Coetzee 2: Animals and Humans

Animals... Just what are they compared to humans?
Do they stand on equal footing as us, or are they inferior?
Most importantly, how should we treat them?
These questions have been bothering me for couple of weeks now, yet I still do not have answers to the questions.
Although, I have mixed feelings on the issue of animal cruelty, after reading Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello and Kafka's "A Report for an Academy," I am clear about my standing on some issues.

First of all, I'd like to make it clear that I support meat-diet. Honestly, I see nothing wrong with eating animals. There is a hierarchy in the animal kingdom, and predators eat preys. Stronger animals consume weaker animals; that is just nature. I like to think that we just happen to be at the top of the food chain. Thus, I see no problem with humans eating animals.

Humans belong at the top.

Animal right advocates like to compare animals to humans, and some comparisons are ridiculous and outrageous. Just as other advocates, Elizabeth Costello compares slaughter houses to the concentration camps, which enrages Abraham Stern. In his letter to Costello, Stern writes, "The Jews died like cattle, therefore cattle die like Jews, you say. That is a trick with words which I will not accept. You misunderstand the nature of likenesses... Man is made in the likeness of God but God does not have the likeness of man. If Jews were treated like cattle, it does not follow that cattle are treated like Jews. The inversion insults the memory of the dead. It also trades on the horrors of the camps in a cheap way" (Coetzee 94). I agree with Stern; such comparison may successfully bring about sympathy and empathy towards the slaughtered animals, but it does not hold true. Just as Stern states, just comparison working one way does not necessarily mean the inverse is also true. Ms. Costello compares the animals to prisoners of war, but the comparison deals as much injustice to POW's as the comparison does to Jews in the concentration camps. Because I can see that these comparisons are trying to make me feel pity towards animals, these cheap tricks actually have opposite effect on me.

One cannot compare this to a slaughterhouse.

I also found an interesting view of bullfighting in Elizabeth Costello. When I watched the Earthlings, I was presented with the cruelty and injustice of bullfighting. However, Ms. Costello brings up an interesting look on this topic. Yes, we kill the bulls for the purpose of entertainment, but for the bullfighters it is more than just entertainment. Ms. Costello explains, "Kill the beast by all means... but make it a contest, a ritual, and honour your antagonist for his strength and bravery... Look him in the eyes before you kill him, and thank him afterwards" (Coetzee 97). It is true that people do honor the frightful beasts in traditional bullfighting. You'll often encounter people referring to the bull as being beautiful and awesome. In this sense, we are honoring these, otherwise normal, animals.

Look how the beast is portrayed to be beautiful in this painting.

brings me to the question of the animal's inferiority. Are they indeed inferior to humans? I say no. I consider humans to be just different. We are not inferior nor superior to other species. We are different from other species in the sense that pigs are different from lions. Some people may ask what gives humans to consume other animals, and I'd answer that humans have just as much right to consume animals as other predators have the right to eat preys. Yet, I do not consider them to be inferior to us. Kafka's short story "A Report for an Academy" supports the idea that these animals are not inferior, but different. Red Peter tells the audience that his trainer and he were "fighting on the same side against ape nature" (Anthology 369). He refers to his ape nature as if it is worse than human nature. However, he later says, "Imitating human beings was not something which pleased me. I imitated them because I was looking for a way out, for no other reason" (Anthology 369). Red Peter did not consider humans to be better and hated acting like humans. It is then obvious that other species do not consider humans to be superior to them.

Even a learned ape is still an ape and is proud of his old nature.

The real problem is not the fact that we consume the animals, but the way we treat and kill them. Perhaps, there really is not an economical and humane way to kill the animals we consume. Maybe some people don't even consider how we treat these animals as being cruel because they are so used to it. Nevertheless, the way we treat the animals we consume is wrong and cruel, and I hope there is a way to treat them more humanely.