A Really Angry Cow

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

On the Further Insufficiency of "Beings"

I made a point in my last post that the word "being" is not enough to describe an animal. It occurred to me later on that I did not sufficiently explain why that was, and I do like to have my arguments shiny and waiting for someone to come poke a hole in it.

The word "being" is insufficient for our furred, feathered, and scaled brothers and sisters; to my dismay, I realised that it did not accurately portray to the listener that animals are not our inferiors, but our equals; it makes a jab at it to say that animals are not things (which is the common representation of animals in our culture), but it stops short at disallowing the thought that they are our equals.

Human and nonhuman animals, as anybody whose mind is not firmly intrenched in bias will be able to figure out, are equal. For more reasons than one -- they have morality (as observed as social law), empathy, compassion, intelligence, a sense of time, self-control, self-awareness, and many other traits that we have previously only attributed to humans (a thought that is slowly and surely being debunked to include other animals). Granted, not all animals have each of these traits in equal measure -- but then, neither do humans.

The most telling aspect of this equality is that, without a speciesist bias one way or another, no one can decide what trait is better than any of the others -- if it's being able to communicate by smell, to find your way over thousands of miles of land, to plant sees in over 7,000 locations and be able to find each and every one, or to operate a machine (which, unfortunately for the human supremecists, animals can do as well). Thus, by virtue of there being no objectively better trait, we are equal.

But, to end that tangent, "beings" does not accurately portray this equality. Why is that, exactly? Primarily, because humans do not think of themselves as beings even though they may refer to themselves as "human beings". Allow me to illustrate:

Say you have a Formula 1 racecar. If you go around saying to everyone else that you have a "car", they won't think it's a Formula 1 racecar, and they will be surprised when they see it that it actually is one. However, if you call it -- say, a racecar, then they will immediately know what it is, and in greater detail than just "car".

Calling nonhuman people "beings" is like this. "Human being" is synonymous with "person" in this culture; if you take away the "human" part, it becomes meaningless and still inferior, though better than an object. However, if you call a nonhuman animal a "person" and a group of them "nonhuman people", you bypass this inferiority. "Persons", after all, are what our legal system is founded on; call an animal a "person" and you immediately disallow the thought that they are inferior by giving them the same status that a human has -- worthy of rights and freedom.

Ultimately, I think, nothing else will do. We must press for social equality for animals or be doomed to fail as a movement. If we accept the inferiority by animals, even by implications -- then why shouldn't anybody else use and abuse them as they wish?

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