An Animal’s Place (2002)

These "endless cruelties and indignities" exist in one way of farming only, the factory farms found in modern industrialised nations and spreading slowly like a rot throughout the world as we speak because capitalilsm is a disease that we don't know how to cure, like cancer.

But for most of our history, there were no "endless cruelties and indignities inherent" in farming, as there aren't any still in much of the world today.

Below are a few examples.

Goat farming in Chavignol (to make Crottin de Chavignol AOP):

https://youtu.be/WPeasWmx1og?t=157

Goat farming in Corsica from a maker of Brocciou (pronounced broo-CHOO):

https://youtu.be/EftGyQXyDlo

Cow farming in the France region of Jura (to make Comté, AOP):

https://youtu.be/U0D_a_o9wcQ?t=100

Cow farming in Normandy (to make Camembert de Normandie, AOP):

https://youtu.be/0by1csFhtQg

Goat farming in the Greek Cyclades islands:

https://youtu.be/L6g0xn5TLtE?t=48

Sheep farming in the Greek island of Lesvos:

https://youtu.be/kRptFUO_uzM

Sheep farming in Transylvania:

https://youtu.be/Bcuaf_y_TWg?t=9

Those are from European countries that I'm more familiar with but you can find similar practices in most of the world, although they constantly at risk from large agribusinesses that want to take over the farmers land and business.

More importantly, we have only been able to domesticate the animals we have because of their character and because of our character, and while there was no formal agreement, because a formal agreement can only be made between humans (because it needs language that only humans posses) it is very wrong to say that animals entered their contract with ours unwillingly. We have only been able to domesticate animals that allowed themselves to be domesticated: we have not domesticated zebras, for example, or tigers, or hippos. And we have only been able to domesticate animals because we ourselves, like our domesticated animals, are a gregarious, sociable species, that is kindly disposed towards other kinds of animals and has a natural instinct to care for them and tend to their needs. A lion could not domesticate sheep: it would just slaugther the entire herd. A weasel could not domesticate chickens: it would just strangle the entire flock. We were able to do it because we are, by our nature, as a specias, capable of caring for other beings than ourselves, even for beings of another species than ourselves. Which I think is most clearly seen in ideas like "animal liberation", albeit taken to extremens.

> Second, the terms of the "deal" have changed tremendously for both parties since it was first "signed" (that is, when humans and animals first entered into the symbiotic relationship of domestication).

This is true. Absolutely, 100%, heart-breakingly, infuriatingly, shamefuly true. But again this is because of the modern practices of factory farming that threaten to destroy our bond with our domesticated animals, this "mutualism" that Michael Pollan speaks of. Rather, to dig deeper still, the name of the culprit is capitalism and it's the result of the extreme distortions that it causes to the very mechanisms that sustain life on the planet, themselves. That is where the shame and the crime and the horror come from: capitalilsm. And the sooner we realise the mess we're in because of this inhuman economy we have created, the better we'll all be. Unfortunately, before this happens, everything we have achieved as a civilisation and as a species will be destroyed.

Sorry for the rant.

But how can you say that? You can't know what choices an animal makes or doesn't make. In fact, if you have pets or been around animals for some time, it would be blindingly obvious that animals absolutely make choices between whether to eat something or not, be it meat or anything else.

For example, the cats in the farm where I live have no compunction about eating humans' food (for example, one of my cheeses that I foolishly left within their reach), but the dogs will never touch it.

And make no mistake: those are absolutely moral choices. The dogs know it's wrong to eat food that is for humans and that there will be repercussions if they do so. The cats don't care and only mind when they're caught.

Your caricature of animals as unthinking feeding machines is unrealistic and it is not based on any close contact or detailed knowledge of animals. Please re-examine your beliefs because they are unfounded and uninformed.

I agree with your comment and others have made that point: animals don't have any concept of rights, or wrongs, or duties, which can only be understood, and bestowed upon animals by humans. There are rights recognised to humans, like the right to own property or the right to vote in democratic societies, that animals would not be capable of exercising even if we granted them those rights and that alone makes absurd the idea of granting rights to animals modelled after the rights of humans. And even the basic rights, like the right to life, that it would make sense to grant animals, are not anything that animals themselves would be able to understand, or uphold, and they would immediately violate those rights by killing other animals, as cats will kill birds and small mammals without any consideration of their "rights" or any kinds of wrongs.

> The dogs know it's wrong to eat food that is for humans and that there will be repercussions if they do so.

No, they know they get scolded when they do it. This is why dogs only stop pissing on the floor when you make it clear they can't. Not because they had some sort of moral realization that it was wrong to piss on their owners floor.