RSS
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
Not to be confused with 'misotheist' which is someone who hates God or gods, the word ‘misotherist’ comes from animal rights activist and writer Jim Mason coining the term ‘misothery,’ from two Greek words: ‘misos’ for hatred and ‘ther’ for wild beast or animal. As for species traitor, that term comes from a publication that deals with insurrectionary anarcho-primitivism, according to a Wikipedia contributor.
The word 'animal' here is used for any sentient creature other than humans, though in many of my other posts I've used the term to include humans or have used the term ‘nonhuman animals.’
But about the theme of this thread, on one extreme would be what we might call a ‘misotherist.’ He or she is someone who not only supports using animals for lab tests, leather, meat, dairy, fur, zoos, circuses, bull fights, dog fights, cock fights, and so on.
He or she is also someone who takes pleasure in the very act of causing or observing the suffering of animals, though Mason may not have meant to use the term in this extreme way.
Probably no one on this forum is like that. But some folk here might pretend to be for off-color humor or for being antagonistic toward vegans so as to avoid engaging us in public discourse regarding the actual ethical questions.
Whichever---at the other extreme of the continuum is someone who works and fights for a world in which people do nothing TO animals, but instead do things FOR them with the sole intended purpose of promoting the well-being and lives of animals.
You might call this person a ‘species traitor’ in that he or she wants a world in which people completely refrain from exploiting animals, even if it seems to be the only way to save human lives and/or prevent or reduce human suffering.
For those of us who are somewhere in the middle of those two extremes---misotherist and species traitor--- a couple questions come into play. One of them is this. To what extent do you support or oppose inflicting pain on, and killing animals when it seems necessary for medical research aimed at saving human lives or reducing or preventing human suffering ?
For example, creating the polio vaccine ‘required’--- to put it euphemistically--- at least a million monkeys, and perhaps as many as five million of them , according to the account given by Norm Phelps in his book, The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA.
One idea is that if we gave thru our moral codes and laws equal regard to people and animals, the benefits for both would outweigh whatever losses we’d experience by giving up such medical research and other aspects of our current value systems.
Maybe one of the benefits of giving ‘equal consideration’ to humans and animals would be having a society or a civilization that is generally more compassionate and less violent. Some people claim to trace the prevalence of violence among humans more to our prehistoric circumstances and less to any innate propensity for it.
That is, they say violence among humans draws much of its origins from our species’ violence toward animals. And such folk seem to suggest that violence among humans would somehow decrease if we stopped exploiting animals. But I’d prefer to find out more about that idea before I talk about it more with you all or anyone else as a scientific ‘theory.’
Whatever the answer(s) to that question, my guess is that many, if not most, vegans are not at this extreme of the continuum--- that of the ‘species traitor.’ For many vegans, it’s not a matter of putting the ‘interests’ of animals before the interests of people. Instead, it’s about expanding our empathy and compassion further beyond our own species so as to do a better job of including other intelligent forms of life.
Doing that doesn’t necessarily detract from our concerns for humans. Speaking for myself and not others--- if my vegan way of living leads me to have anger as my default setting and to hate human beings, I’m going about it wrong. Expanding my concern for animals should enhance (and has ) my love for humans.
I admit, there are zero-sum situations in life in which I have to choose sides among people and between people and animals. But love doesn’t work that way. Loving more broadly and including more people and more animals doesn’t detract from whatever love I have for particular individuals--- human or otherwise.
We’re a long way off from being a predominantly vegan society, let alone spreading it to poor and ‘developing’ countries. But already some people have raised the question of how the vegan movement can avoid being something that relatively wealthy Westerners impose on people who have less options than we have and for whom consuming at least some animal products is a part of their cultural identity.
Whatever thoughtful answers we come up with about whether concerns over neo-colonialist vegetarianism or veganism are valid, it doesn’t necessarily dismiss the issue of animal exploitation. That’s an understatement.
Even if we accept at least some unavoidable zero-sum situations in which we choose the well-being and lives of some---for example humans---over that of others---for example monkeys or rats in a lab, or animals displaced by plant-based agriculture----we still can drastically improve the lives of animals, as well as people, by way of the vegan movement.
And even if we accept that the movement might run into legitimate obstacles in poor and ‘developing’ countries ---not to mention how peak oil may deprive us of machines for doing heavy labor--- those of us who live in relatively wealthy countries have an abundance of options for food, drink, clothing, cosmetics, entertainment, and so on.
Consequently, we can dismantle the financial support for, as well as the social acceptance of, animal exploitation---(excepting cases of absolute necessity)--- while improving the physical and mental health of our families, our communities, and society in general. All of this we can do without being ‘species traitors.’
Launched in August 2010, TheMetropreneur.com is a local online resource devoted to small business development and entrepreneurship. Its aim is to tell the stories of Central Ohio's business community, foster regional economic development and assist entrepreneurs with its resource-heavy focus.