TO THOSE WHO CRITICIZE THE NOTION OF ANIMALS RIGHTS
by Andrzej Szczepanek - The majority of people prioritize human rights over animals rights. They see nothing wrong in the industrial mass killing of non-human sentient beings.
They say: "There is war, there is human suffering, there are hungry children going about."
This deficient and fragmented perception of reality is the product of deceptive and damaging cultural and systemic mindset which fails to grasp the true meaning of evil, violence and suffering. It is not only a debate about animals rights. The debate carried on by animal activists concerns the redefinition of evil, violence, and suffering in general so that our own cultural organization can better cope with the challenges of social evil that corrupts our system and which is the source of permanent social unrest and discontent.
The majority of people, as far as I know, do not know that animals rights are part and parcel of human rights because animals rights also signify the welfare of many humans who are capable of cultivating meaningful and emotive relations with other feeling and sentient beings. This relation existing between the two sentient beings - a human and an animal - can be as strong and meaningful as a relation existing between people. Animals and human rights are inseparable, and all sentient beings have the right not to be subject to the ultimate agony and trauma of violent death and dying. Violation of animals rights, in the moral, social, psychological and legal aspects, inevitably means the violation of human rights. Those who dismiss this argument are as intolerant and prejudiced as others who use whatever religious, political or other dubious moral arguments to suppress the rights of minorities.
Animal welfare activists are a minority group which is marginalized and subject to exclusion because of the moral systemic deficiency of our cultural organization, its discriminatory mindset and institutional violence which also results in marginalization and exclusion of other social groups affected by unemployment, poverty, inequality and systemic bias. This discrimination is the product of media censorship and fossilized state-run education which feeds students with lofty ideals of equality, democracy and human progress whereas it fails to address the critical issues of evil, suffering, violence, social injustice and is unable to explain why the world is getting more and more violent despite the misleading sense of affluence and stability.
The critics who denounce animals rights activists, campaign against human rights, and distort the concept of human rights in the process. Those who condemn animal rights activism, claiming that they are defenders of human rights, do nothing to foster the cause of human rights, on the contrary, they rate and graduate suffering and pain as if they were gradable.
For Nazis, Jewish suffering and trauma of gas chambers were worthless and meant nothing. For our biased and morally degenerate cultural organization, the agony and trauma of mass-industrialized butchery means equally nothing. The suffering is ungradable. The suffering resulting from violent death is ultimately violent and traumatic to the human and animal victim. Only those who are direct witness to human and animal suffering and have a profound understanding of violence, make no distinction between animals and humans because making the distinction is evil and works against humanity.
Grading the ultimate trauma and suffering of imminent violent death is like saying that a human is deader than an animal.
Any gradation of the trauma of dying is socially and morally extremely dangerous because it can be applied to different groups of people giving rise to the insidious process of discrimination.
If we are capable of discrimination against animals, we are equally capable of discrimination against humans because our set of values is flawed as we continue to fail to understand the true meaning of violence, suffering and discrimination.
If we are to create a sustainable society relatively free of social exclusion, violence, discrimination and systemic corruption, we have to redefine the crucial concepts, and seek new moral and cultural identity.
- Andrzej Szczepanek -
They say: "There is war, there is human suffering, there are hungry children going about."
This deficient and fragmented perception of reality is the product of deceptive and damaging cultural and systemic mindset which fails to grasp the true meaning of evil, violence and suffering. It is not only a debate about animals rights. The debate carried on by animal activists concerns the redefinition of evil, violence, and suffering in general so that our own cultural organization can better cope with the challenges of social evil that corrupts our system and which is the source of permanent social unrest and discontent.
The majority of people, as far as I know, do not know that animals rights are part and parcel of human rights because animals rights also signify the welfare of many humans who are capable of cultivating meaningful and emotive relations with other feeling and sentient beings. This relation existing between the two sentient beings - a human and an animal - can be as strong and meaningful as a relation existing between people. Animals and human rights are inseparable, and all sentient beings have the right not to be subject to the ultimate agony and trauma of violent death and dying. Violation of animals rights, in the moral, social, psychological and legal aspects, inevitably means the violation of human rights. Those who dismiss this argument are as intolerant and prejudiced as others who use whatever religious, political or other dubious moral arguments to suppress the rights of minorities.
Animal welfare activists are a minority group which is marginalized and subject to exclusion because of the moral systemic deficiency of our cultural organization, its discriminatory mindset and institutional violence which also results in marginalization and exclusion of other social groups affected by unemployment, poverty, inequality and systemic bias. This discrimination is the product of media censorship and fossilized state-run education which feeds students with lofty ideals of equality, democracy and human progress whereas it fails to address the critical issues of evil, suffering, violence, social injustice and is unable to explain why the world is getting more and more violent despite the misleading sense of affluence and stability.
The critics who denounce animals rights activists, campaign against human rights, and distort the concept of human rights in the process. Those who condemn animal rights activism, claiming that they are defenders of human rights, do nothing to foster the cause of human rights, on the contrary, they rate and graduate suffering and pain as if they were gradable.
For Nazis, Jewish suffering and trauma of gas chambers were worthless and meant nothing. For our biased and morally degenerate cultural organization, the agony and trauma of mass-industrialized butchery means equally nothing. The suffering is ungradable. The suffering resulting from violent death is ultimately violent and traumatic to the human and animal victim. Only those who are direct witness to human and animal suffering and have a profound understanding of violence, make no distinction between animals and humans because making the distinction is evil and works against humanity.
Grading the ultimate trauma and suffering of imminent violent death is like saying that a human is deader than an animal.
Any gradation of the trauma of dying is socially and morally extremely dangerous because it can be applied to different groups of people giving rise to the insidious process of discrimination.
If we are capable of discrimination against animals, we are equally capable of discrimination against humans because our set of values is flawed as we continue to fail to understand the true meaning of violence, suffering and discrimination.
If we are to create a sustainable society relatively free of social exclusion, violence, discrimination and systemic corruption, we have to redefine the crucial concepts, and seek new moral and cultural identity.
- Andrzej Szczepanek -