Brian Clifton, Arts & Sciences junior
Filip, I’m sorry about your family’s losses during World War II, but I feel your distress is pointed in the wrong direction. Albeit that some of Singer’s ideas are radical, I don’t think he is the next Hitler. I don’t believe Singer has pushed for any sort of genocide (as Hitler did to the German Jewry, who were treated like animals during World War II).
In fact, in regards to his philosophy on animals, he pushes for the care of the most silenced members of society: animals. So, let’s not make mistakes: Hitler didn’t kill Jews because he was a vegetarian. He did so because he hated Jews.
And the apathy of Europe and America to the suffering of the least in society did nothing to stop it. Maybe the Hitler in this situation is not those proposing legal defense for animals, but those too insensitive to care for the rights of the oppressed.
With that said, is it so preposterous to provide legal defense for animals? If animals weren’t provided legal representation, how then could cases of abuse be brought to court? Protecting animal rights doesn’t negate human rights. So, your worry that helping animals out of abusive situations will spark the euthanasia of the unborn and elderly is unfounded.
How would caring for animals start us on a murderous rampage? If anything, caring for animals would only improve care for humanity. When we see truly the atrocities done to animals, then we can see the atrocities we do to fellow human beings and begin to rectify them.
You claim that Christianity is the idea that changed “the ugly moral order” of suicide and infanticide; however, I feel that since the rise of Christianity there has been equal if not more human rights violations in the name Christ (directly or indirectly).
The Spanish Inquisition, pogroms (such as the Crusades), the Shoah, the massacres of English Protestants and Catholics, the massacres of French Protestants and Catholics, the witch trials at Salem, the genocides of Native Americans, Incans, Mayans, Aztecs and the degradation of homosexuals are all examples of gratuitous human rights violation since Christianity. Maybe straying from Christian ethics could help the world become better.
As far as animals not being human, I don’t think you thought about that statement enough. Physically, humans are animals. Therefore, to say animals (assuming you mean all animals) will never be equal to humans is to neglect the fact that humans are animals and humans do in fact equal humans. Maybe when society learns to care for its animals, it can finally care for its human animals as well.
This may be a laughing matter for you. As a Jew, as a vegan, as a person committed to justice for all members of society, I find nothing laughable about this situation.
Call Singer and animal rights advocates the Hitlers of 2010, but know this: Those apathetic to the suffering of the lowest amongst them led the six million to Auschwitz. Likewise, those who don’t recognize the suffering of non-human animals are more likely not to see the suffering of human beings.