It’s time to take a look at the line between “pet” and “animal.” When the ASPCA sends an agent to the home of a Brooklyn family to arrest one of its members for allegedly killing a hamster, something is wrong.
That “something” is this: we protect “companion animals” like hamsters while largely ignoring what amounts to the torture of chickens and cows and pigs. In short, if I keep a pig as a pet, I can’t kick it. If I keep a pig I intend to sell for food, I can pretty much torture it.
From Mark Bittman.
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It’s just a witty way of saying that all animals are not equal. Playing games with the concept of ‘equal’.
And then you have the charismatic megafauna. Someone once had the thought provoking questions of how the world would have reacted in 20,000 chimps, rather than children, had been abducted in northern Uganda
Not to mention sometimes they may be the same animals! As a Peace Corps Volunteer in an Andean country, we heard (possibly urban legends) about people in the US being charged with animal cruelty for killing guinea pigs, which we thought of as “dinner” not “pets”.
“Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows” and “Eating Animals” are definitely on my (never ending) reading list.
And taking the thought further: Some animals are even being treated better than some humans.