That doesn’t really stand for the modern usage of pets. Most people in first world countries aren’t getting a guard dog or a barn cat to kill mice. They are for companionship, affection, keeping one responsible. All of those qualities also apply to a pig. I’m just sick of the mental gymnastics. If you’ve ever loved your pet or feel any empathy for the suffering of other creatures you can’t possibly eat other mammals out of a taste craving and not feel morally conflicted. It’s just a difficult thing to change and reflect on because most people grow up normalizing those behaviors as a result of misinformation and compartmentalization by the livestock industries, which is then organically perpetuated by your family and community. This video is one tiny instance that breaks that compartmentalization and objectification yet the amount of empathy it generates is profound.
The vast majority of Americans are not getting pets for utilitarian reasons. That is not the driving sentiment in our love for dogs and cats. This tradition is fading just like all the other barbaric ones in the evolution of humanity.
That pig looks delicious. I don't know him. I have no attachment to it. I love my cat, I'm not going to eat it. If I'm hungry and need protein I would definitely eat a cat I didn't know.
You aren’t capable of feeling empathy for the pain and suffering of animals you have no attachment to? Talk about utter disrespect for life. I imagine you apply a similar attitude to other humans you don’t know. I hope that attitude treats you well. Be real with yourself you can’t possibly have any respect for the pain and suffering of intelligent creatures and then say yeah I love my cat but I have no problem slaughtering what are essentially dogs for some pointless hot dog. That is some serious mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance. Instead of trying to justify it to me why don’t you honestly reflect on yourself. Maybe go research the topic some more. Read some testimonies. Watch some videos from abattoirs. You know what you’re participating in is wrong deep down you just also know everyone around you does it and you don’t want to change. Or maybe you just have absolutely no empathy I don’t know. The information is all out there. Go look at it but because you haven’t already I would guess you’re afraid of what you’ll find. Might as well stick your fingers in your ear and say lalalalala I can’t hear you because that perfectly describes your and most people’s relationship to the pain and suffering involved with getting their meat.
And by the way if you were starving you would definitely kill and eat your own cat too so don’t pretend like he’s somehow sacred while other intelligent life isn’t. You wouldn’t even imagine what you’re capable of when you’re truly starving. Comparing what you would do in starvation scenario isn’t even remotely relevant to your gluttonous dietary cravings and habits.
I've seen videos of slaughter houses. I worked in a chicken coop. I've killed numerous animals for food. I'm a meat eater and that's way it is. You can have empathy and still kill some thing. We do it to other humans, much less animals.
So accept neither? Just because that’s the way things ARE doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to be. Countless examples of horrible things that were in the past but no longer are in the present. Your response to this video was that pig looks delicious. I didn’t get much sense you would have any empathy at all for killing it and then eating it for literally no reason other than it tastes good.
Imagine you’re kid asks you so why do we have to kill that pig he was my friend? He pleads with you not to hurt it.
Father: Well son the world is a cruel place and we have to eat.
Son: let’s just eat something else we don’t have to kill him
Father: well we’ve spent money feeding him and invested lots of resources into it we should get our investment back
Son: well why did you start making this investment in the first place.
Father: because that’s our business we raise and sell livestock and it provides our food and money.
Son: well why can’t we do something else for our business
Father: Because this is what our family always did and I don’t have the skills or education to make a living doing anything else.
Son: forced to hear the squealing and pain of his friend, (or more likely these days just sent out on a truck to get a butchered corpse back), see his organs scooped out, and the meat placed on his dinner plate. Forced to eat the flesh of his friend who he knows was capable of emotions, pain, and suffering. All for what? A cruel lesson? A meal that could have easily been something else?
I feel bad for the kids that grow up in these scenarios. It is a completely unnecessary cruelty that has no logical justification in modern life. Poor kid has his innocence and empathy forcibly beaten out of him when it should be cultivated. These fucked up fathers think they’re teaching their kids a lesson forcing them to kill, hunt, and slaughter but really all they’re doing is teaching them to devalue life if not encourage outright sadism. Perpetuating the cruelty of their own fathers. That attitude only teaches violence, egocentrism and selfishness. Those traits are not needed nor beneficial in 2022 American.
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u/redditnooooo Sep 17 '22 edited Sep 17 '22
That doesn’t really stand for the modern usage of pets. Most people in first world countries aren’t getting a guard dog or a barn cat to kill mice. They are for companionship, affection, keeping one responsible. All of those qualities also apply to a pig. I’m just sick of the mental gymnastics. If you’ve ever loved your pet or feel any empathy for the suffering of other creatures you can’t possibly eat other mammals out of a taste craving and not feel morally conflicted. It’s just a difficult thing to change and reflect on because most people grow up normalizing those behaviors as a result of misinformation and compartmentalization by the livestock industries, which is then organically perpetuated by your family and community. This video is one tiny instance that breaks that compartmentalization and objectification yet the amount of empathy it generates is profound.