I'm writing a little essay on various forms of prejudice and the connection between them for a little fanzine I'll try to put together in the coming months, and would be very grateful if you could comment on the extract on speciesism from the essay that I will post beneath.
Now, for the (seemingly) trickier part - speciesism. What is speciesism? It's an idea that we shouldn't consider interests of somebody on the sole basis of their species membership. So when we, for example, raise and slaughter pigs for food, we do so because "they're just pigs", and their interests shouldn't to be taken into account for that reason alone. But what does that really mean? Some will say that pigs are irrational, therefore it is justifiable to kill them. Well, pigs have the intelligence equal to that of 5 year-old humans -- does that mean it is also justifiable to raise and kill human babies for food? Obviously, no.
Others will argue that we're omnivorous animals and that we need to eat meat and/or other animal "products" to survive and be healthy. Unfortnatelly, that isn't true, too. There is no biological determinism in play here, the fact that we are omnivores was, shall we say, a "gift" evolution "endued" us with, which increased our chances of survival in situations when plants were unavailable or scarce (eg. during ice-ages). But that doesn't mean that since we CAN digest (although, rather poorly) "food" of animal origin, we NEED to eat chicken or drink milk in order to achieve optimal health. Besides, we've got much more similarities with herbivores than with carnivores and omnivores. Moreover, nowadays it is no longer a matter of discussion whether we need meat, dairy or eggs to survive and be healthy - it's an empirical fact, backed up by numerous studies and scientific data, that we don't (for example, check out the official position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada on vegetarian diets; statements by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, or just read some fuckin' books, aight?
).Yet others will claim that eating meat and consuming other animal "products" is "natural" (sic!), therefore justifiable. But such people are oblivious to the fact that throughout the entire history of mankind the argument of "naturalness" had been used to justify virtually anything - slavery, war, child abuse, you name it. It might as well be argued that since humans were beating, deceiving, robbing and killing other humans from the inception of our species, it is "natural" for us to do so and that we should carry on these "kind gestures".
There are many other arguments and counterarguments for and against speciesism (which I don't have enough time and space to examine in detail), but what it all comes to is this: rationality, self-counsciousness, intelligence, the understanding of symbolic language and other faculties possesed are irrelevant when talking about exploitation and slaughter. The only thing that matters in this case is whether the "subject" is sentient (that is, whether "it" can feel pain). If that's so, "it" has an interest (the proposition that it isn't as articulated as in grown up human beings is, again, irrelevant) in avoiding pain and suffering (your dog wouldn't just quietly stand in place if somebody would beat him? he would either try to defend himself or escape the situation which poses threat to his life), which shouldn't be overlooked only because that being is not human. It is a good idea to not give non-human animals the right to vote or drive a car (not to even say, that non-human animals don't even have an interest in such things), which constitues "positive discrimination", but it is wrong to disregard non-human animals' interest in not suffering only because they're of different species than we are. And it doesn't matter that animals do not understand the concept of a "right" -- human babies and severely retarded grown ups also doesn't, but we don't take away all their rights only because of that.
So, being an anti-speciesist means not discriminating any animals (human or non-human) just on the basis of species. It means endowing the right, just ONE right, to NOT experience any intentional, unnecessary (and, as I've mentioned before, our current treatment of animals can't be considered "necessary" in any meaningful way) suffering to all sentient beings.
I'm not going to dig any deeper into the issue of animal rights here because it would take a long-ass time for me to write everthing I would like to write (and because there are myriads of other great fanzines, books and websites where you can find it), but what I want to say, in essence, is that we've got no other justification to continue the intense exploitation (and treatment as mere commodities) of animals, than "they taste good". That's why speciesism is a fundamentaly flawed idea and that's why it is no different than racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. It excludes some humans and non-humans from the "equal consideration of interests" principle on the grounds of a characteristic that is utterly irrelevant in that given situation.
Is my point clear? Have I missed anything? Are there many granmatical or stylistic mistakes? Any feedback is welcome!
