My friend Alan Barysh (Mail, August 7), and anyone else who feels that there is some conflict between working for animal rights and human rights, would do well to seek out a piece called "Animals, My Brethren" (also translated as "Animal Brothers"), written by vegetarian Edgar Kupfer while he was imprisoned in Dachau for his pacifist politics.
From his inside view of the Nazi's hell on earth, Kupfer wrote "I think that men will be killed and tortured as long as animals are killed and tortured. So long there will be wars too. Because killing must be trained and perfected on smaller objects, morally and technically."
Research bears Kupfer out on this: several psychological studies have found a relationship between childhood cruelty to animals and violence toward people. The cliche of the serial killer who starts off with the neighborhood cats and dogs has a basis in fact.
On the other hand, some prisons have experimented with having inmates care for abandoned dogs and cats, and have found that encouraging compassionate behavior towards our non-human cousins helps inmates learn how to behave better towards their fellow humans.
A society that says of non-human animals, "They are not like us, and so it is okay to exploit them for our benefit" is going to find many of its members using that same argument on other humans: "They're only (racial slur), not real people." When some fans of flesh-eating argue that fish or other animals can't really feel pain, this bears a disturbing similarity to research showing that white people (including medical professionals!) tend to subconsciously believe that black people are less sensitive to pain than their fellow pale-skins.
But a society that encouraged its members to practice being nice to every being with a central nervous system would find that practice paying off not just for cows, chickens, and fish, but for humans of all races, genders, and socioeconomic statuses. When you can see enough similarity between you and a fish that you don't want to hurt the fish, you're not going to find skin color a barrier to compassion.
Animal liberation and human liberation are necessary corollaries to each other: expanding the bounds of compassion beyond the self, beyond family and friends, beyond one's own ethnic group or gender or nation, beyond species, to include all beings capable of experiencing suffering.
Add new comment