Animals are Conscious. Let’s Kill Them!
The Cognitive Dissonance which Perpetuates Animal Abuse… and Animals on the Menu… is Based on False and Immoral Presumptions!
I was born into a household of dogs. Two black cocker spaniel brothers, named Butch and Tony… after the goofy high school nicknames of my dad and his running buddy back in the 30s (my dad was “Tony”). Before my time, these puppies had come to our family while my mom and dad were taking care of my uncle (my mom’s younger brother), George, who had been sent home to die… of tuberculosis. Things looked grim for George. He was fading… until the black puppies showed up… miraculously, his mood improved, and slowly but steadily he began to recover. He would soon be well enough to move out of our home and get back to his long, full life.
Butch and Tony were my first window into the souls of other creatures. Though as a kid I had not yet heard the story of their magical healing of my uncle, they were certainly magical to me. From my very earliest memories it was inconceivable to me that they weren’t intelligent, “conscious” beings. Through them, I extrapolated that all animals were more or less so. I had no idea then that my perspective was not the cultural — or even scientific — presumption upon which so much of culture itself was shakily built. Later my dad would take me on the rare occasion fishing or bird hunting, and eventually deer hunting. He didn’t seem too enthusiastic about these outings… and never actually caught a fish or shot anything himself. But this kind of “sport” was deemed by society what fathers should do with their sons to “bond” and make “men” out of them. I think having gone to war a decade before, my dad had seen enough killing, of anything. But I guess he felt it his cultural duty to expose me to this glorified violence. I, too, wasn’t wild about these “adventures.” I had a gut feeling something was wrong, very wrong, about it all.
Well, well, well… over the course of my lifetime the scientific consensus has starkly veered toward my original way of thinking, as well as that of many humans who have a personal bond with any animal. Science as a whole still hasn’t caught up with me (though some researchers have)… in believing that ALL life forms are “conscious” to some degree, awareness and perception and discernment (my definition of “consciousness”) being a hallmark of life itself, arrayed upon a logarithmic curve where we humans are way out on the leading edge but still connected (hello Evolution!) straight back to all other beings that share DNA (and that’s all of them, except viruses… and they probably have consciousness, too). Culture as a whole — thanks to conservatives — is still largely mired in cognitive dissonance regarding animals, loving their pets and perhaps some cute wild animals, while blithely gobbling down in the average American’s lifetime seven whole ducks, eight whole cows, 31 whole pigs, 54 whole turkeys and 2,232 whole chickens. No other humans in history have consumed so much animal flesh and fluids as is on offer through the standard American diet (with the appropriate acronym SAD). Meanwhile, fishing and hunting remain hallowed staples of American family “bonding.” It’s still the go-to “sport” for millions of people.
To shovel and gulp animal parts down our gullet, or to go out on the lake or woods to stalk, torture and kill them, we humans need that old, false, story about animals not having “consciousness,” not aware, lacking even the ability to think or perceive or feel pain. Worse, to believe this baloney we have to kill a part of ourselves — perhaps the best part, our deep compassion — in order to justify participation in this societal sin. Our killing of literally TRILLIONS of animals each year is a moral apocalypse. Then there is the tragic irony — or is it plain, old karma? — that consuming animal-based foods promotes cultural violence, ravages the environment, actually worsens human hunger around the world, and is the leading cause of so many illnesses and diseases that eventually kill us.
In 1989 I caught my last fish, and it was a doozy. Off Baja California I reeled in a black marlin. It was for a story I was doing for Sport Magazine. It wasn’t fun. When we brought the fish up to the boat, I wanted to release it, but the crew was insistent that we take it back to town to share with the community. So they clubbed it to death in front of me. I watched, helpless, as the light went out in its beautiful eyes and its flashing, iridescent blue skin went dull. I was the cause of this soul, this spirit, this life being jerked from its home — the blue sea — and removed from the world. That was it. I was done with killing animals. But, hypocritically, not with having them killed for me… until 2010 when I finally followed my childhood wisdom and went Vegan. For so many reasons, it’s the best choice I ever made in my life. My biggest regret is that I didn’t do it decades sooner.
