Re: Isa 10/6/10

Why do the similarities between the human and persons/animals seem easy to identify but when its stated that way we want to find the most ways to differentiate ourselves from the animals?


We want to differentiate ourselves from other animals because we want our differences to stand out (by we I mean society). By proving and pointing out our differences it makes us seem stronger and therefore gives us more power. This power justifies our negative actions toward them like killing, eating, and experimenting.
Homo sapien means man the wise. Being wise connotes having the ability to judge properly, having the knowledge of circumstances, having educational knowledge, etc. These properties are unique to humans. Other animals also cannot think abstractly, they cannot speak to us in an articulate manner, and they do not have an imagination.
It's a part of the human mind to want to stand out and prove that we're different even from each other. The human DNA is 99.9% the same. It is that .10% that makes us different from each other. Humans like to blend in, in terms of conformity, but we also like to stand out as well. If everyone was just like you, you would want to do something different just so that you would feel like your own person instead of a piece of one uniformed unit. It's in our nature to want to stand out of the crowd.
So in conclusion, we want to find the most ways to differentiate ourselves from other animals because it justifies our negative actions towards them and because wanting to be different and standout is a natural drive of humans.

My question is: Homo sapien means, "man the wise," but are we truly wise?

Meat Eating Across Cultures

Meat is consumed globally. China consumes the most meat per year. The U.S., Brazil, and China make up half of the global meat consumed annually, each person consuming an astounding 206.6 pounds of meat per year. http://www.animalethics.org.uk/i-ch7-6-meat-consumption.html (for more meat eating facts). The amount of meat consumption has shown a significant increase over the past fifty years and is continuing to grow.

This leads me to the question of why do we consume the animals we do? What is it that drives us to eat meat? Familial aspects, Sociocultural aspects, the availability, economic status, evolution? I can’t help but think that culture is the number one factor. Our culture consumes mostly cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, fish and other seafood. These are the primary foods that are not considered weird or bad to eat. Secondary animals would be deer and lambs. For the most part this is true across the nation. Americans think it’s wrong or disgusting to eat animals like dogs, cats, dolphins, bears, frogs, etc., because our culture has conditioned us to think it’s wrong and disgusting to do so. Our economic status also has a factor in the food we eat. People in poverty are obviously not going to eat lobster every night, they are going to get whatever they can get, which is usually perishables. I’m pretty sure food banks don’t give away frozen or fresh meat. Availability is another factor because we are more likely to eat the foods that are within easy reach to us. This possibly shaped our cultural aspects because what we had available is what we grew to deal with. Obviously we don’t naturally have elephants so we don’t hunt them like Africa does. Familial aspects are more confined than cultural aspects, when you grew-up you ate what your mother put on the table. If you grew-up being a vegetarian, you’re more likely to grow up to be a vegetarian. I remember when I was in eighth grade, I had a vegan friend who convinced me to try out being a vegetarian, and I was a vegetarian for a year. My dad and other family members used to tease me until I finally just gave in. Your family has a large impact on what you eat. There is also the aesthetic properties of eating meat. Like I said in class we probably eat animals that are attractive looking because being unattractive is associated with being dirty, and nobody wants to eat something dirty. Which, like Johnson said, is probably an evolutionary construct.

There are many aspects that lead us to eat meat, but I feel as though the cultural aspect is the strongest. Today in class I was shocked to hear that some cultures actually consume gorillas and even more shocked to hear that they are endangered because of it. Come to find out there are several endangered species that cultures still eat. Asia cuts off the fins of live Ganges sharks for soups. Columbian officials actually kill sea lions because they are predators of the endangered Chinook salmon, and killing sea lions means more salmon for them. South Asia – Gaurs/seladangs; China – Chinese Giant Salamander; Japan— Fin whales and Bluefin tuna; North America and Canada – Caribou; Indonesia – green sea turtles. The list goes on.

My questions are: Do these animals really taste so good, that a society will seriously consume them to extinction? How do we rectify the double kill for animal consumption (killing animals so that we can eat their prey)? Are we really that selfish that we care more about indulging our taste buds than the existence of an entire species?