There's an Elephant in the Room blog
September 2018
Speciesism is a pervasive form of prejudice, taught to us all in our earliest years, that blinkers members of our species into the unfounded belief that we are so much more important than, or so superior to all other beings on the planet that we may harm and kill them for whatever trivial reasons we devise, without conscience and without any moral justification whatsoever.
Speciesism is a pervasive form of prejudice, taught to us all in our
earliest years, that blinkers members of our species into the unfounded
belief that we are so much more important than, or so superior to all other
beings on the planet that we may harm and kill them for whatever trivial
reasons we devise, without conscience and without any moral justification
whatsoever. A form of oppression directed at other living individuals,
speciesism is the practice of according or withholding the rights that
belong to others by virtue of their birth, based solely upon their species.
Much is written about the term, however we may easily gain awareness of it
by examining our own attitudes and looking at the world about us.
How do we see speciesism in action?
Speciesism is happening when we needlessly slaughter and consume other
sentient individuals, when we take away their infants so that we may
breastfeed in their place, when we selectively breed them so that they will
produce eggs for our consumption despite the fact that it destroys their
health, when we perpetrate a myriad other atrocities upon them with
absolutely no justification whatsoever. Using brute force and technology we
assert our dominance over every other species, wilfully denying their every
right to life and freedom from deliberate harm, in favour of our own
trivial, frivolous and unnecessary habits and convenience.
Speciesism is happening when we profess to love dogs and cats but ‘farm’
members of other species, assigning a completely nonsense category of ‘food
animals’ to them despite their sharing the exact same quality of sentience
that we recognise and value in our companions.
Speciesism is happening when we see fundraisers being held for cat and dog
rescues where the pitiful corpses of defenceless members of other species,
are dismembered, charred and devoured by smiling people discussing how much
they ‘love’ animals and hate ‘cruelty‘.
Speciesism is happening when many eagerly sign and share petitions against
fur and zoos and circuses and the killing of whales, while continuing to
consume burgers, bacon, eggs and breast milk; vociferously treading the
moral high ground in leather boots and wool jackets while failing to spot
any irony whatsoever.
Speciesism is happening when we promote unproven or imagined reductions in
the level of torment to which our needless victims are subjected, or changes
to the environment in which we confine and use them, as a ‘step in the right
direction’ because of their species.
Speciesism is happening when we either overlook or support practices and
procedures that we would never in a million years consider acceptable for
humans, simply because these practices are being inflicted on members of
other species.
Speciesism is happening when we support industry-developed ‘welfare‘
regulations that govern treatment of our unnecessary victims, having been
fooled into thinking that ‘welfare‘ means the same as ‘wellbeing’ In fact
all such regulations are profit-driven and concerned only for the financial
benefit of those who farm defenceless victims to meet consumer demand.
Speciesism is why justice and the condemnation of needless violence, values
that we all like to think define each of us as an individual, are applied
only to certain species. Towards others, as consumers demanding their broken
bodies, their eggs and their breast milk we pay for the most depraved and
brutal practices that our species can devise.
Only on the day we open our eyes and realise that every single one of our
victims values their life, and that we have no need or right to take that
life away, do we begin to cast aside the blinkers of speciesism.
Once we do that, we have no choice but to become vegan.
Get information about veganism here:
Go Vegan Scotland
International Vegan Association/Vegan Starter Kit