Hi,guyz. I see some familiar names in this section. I must confess I'm not big on animal-rights. Actually, "I know nothing of it" would be more precise. The people of our country tend to be that way - generally ignorant, and probably hostile against animal rights movements. The nationality of "Korea" probably might mean something with a lot of animal-rights activists.
Yeah, we eat dogs. To confess, actually, they do taste good. So, some of you people might look at us with those weird expressions on their faces - the expression of "Oh, how barbaric!" . And we definately had our share of being hounded and branded as "barbarians".
I don't know. Maybe animal-rights activists are entirely(or at least, more-or-less) different from the people advocating the protection of certain animals. It seems a bit like it, since I've never seen the people calling us barbarians refuse a good tasty beef steak. If I have the right idea, I take it that animal-rights activists with firm principles have no special prejudice on WHAT KIND of animals people eat, am I correct? That might be a little-bit more comforting, since the generality of the opposition will not accept any special disdain and hatred towards a specific habit of meat consumption.
So on some issues, I find animal-rights movements reasonable, but I can't shake those "beginners questions" from popping up inside my head. So maybe you activists might kindly enlighten me?
I have these two questions.
* To the Animal Rights Activists who oppose the general consumption of meat...
Ok. I agree to some extent that all life is precious. Animals most often have feelings, and their life is precious. And I guess it is fair to say, the NEED of meat consumption in most advanced countries is not A specific necessity, since it could be replaced with other types of food-nutrition. I guess it's more of a thing which people enjoy.
But the question is, if life itself is precious, how can we justify, then the consumption of plants? Plants most certainly have feelings, and though some experiments are reasonably skeptical, others show amazing facts on that plants might have means of empathic communication, emotion and other things. Plants do not have nervous systems on the sense of animals, but they most certainly do experience pain, in some other ways that animals do not understand. If the justification of animal consumption and experimentation is a forced adoptation of human-based principles, isn't eating plants only a adoptation of animal-based principle, where the rights of plant life are left out?
It is quite clear nature itself has no good or evil. Nature is just that, "the way it is". We would not call a lion eating a deer "evil", and we would not call the food-chain of nature an "evil system". Then, is it not that human consumption of meat only an extention of that chain? Though people have left the nature, few of the aspects remains that are absolutely necessary in survival - sex, reproduction, food, drink etc. We may be able to argue that the people of the advanced countries no more need "meat" as an absolute necessity, but what of impoverished lands where meat - as well as plant life - is an essential need for survival? What of the nomads and hunters who live in the Mongol high-lands? What of the hunter-tribes of the African jungles?
It seems animal-rights movements contain few dangerous points: 1) the absolute abstraction from human realities to a near-Malthus state, 2) the respect of life based on animal-based ideals, with diregard to the other form of life - plants, 3) a Western-based movement with disregard towards the various forms of alternate cultures that exist, 4) adopting the "good/evil" human values into the law of the nature, which tend to judge some people who are actually more closer to nature than any civilized human being would get.
What are the answers to these questions? I truly am wondering.
* To the Animal Rights Activists who oppose the consumption of certain specific form of consumption of meat...
We eat dogs. In asia, where people were deeply impoverished under the exploitation of the many dynasties, what's left of taxation of crops were not many. People rarely had the chance to get enough food. Dogs were generally the best kind of food any asian, korean would get. It wasn't until the arrival of 20th century people started enjoying beef, pork, etc.
In asian culture, "man's best friend" was not a dof, they were cows. So people tend to respect cows and treat them as family, instead, dogs were the only primary source of sufficient meat. I do detest the brutal slaughter of these animals(some people tend to believe if you beat an animal to death, their meat would taste better). But in aspect of culture, what is different from a Westerner eating cows, and a Korean eating dogs?
2 questions.
Thanks for reading.
