Having said this, however, it surely is true that the capitalist treatment of animals used for fur, shoes, and food is unusually cruel (and mirrors the capitalist treatment of workers or human resources as the economists say) as is a lot of the research done with animals. So there may be good tie-ins in the struggle for animal "rights" and anti-capitalist struggles. Alliances are possible in some circumstances, especially with those animal "rights" folks who are also anti-capitalist and pro-human.
Michael Yates
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> Carrol wrote:
> >As I've indicated, I find "animal rights" people almost personally
> >offensive. But I think I can answer your question in terms of *human*
> >rights. Habits of brutality do not tend to enhance habits of solidarity
> >with other humans. This is not a utilitarian argument, unless you want
> >to equate the formal philosophy with any tendency whatever to approve
> >of useful things -- which would make everyone who ever lived a
> >utilitarian.
>
> Thomas More makes an argument against the enjoyment of cruelty inflicted
> upon animals on the ground that it creates a cruel disposition in humans:
>
> ***** What pleasure can there be in listening to the barking and yelping
> of dogs -- isn't that rather a disgusting noise? Is there any more real
> pleasure when a dog chases a rabbit than when a dog chases a dog? If what
> you like is fast running, there's plenty of that in both cases; they're
> just about the same. But if what you really want is slaughter, if you want
> to see a living creature torn apart under your eyes, then the whole thing
> is wrong. You ought to feel nothing but pity when you see the hare fleeing
> from the hound, the weak creature tormented by the stronger, the fearful
> and timid beast brutalized by the savage one, the harmless hare killed by
> the cruel hound. The Utopians, who regard this whole activity of hunting
> as unworthy of free men, have accordingly assigned it to their butchers,
> who, as I said before, are all slaves. In their eyes, hunting is the
> lowest thing even butchers can do. In the slaughterhouse, their work is
> more useful and honest, since there they kill animals only out of
> necessity; whereas the hunter seeks nothing but his own pleasure from
> killing and mutilating some poor little creature. Taking such relish in
> the sight of death, even if only of beasts, reveals, in the opinion of the
> Utopians, a cruel disposition. Or if he isn't cruel to start with, the
> hunter eventually becomes so through the constant practice of such brutal
> pleasures. (Thomas More, _Utopia_, Book II) *****
>
> On one hand, it seems plausible that inflicting pain on animals
> unnecessarily & taking pleasure in it may create a cruel disposition. More
> employs the same argument to criticize the standing army in _Utopia_. On
> the other hand, it is only in a highly urbanized & industrialized society
> where hardly anyone engages in agriculture nor battles the forces of nature
> every day that some people come up with the idea of animals endowed with
> "rights." The very idea of "animal rights" conveys how far we are
> estranged from intimacy with & struggles against animals. My maternal
> grandparents were farmers, and they had lots of animals around them. They
> had a horse, a cow, lots of chickens, & some rabbits on their farm. My
> grandma could dress and clean a chicken in no time! While she took good
> care of her animals, the idea of "animal rights" would have been totally
> alien to her.
>
> Whenever I show _Roger & Me_ to students, most of them get shocked by the
> sight of Rhonda Britton butchering a rabbit on camera. Some of them think
> that she is out of her mind, since on screen she looks cheerfully
> matter-of-fact while skinning & gutting the rabbit. And they aren't even
> vegetarians! The same students who get disgusted by the graphic
> demonstration of how to dress a rabbit, however, don't necessarily show the
> same degree of sympathy toward, much less solidarity with, laid-off
> workers. There's something wrong here. In America, sympathy toward
> animals is more highly developed than sympathy toward human beings.
>
> Yoshie