Like Animals

I feel very strongly about how our use of language reveals our prejudices and biases, particular when it comes to the oppressed, whether the oppressed be human or nonhuman. In fact, the language of oppression is fundamental to the oppression itself. In order to establish your superiority over a group, first you need to subordinate that group, and one of the basic ways we do this is through the use of language.

The Nazis knew this well. As part of their “Final Solution,” a euphemism itself for the extermination of an entire people, they used language that demonized and dehumanized the Jews and other "enemies" of the State.” The Nazis portrayed the Jews as 'parasites,' and 'disease.’ They also called them pigs, dogs, vermin, and swine.

With the subjugation and suppression of African Americans came a language which labeled them 'chattels,' 'property,' and 'beasts.’ Even earlier than this were descriptions of Africans by the Europeans who called them brutes, monkeys, animals, and apes.

Similarly, the extermination of a significant population of "American Indians" was accompanied by the use of dehumanizing language defining them as "non-persons," "savages," and "Satan's partisans." The were also called ugly, filthy, inhuman beasts, swine, pigs, dogs, baboons, gorillas, and orangutans.

Belittling humans by calling them animals isn’t reserved only for certain groups of humans. In fact, any human who acts unfavorably or violently towards another human being is called “an animal.” It’s ironic to me, because animals don’t do to each other – or to humans – any of the horrific things we do to each other – and to other animals – for fun, for pleasure. When people act violently towards one another, it seems to me that it would be more accurate to say they’re acting like humans. But, of course we don’t do that, because we’re the almighty human being, whose primary fault that separates us from all the other animals – in my opinion – is our arrogance. It is our arrogance that enables us to subordinate, exploit, abuse, and kill animals, and it is our arrogance that enables us to justify this behavior on the basis of – well, our arrogance. On the basis of what we call our human right to do so. Right, that’s called arrogance.

And so we set up this system so that humans are superior, and animals are inferior, and so if we want to deem another group inferior, all we need to do is call them “animals” as the ultimate insult. One of the problems is that we are denying our own animal-ness; we don’t like to remember that we, too, are animals, and so in reality, though we shouldn’t mind being called what we are (i.e. animals), we do mind, because non-human animals have been denigrated, beaten down, insulted, and exploited for so many centuries that it is the worse thing to be called “an animal.”

I believe that the denigration of any people as a type of animal is a prelude to violence and genocide. Many anthropologists believe that the cruel forms of domesticating animals at the dawn of our agricultural society – about ten thousand years ago – created the model for the exploitation of other human beings. In other words, in domesticating, confining, and controlling other animals, we firmly planted violence into the heart of human culture.

What really breaks my heart is when I hear people from groups who have themselves been oppressed usurp the language of the oppressor and refer to animals in a derogatory way. I was watching Spike Lee’s documentary “When the Levees Broke” about the inexcusable response to the victims of the floods caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and a few of the people being interviewed talked about how difficult it was to see their fellow human beings being treated like animals, like cattle, reminiscent of what it was like when their people were slaves. The implication is that treating animals in an insulting or abusive way is acceptable but treating human animals that way is unacceptable. To my mind, neither is acceptable, and more than that, the acceptability of one leads to the acceptability of the other. The abuse of one leads to the abuse of the other. Here’s what freed slave Frederick Douglass had to say about that.

He wrote, “There is no denying that slavery had a direct and positive tendency to produce coarseness and brutality in the treatment of animals, especially those most useful to agricultural industry. The master blamed the overseer, the overseer the slave, and the slave the horses, oxen, and mules, and violence fell upon the animals as a consequence.”

In order to prove your superiority, you have to establish that you’re superior over someone else. You have to set it up so that there is someone underneath you. It’s not enough to just say “I rule!” “I’m the best!” You have to rule over something, over someone. And so humans have created a very convenient dichotomy between ourselves and the rest of the natural world. If we could tame the wild, then we do rule – literally. And so that’s what we’ve done. Animals have been put under our heels and are at the mercy of humans and our centuries-old inferiority complex. That’s what it comes down to. It comes down to arrogance and lust for power. And in order to keep up this pretense, we have to control the public perception so that it’s aligned with us. This is where our use of language is particularly helpful. The other way this is done is through fear.

By painting a picture of a savage, wild, vicious, unpredictable, violent animal kingdom, who is in every way inferior to the civilized, intelligent, rational, predictable human, you convince people that to NOT control, tame, and kill animals is a very dangerous prospect. It’s set up such that it seems like we’re actually protecting one another from the dangerous, wild animal. And then we create even sillier justifications for our speciesism by saying that those crazy animal rights activists want rights for animals at the expense of humans – as if we’re asking for driver’s licenses for dogs and political positions for cats.

In reality, it is not our fear that animals will take over the world that compels us to keep them down. It’s our fear that we won’t be able to keep controlling the world if we stopped enslaving them. It’s fear – not strength – that drives us to eat animals, make them perform for us, give them diseases and break their bodies in the name of science, wear their skins, wear their fur, put them in cages. It doesn’t take strength and courage to do these things. It’s our fear that we’re not adequate enough – just as humans – not better but part of. Imagine that. Imagine a world where human beings were humble enough to recognize that we all play a part in this world. That we all contribute and that we don’t have to keep others down to demonstrate how strong we are. We have many, many other reasons to believe we’re strong. We are strong. But in our treatment of animals, we continually display how weak we are. We continually demonstrate the worst of what humans are capable of.

So in addition to painting animals as wild and dangerous, we say all sorts of other things about them, using ourselves as the barometer. They’re not intelligent like we are. They can’t empathize like we can. They don’t have the complexity of language we have. They don’t have the ability to reason like we can. They don’t have souls like we do. And all sorts of other nonsense to keep us propped up and to keep them down. The funny thing about all of this is that we’re writing this story. And as long as we want to keep the power we’ve created, we have to keep telling this story. But what would happen if we were to create a different set of criteria to judge the value of non-human animals? What if we stopped measuring them against humans, in which case they’ll always fall short. We’re the authors of this story.

What if our criteria were different? I mean imagine if we determined your worthiness by how fast you could run. On how high you could fly. On the ability to climb mountains without rope but only four hooves. Depending on who’s telling the story and what the focus is, there are so many ways in which animals are superior to humans, and I don’t mean that in such a way as to suggest that we should let non-human animals run for President (um…I take that back). But that is to say, if we changed the story, changed our criteria, and were willing to humble ourselves a little, our relationship with animals would be very different. We would be much happier. The Earth would be much healthier. And the animals would be at peace.

Now perhaps some of you are saying that I’m envisioning some Utopian society where lions starve rather than kill gazelle. If that’s what you think I’m saying, think again. There is no breach of ethics when a carnivore kills his prey. But there is a breach of ethics – our own ethics – to have the choice to kill or not to kill and to choose the former. To have the choice between hurting someone and not hurting someone and choosing the former. There is a breach of ethics in a thought system that believes everything and everyone is here for us.

There is an essay written by Laura Moretti I would like to share with you. It has been a favorite of mine for many years, and I hope you’ll appreciate it as much as I do. Laura Moretti is a long-time activist and writer. Her website is http://www.lauramoretti.info/, where you can read her work and see some really amazing photos and videos, including video of the replacement calves for dairy herds confined outside in little pens in 100-degree heat and some other videos. She’s also the publisher of Animals Voice Magazine at http://www.animalsvoice.com/, and I recommend you check out this information-packed website and subscribe to the magazine if you can.

Here is Laura’s essay called Like Animals:

"Why do you suppose you like animals so much?" was the million-dollar question put to me Christmas Eve (and one I hadn't provoked). I knew my family was expecting me to say something like, "I like animals because they're cute and cuddly and furry and fun to play with." But instead I said, "I like animals because they are honest."

My observation triggered a facetious comment from one of my brothers. “About what?"--as if honesty were merely about telling the truth, and everyone knows animals can't talk! His notation was met with hearty laughter; for once, they thought they'd repaid me for all the discomfort I'd caused them at other family gatherings.

"I like that animals don't pretend to be someone they're not," I continued in my reply, hushing the crowd. "To quote a phrase, 'Dogs don't lie about love.' Animals don't fake their feelings. I like that they're emotionally fearless."

We were lounging on sofas and armchairs after our feast and present opening. Coffee was being served, so I seized the opportunity. "I like animals," I added, "because they only take out of life what they need. They don't abuse their environment, annihilate species, pollute their water, contaminate the air they breathe. They don't build weapons of mass destruction and use them against others-particularly members of their own species. I like animals because they have no use for those things, or for war or terrorism. They don't build nations around genocide."

My uncle seemed momentarily lost in thought. He had been born and raised in New York City. "That's because they don't know any better," a brother-in-law argued. "They don't do those things because they don't know how."

"A pride of lions doesn't get together," I countered him, "and decide how to exterminate zebras-their very source of nourishment. I don't think it's because they don't know how. I think it's because it's counter-productive." They laughed. "

I also like animals," I continued," because they don't punish themselves for their perceived inadequacies. They don't dwell on things of the past, nor use them as excuses for behavior in the present. And they don't plan to live some day in the future, they live today, this moment, fully, completely, and purely. I like animals because they live their lives with so much more freedom than humans live theirs."

"That's because they don't think," one of my cousins offered.

"Is that the difference?" I wondered. "'I think therefore I'm cruel, destructive, insecure, abusive?' You meant to say they don't think the way we think." The room had become strangely quiet. I was amazed at how closely my family was listening, despite the occasional grunt to the contrary.

"I like animals because they don't bow down to imaginary gods they've created, nor annihilate each other in the name of those gods; gods, they say, who are all-knowing and all-loving and just. I like animals because they only know how to give unconditional love and implicit trust. I mean, animals either extend those things to you or they don't; there are no shades of gray. They have the best of what makes us human and, as one observer put it, "none of our vices.'" "And thank God," someone injected.

"Lastly," I added, remembering why I was an animal rights activist, "Animals are the most victimized living creatures on earth; more than children, more than women, more than people of color. Our prejudice enables us to exploit and use them, as scientific tools and expendable commodities, and to eat them. We do to them any atrocity our creative minds can summon. We justify our cruelties; we have to or we can't commit them. I like animals because they don't do to themselves or to others the things we do to them. And they don't make excuses for unethical actions because they don't commit unethical acts."

"And finally," I finished, "I like animals because they're not hypocrites. They don't say one thing and do another. They are, as I've said, honest. Animals-not humans-are the best this planet has to offer." And, interestingly enough, despite my soapbox rant, not a one of them made a snide comment or a hint of laughter. The conversation actually rolled into shared stories of animals they've known, stories of animal loyalty and intelligence, their humor and innocence. And it was me who'd become the listener with the occasional comment: "Now, if only humans could only be, well, like animals." And that is why I fight the good fight; I rise on behalf of the best among us.”

The Ugly Reality of Mutilation

THE UGLY REALITY OF MUTILATION
The word “mutilation," whose root means "to cut up; to cut off," is a disturbing one, but I’m not using it merely to disturb. I’m using it because it aptly describes what we systematically do to billions of live animals on a regular basis - because we can. To my mind, to mutilate someone physically, to harm them physically is the ultimate violation of their rights as an individual, but as we know, animals don't have rights - even over their own bodies. If it’s too painful for us to contemplate having the animals we love terrorized and cut up, I think we have to ask ourselves “what’s the difference for those animals for whom nobody is grieving?” It’s the same for them. It's not about us. It's about their suffering. It’s about them.

HENS
The most commonly known type of mutilation is "debeaking": the act of searing off a segment of a hen’s beak – while she is a chick. I say “she” because you should know by now that male chicks aren’t raised – they’re discarded, ground up, thrown out – cause well, they’re males. And males don’t lay eggs.

To prevent economic losses from the frustrated birds pecking at one another and creating injury and death, it is perfectly legal and perfectly acceptable and perfectly widespread to cut off the beaks of the animals. This doesn’t stop the animals from pecking, of course – but it lessens the injury and thus lessens the economic losses.

This procedure is often called "debeaking," which is a bit of a misnomer, because their entire beak isn’t removed. Some call it “beak trimming,” which I don’t like because it sounds as if the chick is going to the hair dresser. Whatever you call it, it is a painful procedure which involves cutting through bone, cartilage, and soft tissue with a searing hot blade. As the bird grows, their beaks are often so mutilated and still sensitive that it makes it difficult for them to eat and of course preen themselves. And sometimes, the birds’ beaks are seared a second time because the beaks can grow back – the first time is in their first week of life and if there’s a second time, it’s when they’re between 12 and 20 weeks of age.

Visit http://www.eggindustry.com/ for more information.

TURKEYS
Turkeys are also raised in confinement in large sheds that are as large as football fields. As with the closely confined battery cage hens, the birds will become frustrated and exhibit stress-induced aggression. To minimize damage to the flesh and to the pocketbooks of the operators, baby turkeys (called poults) also undergo the painful procedure of having not only a portion of their beaks removed but also their toes. The babies are hung upside down, while the tips of their front three toes are exposed to microwave radiation, which kills the tissue. Often their toes are just cut off with scissors, and their snoods – the little piece of skin on the top of a turkey’s head – is pulled off (they say they do this to prevent damage from frostbite or fighting). Sometimes their rear toes are also cut off with scissors – of course all of this without anesthesia.

Visit www.upc-online.org

PIGS
When piglets are only a couple weeks old, they’re mutilated in many ways. First comes the castration. The piglet’s scrotum is cut open by a worker, who pulls out his testicles while the piglet screams and writhes in pain. Just imagine for one second if this were a puppy or a kitten. It’s unfathomable. Next, their ears are notched. This is actually very common practice across the species. With scissors, a portion of each piglet’s ears are sliced off – just to make identification patterns. In addition, workers cut off piglets’ incisors with pliers that are similar to wire cutters, without the use of painkillers, in order to prevent them from biting each other – or chewing on themselves – out of boredom and frustration. Finally, their tails are cut off to reduce tail biting, another habit that arises from boredom and frustration in stressful conditions. The pain is severe and continues for many days.

Visit www.pigspeace.org

CATTLE – BRANDING, DE-HORNING, EAR-NOTCHINGI think the most obvious way that cattle are mutilated – something you’re all familiar with, and that’s branding. Branding – often done twice a year – is done by a rancher to register and identify his animals. All ranchers brand cattle, and most ranchers brand their horses too. The red hot steel tool, heated with a propane torch, is pressed into the side of the animal. Another method used is something called “freeze branding” which causes the hair to grow back white when it does grow back. This is no less painful than branding with a hot iron. This is done to “beef cattle.” It’s not done with dairy cows because they are always kept close by so they can be milked several times a day.

While the animal is restrained for the branding, this is also when they castrate the calves, cut off parts of their ears, and cut a slice of skin off their wattle, the fatty portion of the animal’s neck. I’ll say once again: all this is all done without anesthesia.

In what is called “ear marking,” portions of the ear are removed or cut, and they also cut the wattle so that when their skin heals, it hangs down in a certain identifiable position. All of this is done for identification purposes. Some ranchers use plastic tags secured to the cow's ear instead of the knife cut. I’ve helped removed these tags that are inserted without anesthesia or antiseptic, and the remaining hole is often bloody and crusty and raw.

Something else that’s done to cattle when they’re enduring all of this – when they’re just calves – is dehorning and disbudding. Neither of these practices are regulated, and neither is done with anesthesia. Disbudding is the removal of the very early growth of what will become the horn if left to grow. The most common and most painful method is to use a hot iron. Dehorning is the removal of the horns after they have formed from the bud. Methods of dehorning include the use of wire, guillotine shears, or dehorning knives, or saws. Dehorning adult cattle is not advised – because their horns are connected to their sinus cavities, serious damage can occur, but it is done nonetheless.

They remove the horns of cattle (females can have horns, too) for the same reason they cut off the beaks and toes of birds: to reduce the damage to the “flesh” caused by the cattle fighting or coming in contact to one another. The industry says “Horns are the single major cause of carcass wastage due to bruising, and trim associated with bruising for carcasses from horned cattle is approximately twice that for carcasses from hornless cattle.” In other words, the more the animals have “bruising” on their flesh, the less money for the people in the industry.

DAIRY COWS
Though dairy cows aren’t branded, it doesn’t mean they don’t have pieces for their bodies removed. To increase the comfort of the workers who milk the cows – who attach the milking machines to their udders – a large portion of the cows’ tails are cut off. So the workers aren’t annoyed or inconvenienced. It’s called Tail Docking.

If you’ve EVER spent one moment watching cattle, you’d know that they are constantly bothered by flies. Their tails are used to swat away flies and is the only way they are able to do this. The defenders of tail docking say that the risk of workers contracting Leptospirosis, which can be spread through the urine and can penetrate broken skin, is increased when the potentially urine-soaked tails hit the workers. But recent reviews of the science conclude that the available data do not support claims that tail docking reduces the risk of Leptospirosis - OR improves the dairy worker's comfort or safety. Experts discourage tail docking, and even the American Veterinary Medical Association criticizes this practice, and they don’t usually go against practices in the meat, dairy, and egg industries.

By the way, the procedure is typically performed without anesthetic and is accomplished by the application of a tight, rubber ring that restricts blood flow to the bottom 2/3 of the tail, which atrophies and detaches or it’s removed with a sharp instrument.

There’s another reeeeally disturbing practice that I couldn’t believe when I first heard about it. In fact, I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. Have you heard of a fistulated cow? A fistulated cow is a cow who has had a hole cut into her side for scientific research. Then a plastic device – essentially a window – is inserted so that her digestive system can be observed. Fistulated cows are pretty common in animal ag/large animal vet programs/ag schools, and students are encouraged to stick their arms in and feel the stomach, etc. At agriculture fairs, this is essentially an attraction for visitors. But industry defends this as essential for understanding the health of the species. A cow with a window into her digestive system. Anyway, thought you might be interested in that.

GOATS AND SHEEP
I mentioned before that pigs and cattle have pieces of their ears removed and are also ear-tagged. The same goes for goats and sheep. Goats also often have their horns and buds removed, an incredibly painful procedure. The reasoning behind this is similar to that used in the cattle industry – to reduce damage to the flesh but also to adapt the goat's head to fit into a milk stanchion. They cut off their horns – which serve many practical purposes for the goats – to make it easier to get them through the milking line. Goats and sheep are also castrated without anesthesia, and goats also have their wattles cut.

Sheep raised for their fur – which humans turn into what they call wool – endure something else entirely. You may have heard of something called mulesing. This is the name for the removal of pieces of skin from around the tail of a sheep. It’s common practice in Australia, where most sheep are raised for their fur. Defenders say it is a way to prevent flystrike (which is the incidence of maggots eating at their skin, and you can learn more about that on by doing some research on the lack of necessity of this cruel practice. Performed with large metal shears, no anesthetic is used.

Visit http://www.peta.org/ for more on the campaign against mulesing. After striking a deal with the Australian wool industry, it’s supposed to be phased out by 2010. We’ll see.

DOGS
Dogs kept as research tools in laboratories have their vocal cords severed (and I’ve even heard of people doing this to their own dogs). This is merely so that the researchers don’t have to listen to the dogs barking – ya know – communicating – all the time. Other ways we mutilate the animals we are supposed to love is by cropping the ears and tails of certain breeds of dogs – a cosmetic surgery – this is major surgery - that has no medical or practical purpose other than to continue this tradition and to meet the standards for certain breeds set forth by the American Kennel Club.

CATS
A hideous procedure that has gotten a lot of attention lately, thanks to activists and politicians who are banning this practice in many cities and states, is the declawing of domestic cats. Declawing is not a painless procedure, and it’s also not done for medical reasons. The cat's claw is not a toenail at the end of the toe as in other animals. It is movable digit attached to muscle as a finger might be. To declaw a cat is to cut off half of their toes. This is just another way that we just remove body parts for our own convenience.

WILD ANIMALS KEPT AS PETS
Finally and related to this is the barbaric act of keeping wild animals as pets. Aside from all of the ethical problems with this, people who do keep wild animals often have their claws and sharp teeth removed. The injustice of that is so striking to me – these dignified animals with their strength and dignity just cut off. It’s like the bear baiting of many years ago – when a declawed and detoothed bear was chained up and essentially mauled by a dog – for entertainment purposes. Also, if you don’t know about the bears in China confined in small cages practically no bigger than their own bodies just to extract the bile from their gallbladder – well their claws are removed. In addition, the bears are subjected to painful methods of bile extraction whereby a steel catheter is inserted into the abdomen. This is known as the "free-dripping" technique.

For more on the farming of bears for their bile, please visit http://www.animalsasia.org/. It’s’ a fantastic organization that has been so incredibly effective at rescuing these bears and trying to ban this practice.

Unfortunately, I think I’m probably leaving out some examples, but there you have it. The choices we make about animals' bodies comes down to human greed, gluttony, convenience, and vanity – not necessity.