to making necessary food or clothing items out of animals. Yes, those things (at least in industrial cultures) don’t have to be made from animal products. But the lamp shade-type stories horrifying us because they make clear how much these vicious killers dehumanized their victims. They killed them en masse without hesitation.

You can’t dehumanize animals. They can feel pain and certainly shouldn’t be abused. However we do make distinctions because they can’t think, feel or communicate like we can, and I don’t think that’s so unreasonable. Yes, babies can’t think like adults either, but at some point they presumably will. People with some disabilities can’t, but they otherwise would. Animals do not reach the same level.

There are uses for animals that I think are trivial (cosmetic testing for one). But when I consider animal experiments, I look at it this way- I can’t think of a reasonable way to tell a sick person that their concerns are trumped by monkeys or mice. Not just on the emotional level; I mean I can’t think of any standard by which that makes sense.

When I hear comparisons between the Holocaust and food or pet ownership and slavery, I wonder if they’re made out of ignorance, or intentional obtuseness, or what. If you look around the web at for
[quotes from animal rights nuts]
(http://www.animalrights.net/quotes.html), Ingrid Newkirk usually being the worst among them, I think the flaws in their thinking become clear. That’s not to say that animal rights supporters are nuts, far from it. I’m onboard with reducing animal suffering and cruelty and I love animals. I’m talking about the people who take it to extremes.

6

“Why do you feel ok wearing leather, supporting factory farming, going to the circus, and supporting animal experiments? Or why don’t you?”

Because they’re just animals. I personally believe that animal rights activists against such activities are the worst racists that the world has ever known because they basically discriminate against the whole human race by placing animals on the same plane as humans. That and some other things more worthy of the Pit.

In all honestly, when ARAs get thier lunatic legislation passed, they are in line with the level of people that committed grave crimes against humans to me. I rank them above sex criminals, torturers, and some murders of course, but usually worse than most other criminals.

In all honestly, I hate them like a Black man would hate the Klan and Jim Crow. I think that ARAs and legislation on AR is worse, because it discriminates against every race.

Besides most AR thinking is akin to “left being right”, “up being down”, “wrong being right”, etc. It makes no sense except to the most depraved of minds AFAIC.

I think starving animals or mutilating the family pet for kicks is wrong. But wearing leather, eating meat, commercial farming, hunting hogs with dogs, matching game fowl and game dogs, bull baiting, etc. are perfectally normal and healthy activities while those opposed to it are not only wrong but mentally disturbed.

In short, I’m normal, therefore I am not bothered with wearing leather, supporting factory farming, going to the circus, and supporting animal experiments.

7

You’re misusing the word race. The kind of racism you’re talking about only applies to groups of people. The right term would probably be “speciesist,” which I think only the nuts you’re complaining about would use. Furthermore I think you’re confusing radicals (like Newkirk with her “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy” line) with mainstream people who think more like you do. Or by activist do you mean only those people? I’m not sure.

8

I have no problem with leather. (Stop! :smiley: That’s not what I meant.) Sooner or later we have to consume something whether it is a non-renewable resource such as petroleum or a renewable resource like wood pulp, animal by-products, or plant fibers. It sometimes puzzles me why we revere the mythical native American tribes who, according to the stories, used the whole animal and wasted nothing—and when we use animal by-products and leather and hoofs, it’s somehow disgusting.

Leather isn’t a problem for me. Conspicuous waste, however, is. That’s just my opinion, of course.

9

I don’t think it’s our place to judge how much animals are capable of feeling thinking or communicating. Some animals communicate in ways that we may never even percieve, like elephants who make very complex sounds that are at a pitch we cannot detect by ear. Other animals such as apes and parrots (my parrot for example) have been taught to communicate with words or American sign language. They have even been able to form new terms out of others and understand/make jokes. No wonder chimps are no longer used in Great Britain for experiments. There’s a simple way to explain this to the sick. Ask them how they can be so arrogant as to place the value of their lives over that of another sentient being, do they believe that they are more useful to the world or that their suffering is greater?

10

Improving standards for the lives of animals does not hurt the quality of life for humans. If a person in an industrialized country goes vegetarian, gives up fur and leather, does not attend the circus/zoo/rodeo, and does not buy unnecessarily animal tested products, he/she will only improve her/his life. However, even radical organizations like PETA state that they have no quarrel with people that need to use animals to survive.

How can watching animal torture like the rodeo circus or animal fights ever be considered normal and healthy activities? People who enjoy watching or performing animal abuse have been shown to be prone to be violent to people as well.

Factory farming is equally gruesome. Have you ever visited a farm and seen pigs in farrowing crates(they can not even turn around and can barely lie down for a majority of their lives, they have nothing to even look at to stimulate their intelligent minds), or calfs in veal crates(chained by the neck, cannot turn around and can barely lie down, purposely deprived of iron, fed a diet that causes constant diarreah, or foi gras(geese force fed so that their livers grow many times the normal sides, they often die choking on their own vomit or because their insides are pushed out of them), or the horse meat trade? Factory farming is barely regulated and its practices are often both barbaric and unnecessary.

Because of these stressful conditions they are fed many antibiotics. Factory farming is clearly neither normal nor healthy.

11

Except Native Americans used animals because they needed them to survive and they did not produce the huge amounts of pollution that come from factory farms and the animals they used were not raised in cruel conditions. In addition, a lot of leather comes from cows raised especially for that purpose and is not a byproduct of beef.

12

I didn’t say animals were incapable of feeling or communicating. I said they’re not capable of doing so on the same level that we are.

Yes, with a great deal of effort, a few animals - not ones we eat or skin for the most part - have been taught language to a degree that a young child grasps mostly through heredity and observation. But I don’t think your parrot repeating words constitutes communicating. He’s using language, but he’s just repeating words he’s been taught to repeat. He is making noise and doesn’t understand what he is saying. Humans, on the other hand, have the ability to use words in combinations they’ve never seen before- if you needed to be taught a sentence before you said it, nobody would ever get anywhere. I guess some of the apes can form novel sentences, but it’s not innate. Here’s the Straight Dope column about animals and language, if you’re curious.

Cecil’s conclusion is this: “Personally I’m happy to concede that the boundary between animal and human communication isn’t as sharply drawn as we once thought. Animals (not just primates–check out Alex the talking African gray parrot sometime) can use language in limited ways. They can respond to simple questions on a narrow range of subjects; they can express basic thoughts and desires. I’ll even buy the possibility that some are capable of employing elementary syntax. However, all this strikes me as the equivalent of teaching a computer to beat people at chess–a neat trick, but not one that challenges fundamental notions about human vs nonhuman abilities. I’ve seen nothing to persuade me that animals can use language as we do, that is, as a primary tool with which to acquire and transmit knowledge. I won’t say such a thing is impossible. But in light of the muddled state of the debate so far, the first task is to decide what would constitute a fair test.”

If you actually think this way, I feel terrible for your relatives. Do you think anybody would buy that explanation? ‘Sorry about your cancer Jeff, but think of the monkeys. It’s very selfish of you to insist upon treatment like that.’ That may be a simple explanation to you, but I sure wouldn’t be happy about it. If not for the cruel and inhumane research we’ve done on animals, we’d still be suffering from diseases like polio and I have no idea where medical science would be right now. Would it exist? So while I love animals, I’m willing to sacrifice a few to save and improve the lives of human beings.

Unless you include the medical treatments he/she won’t be allowed to use.

I don’t believe that for a second. Could you cite that, please?

13

Just because animals may communicate in different ways or for different purposes does not mean they are necessarily at a lower level.

My parrot, although not as advanced as Alex, understands everything he says except for the nursery rhymes. He makes clear requests, warnings, and greetings. For example he is able to tell us that he is thirsty or hungry or that he wants to go to bed or that he wants to leave an area that he is in. He warns us when he’s angry or about to bite or if he’s spotted something threatening. And he calls all four members of the household by our names and knows the difference when we or he says hello or goodbye. And this is a Parrotlet, not an African Grey. He isn’t alone in being like this either.

Even if some animals do not use communication as a primary tool for aquiring knowledge, how does this justify hurting them?

By the way, the in vitro work on the Polio vaccine which was awarded the Nobel Prize did not involve animals. The Nobel committee did not recognize the animal tests conducted later becuse they believed them to be wasteful in this case.

And even if animal experiments help people, do the ends really justify the means? Slaves were forced to build the USA, the result is great, but are the means justified?

This is where I found PETA saying that they don’t have a problem with people who need animals to survive. I was really surprised too.

14

In terms of complexity, yes, it does.

I think we’re obliged to do all we can to help other human beings, and yes, human beings come first. For lions, I guarantee you lions come first.

Then polio is a bad example. Are you disputing that animal research has cured ANY diseases? That’s the point.

I seem to recall commenting on animal/slave comparisons in my first post. Obviously the end doesn’t always justify the means. That doesn’t mean the end CAN’T justify the means. Please propose a better means if you know of one. If there was one that didn’t involve humans or animals I’d be all for it.

How about that… a stance that’s not whacko. Carry on. :wink:

15

Just to be clear that I’m not flaming anybody, I meant PETA here, not holdmytail.

16

What if some animals communicate telepathically or something? How is this less complex than human speech?

Human beings come first to us for the same reason that family members come before all other people. This is due to emotional attachments, not logical reasoning. I guess we can’t always help it though. We’re only human.

Animal research has helped cure deseases but it has also set us back (as animals respond differently to experiments in many situations). As you said, I think in this day and age we should try to put more effort into alternative methods. I think the question of ends justifying means is also purely emotional, depending on how much more strongly you feel for those closer to you than those you have no close ties with. I don’t think favoring relatives is justice but for humans its sadly often inevitable. We should try our best to overcome these emotional prejudices.

We sure strayed far from leather v. human skin!

17

Yes, holdmytail, I said I object to the waste. I will not go so far as to say eating meat is inherently wrong merely because the process is wasteful, though. Wearing leather is not inherently wrong to me either—though I would of course prefer that we use as much of each cow as possibly can. I would simply prefer to object to the bad process rather than the product.

18

It’s not, but I don’t see how that falls outside of anything I covered. Mostly because it doesn’t happen.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with emotion being involved here - and we’ve had some lengthy debates about that. I don’t think you can just ignore it, which you appear to be doing.

No, we can’t, and I don’t think we should be expected to. As I said, I strongly doubt there are any other animals out there that don’t put themselves, their kin, and their own species first.

How is this a setback? Animals do respond differently in many ways, but they’re not expected to be exactly the same. I don’t think any medical treatments are tested on animals and then immediately put out for general consumption. Treatments are tested on animals, refined as much as possible, and then tested on volunteers.

It’s not purely emotional, no. It can be logical to decide that some sacrifices are worth it.

This isn’t just about our relatives, it’s all humans- I’m supporting the rights of people I don’t know as well. I don’t think justice is an issue here: to me, it would be just as unfair to say humans should die so that animals can survive as it is to sacrifice animals for people. By saving the animals you may be condemning people to death over a longer period by slowing medical progress, whereas the animal sacrifice stops when the disease is treated.

19

Dude, that would be so awesome. And what if our whole universe is just a tiny molecule inside of an even bigger universe or something?

20

Haha, I’ve thought about that a lot. I even drew an animatiom about it where the whole universe is just a boogie in a monster’s nose and then he eats it.