by Andrew Linzey
from The Animals' Agenda - January/February 2001
Here's a confession: I find most people untrustworthy,
and not a few downright treacherous. As I get older, I find myself able
to trust fewer and fewer people. I don't even seek new friends, and
whatever solace I find is invariably not in the company of fellow human
beings.
Now I know that is a shocking confession, and people
will be right to complain. Here is a theologian -- and a priest to boot
-- saying these dreadful things about his fellow humans. He should be
ashamed of himself.
Well, I'm not proud of these words. But my conclusion
arises not from some abstract principle but rather from my own
experience. I have found humans (including myself) to be deeply flawed,
irreducibly mean, and, in truth, the only unlovable species.
I venture to be so bold with my feelings because I know
that they are shared my many animal advocates. If one looks
unflinchingly and regularly at the enormity of the evil we inflict upon
other sentient, it is very difficult not, to put it mildly, to have a
sense of the moral ambiguity of the human race.
Indeed, I regularly hear talk from animal advocates that
seems pretty close to despair -- despair about our seeming inability to
see a moral problem about animals, despair about the cruelty we inflict,
and especially despair about the human capacity for moral
self-improvement. Such despair often leads to an indifferent, even
hateful, attitude toward other humans.
However understandable such feeling may be, it is
absolutely vital that we do not give way to them. Most especially, it is
essential that we do not fall into the trap set for us by animal
exploiters who are only too ready to write us off as "human haters."
Sadly, I have heard some animal advocates saying that we should
experiment on prisoners rather than animals. And I have heard some
advocates calling exploiters "scum" and other hateful words.
I do not believe that these sentiments represent the
best of our movement, and neither do I believe that 99 percent of animal
advocates are genuine misanthropes. But we must be careful (and here I
preach especially to myself) not to let our genuine sense of disillusion
with the moral record of our own species spill over into negative, even
hostile, attitudes.
It is not for nothing that George Bernard Shaw once
wrote, "I know many [blood] sportsmen and none of them are ferocious. I
know several humanitarians; and they are all ferocious."
Most especially, we must not base any animal rights
strategy on anything remotely resembling misanthropy. I mention no
names, but there are some people in our movement who at least speak as
if animal rights can be secured at the expense of human rights. Rather
than chiding or rebuking sensitivity to humans, we need to build upon it
-- and help individuals to enlarge it still further in the direction of
other creatures.
Whenever I find myself recoiling in disbelief and moral
repugnance at my fellow humans, I picture in my mind other exploited
human subjects such as children cruelly abused, families facing grinding
poverty, and minorities denied basic rights. I say to myself, "These too
are victims along with the animals." Humans like animals, also need
liberation.
In one sense, animal advocates have to believe in
humanity. We have to believe that we can do better. Our whole moral case
depends upon humans recovering some lost humanity. Of course it mustn't
be a starry-eyed optimism, without a deep practical grasp of the human
potential for depravity, but perhaps it can at lease be a qualified
optimism. Speaking for myself, I find despair not only understandable,
but also far too easy.
The Rev. Professor Andrew Linzey is a member of the
Faculty of Theology, university of Oxford, England. The U.S. edition of
his book "Animal Gospel" is published by Westminster/John Knox Press.
“Reprinted with permission from The Animals’ Agenda,
P.O. Box 25881,
Baltimore, MD 21224; (410) 675-4566;
www.animalsagenda.org.”
Email:
office@animalsagenda.org
Go on to My Precious
Father Lived Dangerously
Return to 16 May 2001 Issue
Return to Newsletters
** Fair Use Notice**
This document may contain copyrighted material, use of which has not been
specifically authorized by the copyright owners. I believe that this
not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes a fair use of the
copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law). If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your
own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner.
