I cry every time I watch Finding Nemo. Recently, I watched it again in a screenwriting class - this time on a big screen with an audience. A lot of people, including the professor, were moved to tears. I wasn’t surprised - after all, it’s tough to resist crying at the reunion between adorable Nemo with his lucky fin and his devoted Dad who travelled the whole ocean for him. It’s a profoundly emotional film, yet I couldn’t help but feel a slight sinking feeling unrelated to the plot. Most of the people crying over the fish, were also the ones funding an industry that kills one trillion sea creatures a year. I’m no fool, I know there’s obviously a difference between a cartoon fish and a real one. We don’t know a real fish’s pain because they don’t speak, so it’s fine to kill them. Yet, they writhe and struggle as we take their lives - the unmistakable will to live, only in a language we don’t speak anymore.
The needless suffering we inflict upon animals keeps me up at night. I remember when I first went vegan how quickly my view of the world shifted and how greater the pain was that I saw. It’s a tough situation because I understand where every person who says they love animals yet eats meat, is coming from. I too used to think I loved animals before I went vegan. I thought I was an empathetic person who did their best to make the world a better place. I deeply understood my dogs and cats. I would rescue bees on hot days and mice from roads. I would pat the cows in the fields near my house. And yet, three times a day, I would still eat foods that contributed to the death and torture of innocent beings. I was knowingly funding an industry that went against everything I believed in, and for the longest time, I have struggled to know why. Why did I love my dog, and at the same time enjoy consuming the flesh of a creature more intelligent? Why do we love cats and not pigs? Why is it the norm to murder calves and not puppies?
The answer lies in the human belief that we are superior to all other species of animals, a belief know as speciesism. The speciesist way of thinking involves the consideration of animals - with their own needs, desires, and complex lives - as means to our ends. It is a supremacist line of “reasoning” that is used to justify treating other living, sentient beings, as objects, property, or even ingredients. It's a prejudice deeply entrenched in refusing to acknowledge the interests, agency, and self-value of others, frequently driven by personal benefit. Importantly, this toxic perspective also causes humans to fabricate distinctions between animal species, solely based on the utility they may offer. For instance, most people wouldn’t imagine treating their dog in the same manner as pigs are treated within the food industry, despite pigs being capable of experiencing the same fear, pain, joy, and suffering as dogs (in fact many studies have shown pigs may even be more intelligent than dogs). While many individuals wear fur-lined clothing sourced from trapped coyotes or rest on pillows filled with feathers plucked from distressed geese, they would never contemplate forcibly ripping fur from a crying kitten’s back. It's speciesist to assume that animals raised for farming or kept in captivity don't endure suffering or experience emotions to the same degree as the animals we cherish in our homes.
The only relevant difference between pigs and dogs is that for the past thousand years in Western culture we’ve been eating one while we welcome the other into our home. But time and habit is no justification. We used to live in caves and run around in the woods - it’s only natural to evolve, and it’s about time we do so with our food habits too. There is no reason to treat animals differently because of the species they were born into. It is time to stop looking at the distinctions between ourselves and rather look for the similarities. Pain is pain and a little bit of empathy can go a long way in reducing the harm in the world.
Sources
What is speciesism? get the definition now: PETA FAQ (2020) PETA. Available at: https://www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/what-is-speciesism/#:~:text=“Speciesism” is the human-,as means to human ends. (Accessed: 19 March 2024).
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