LissaI’m on your side. What I meant by “on a level approaching humans” was regarding love and marriage, parent and child, siblings, that sort of thing. And the human versions of those types of love ARE more “complex” for lack of a better word at this late hour, than that of our pets.
Again, as I stated in my previous post, unless we’re able to someday actually read a pet’s mind, we do NOT know what kind of emotions pets feel, however, imho I feel that their love for us is a simpler purer type of love than that humans share with each other.
Sorry, I guess in my first post I didn’t express it very well. By complex, I mean all the silly “impurities” that our love for other humans entail. Like in marriage, hooo boy, need I say more? Talk about complex. Love and hate being divided by a thin line, all that stuff?
Or in a parent’s love for his/her child with all its expectations, hopes, dreams, and so on. Did that make better sense?
What exactly does the depth and sincerity of animal love have to do with the issue?
The complaint is that some people love their animals too much and treat them like children. The owners love isn’t conditional on their dog feeling the same level of emotion. The owners love their dogs and believe they are loved in return, and that is all that matters to them. Owner gets companionship, amusement, possibly some home security, so the owner wins. Dog gets regular meals, shelter, medical care, so the dog wins. Where is the problem? How does the dog not being capable of feeling love matter?
Some of the hateful opinions expressed here have me confused. Why do you care if someone else choses to spend their own money on pampering their pet? No one is missing out on anything just because Fifi gets her own bottle of Evian. If you want to donate your last cent to charity, or spend every last second of your free time volunteering to help those in need, then knock yourself out, but you’ve got a damn cheek if you think that gives you the right to sit in judgement on those who don’t.
Yes, people bringing their dogs to your house without permission is obnoxious, rude and annoying but none of the rest of the complaints in the quoted portion have any relevance to anything. I can think of a dozen things that I can’t understand other people wasting their time and money on, but it never occured to me to go around resenting them. What do I care if you don’t like that I treat my cats like babies? They are my pets, I keep them happy and healthy, and if I want to spend my next paycheck on a solid gold food dish for them, it’s got absolutely nothing to do with you.
Seriously, all of you people whose biggest annoyance is seeing other people be too good to their animals - get a life.
Honestly, I find an answer like “I’d rather save the dog than most people besides my family” really nauseating. Appaling. There’s something deeply wrong going on there.
I too was uneased by the issue the OP mentions, when I noticed that the thread about the dog burned to death got more answers than the thread about the 450+ people burned to death in a mall (both were posted roughly at the same time). I don’t know if it’s still the case, since I couldn’t find the dog thread.
It’s called a hijack. The OP’s point was unclear and cluttered by much conficting points in his own posts. Chefguy sequed off into a much more interesting facet of the argument, and it caught others’ interest.
Is it “deeply wrong” that I would rather save my cat than Charles Manson? Or many other scumbag humans? I hope not.
I don’t think that badly of most people, and yes, if I had to, I’d choose a human life (most human lives) over my dearest cat’s life. However, just because someone is human it doesn’t mean that they will take precidence over an animal’s life. My kitties have contributed far more good to the world than Charles Manson.
OK…since my last post, I finished reading the thread, and there’s apparently at least three posters who would save their pet before most fellow humans if given the choice.
That’s the kind of thing that make me feel like “Please, stop the planet, I want to leave!”, as put by another poster. It’s infuriating first, and then just demoralizing and depressing. There’s really no hope.
First, I would point out that the previous posters mentionned saving their pet rather than most humans, not merely rather than Charles Manson. Or explained that pets were “better” than humans because they don’t borrow money or drive under influence.
But apart from that, yes, any pet would rank much lower than Charles Manson in my book. No need to argue about that, though. Stay on the the “I’d save my cat before 95% of the humanity, or before anybody apart my family”. Bebatting about extraordinary Mansonesque situations is besides the point.
Oh c’mon, there are also more than a few people (even if they don’t post here) who feel there’s nothing wrong with raping and killing small children, or grown people for that matter.
There are humans of all sorts in this world. And lots of reasons to feel “stop the planet, I want to get off”. So if there’s no hope, there are PLENTY of far more evil reasons than those that love their pets a little too much.
You probably wouldn’t find 3-4 of them amongst a sample of twenty persons or so, like in this thread.
Besides, they would have the decency not to post about it. People I was refering to don’t seem to have any problem with valuing more a pet than a human. They seem to think it’s perfectly natural.
It’s not about “loving one’s pet a little too much”. It’s about thinking that the life of a cat is more important than the life of a human. It’s an evidence of a total lack of concern for most of the humanity. And declared without the slightest feeling of shame.
So, yes, I think it’s a “stop the planet” case. There are more evil things. But…well…not that many, actually. Think about it : “I would rather have you and your children burned to death than my cat”. And, according to this thread, a quite widespread, and unashamed feeling. Worst, even more people don’t have an issue with such statements. Aren’t disturbed the slighest bit when reading it, and even come to defend them. Can you think about a lot of these “worst” things that posters would swallow so easily?
Yes, to me it amounts to “the life of other people is worth essentially zilch”. And not coming from a tiny minority of “evil” people immediatly beaten to death by scores of offended posters. Nope. It’s an expression of the “ordinary” total lack of concern, total lack of empathy. Yes, it’s an evidence there’s no hope. The life of the stranger, your life, my life isn’t worth a cat. It’s not the blatant, disturbing “evil” at work, it’s the root of it. When you see a mushroom, all the ground is filled by its invisible mycelium, under your feet. The mushroom is only the “fruit”. The grossly evil actions we can’t avoid noticing are the mushroom. The “my cat is worth more than 95% of the population” which goes unoticed is the mycelium.
Yes, I’m really disturbed by the content of this thread. I really feel “where do I sign to leave this planet?”. I’m not sure why specifically so much now, because I could have been similarily disturbed in many other instances. I often thought about this kind of things, and even occasionnally specifically about this exact “pet” issue, but, though it irritated or saddened me a lot, for some reason, it didn’t have the same impact. Perhaps it has been the last drop in the bucket, perhaps it suddenly switched from “very irritating but still conceptual” to “integrated as fact/felt”. Not sure how to explain it. It’s like I already knew there was a mask with something ugly behind it, but right now I saw the mask falling. Like a last step. I suppose it could/would have happened anyway, on some random topic.
I don’t know what to think about this, what to do with this. For now, I’m going to bed. Perhaps I’ll feel differently tomorrow. I’m not sure.
I feel really weird about this thread now. It needed to be distilled, which subsequent posters have done fantastically. I OP’ed with a lot of anger. My mistake. We have a little family issue with this particular topic. I vented…inappropriately.
I apologize for letting my anger and eccentricities get in the way of the heart of the matter… I don’t believe any animal is worth more than a person.
I’m not sorry I pissed some folks off. I can be abrasive. I let subsidiary stuff get in the way. But I stick to my guns… I think some of the behavior discussed is odd and inexcusable. I can accept it without liking it. I should have left it out, I suppose.
I do feel weird, though. This is almost on a level with the religious discussions… no one is really right or wrong, just of his or her own opinion. I’ve been surprised at how polarized the opinions have been.
Sigh. I’ve learned a lesson…read the label on the can of worms before you open it. I’m glad cooler heads prevailed on this thread. Consider me chastised.
I don’t think I made my point well enough. I’m not saying that “I’d rather see kids burn to death than my cat is NOT wrong”. I’m saying that there is SO much that is FAR more evil than that, that THAT is not the premier reason to declare “stop the world I want to get off” if that’s your feeling.
First, you’re talking about a situation in which there would be horrendous panic and horror. No one truly knows what they’d do in such a situation until they’re in it. Second, would you feel the same way if they were saying 'I’d save my family, but I wouldn’t save strangers" or “if I could save one person, I’d choose X person, or type of person”?
You’re attributing great evil to people expressing an opinion about a “what if” event. I don’t think that those professing such a great love for their pet, that their first alliance would be to the pet in times of danger are truly the base of all evil. Misguided? Perhaps, but the root of all evil? Hmmmmmmmmmmm
I think we all tend to feel that way from time to time. Most of us are more apt to be pushed to it when things like 9/11 happen, or smaller but just as evil things as the Xbox situation, pure, purposeful human on human evil.
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I don’t know what to think about this, what to do with this. For now, I’m going to bed. Perhaps I’ll feel differently tomorrow. I’m not sure.
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Wow, well maybe it’s related to a personal issue? Something that you’re not remembering right now, compounded by being tired. Sleep well.
I’d really like to backtrack a little and explore this issue a little further with you, clairobscur.
So, you’d save Charles Manson before an animal. Fine.
Do you feel that there is something terribly wrong with people believing that scumbag murderers are not higher on their list of priorities than a favorite dog or cat? If some people agree that yes, they’d save a person before their favorite dog or cat, with the exception of a few evil types like Charles Manson or Osama Bin Laden, does that bother you as well?
Or let’s put it another way: you can save Osama or you can save your (hypothetical) aunt’s seeing eye dog. Which would you choose?
Turkey Curse, don’t want you to think we’re ignoring you. Thanks for your clarifying post.
There’s a burning buidling, or other source of grave danger (is there any other kind?), and you have a choice between saving your beloved pet, or a nonhuman creature like Manson, Dahmer, a child rapist, etc, which would you save?
Put me down as the brass ring to your ticket off the planet, because there is NO WAY I’d put manson above a freaking parakeet, let alone my dog.
There’s a big difference between what people say and what they’d actually do
It’s not a symptom of loving animals too much. The people who say that generally don’t like or trust people very much, but that’s not because of their relationships with their pets. IOW, even if there were no pets to consider, they’d still be wary and distrustful of other humans, and would possibly say that they’d save books before people, or paintings before people, etc. Of course, I can’t speak for all of them but that has been my experience.
I’m not surprised to see the sentiment expressed here, I’m merely surprised that you haven’t come across it so frequently in the real world. Get a group of people talking about the latest crimes, terrorist threats, state of the world, etc and it’s rare to find one that doesn’t express a sentiment along the lines of mankind being worthless.
If I had to choose between saving a stranger or a beloved pet? I hope I never have to make that choice. It may make me a bad person, but I can’t make my mind up. I love my cats so much, but I couldn’t stand by and watch someone else die, but it would be devestating to lose my cats like that, but how could I live with myself if I didn’t help? shudder I hope I’ll never be in that position.
I have the same sentiment as clairobscur on this issue.
There was a thread last year in GD about this very same issue, whether you’d rescue your dog before a random stranger. At the time I was really surprised at the number of people who’d vehemently say they’d rescue their dog first. I was shocked, as I always thought it was commonly accepted you should put humans before animals. Admittedly there were lots of people who took the opposite position, too.
It taught me that lots of important moral convictions aren’t as widely shared in western culture as I thought they were. It’s not that I’m so certain that my opinion on this issue is correct, rather that I thought wrongly that there was no significant disagreement.
The issue brought up by yosemite is a different one in that is assumes a distinction between strangers. However, once you assume that human beings are to be given priority over animals, it is hard to justify to lower their priority significantly after that.
Maybe this is related to a cultural difference, in that the U.S. still has the death penalty, which by definition implies that certain people deserve to die. In Europe the death penalty has been abolished by (I think) every country. So for us it’s more natural to think that every human being deserves to live, no matter what they have done (which of course doesn’t preclude proper punishment).
I’m just trying to explain what I considered to be baffling. I can see that the choice may be a hard one, and that you would feel compelled to save you pet. What is rather harsh is, as cazzle neatly points out, the callousness that some people expressed to the fate of perfect strangers (without assuming they are bad people). Again this may be a difference between a culture that doesn’t recognize legal obligations to rescue strangers, and the continental European system where such obligations are recognized as a matter of course. This really saddens me.
I think cazzle stated and defended admirably the difficult position you might find yourself in, which I can appreciate (even though I don’t own a pet myself). So it could well be allowed that rescuing your pet would in certain cases be morally alloweable.
What seems a bit distasteful is a certain glee with which some people seem to look at the demise of another person, even if they don’t know anything about him or his moral worth. I would prefer to see the sadness, well expressed by cazzle, that you have to make a choice with unfortunate consequences either way.
Why is it, in our society, that when Tibbles has a life threatening illness we are cruel if we don’t have her put down but Granny can lie lifeless for years and we can’t put her down?
I believe the way our society sees euthenasia (sp?) is majorly fucked up. If my cat/dog develops some serious disease tomorrow I am cruel if I let then them live. If my mother develops a serious disease I am supposed to watch her wither away, pain or not.
I love animals. I have never not had pets. I have also not had one put down. For 2 reasons, if I can’t afford that decency to my family then why to my pet? If I love my pet as much as my family then I will let the pet die when it’s time is up…the same respect I would give to my mother.
I believe most people have animals put down/put to sleep to save their own feelings. Most of us can’t bear to see those we love in pain. With animals we have the choice to stop the pain, its is a relief for us.
As to the OP, yes cutsey animals will always affect us more. If that baby animal they chucked on the BBQ was a sheep…well they would be inviting the neighbours over for lamb chops.
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Talk about complex. Love and hate being divided by a thin line, all that stuff?