(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Animals, Souls, and Intelligence [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-01 I was raised on a small farm in rural Michigan and of course we had animals. Cows, pigs, chickens before the price fell out of the market, and of course dogs and barn cats. They were always there and just part of the environment. Farmers don’t think of animals in the same way as city folk do. Farm animals aren’t really pets and they exist for more than just giving and sharing affection. They have value as money and they have their names and quirks. I remember when milking cows, some of them would lean tight against me as I tried to get in to attack the milking machines as if trying to block me (though most of the liked to be milked; they were just being contrary, I guess.) They liked to be scritched on their heads behind their horns. That kind of thing. Being cruel to your animals was very much frowned upon and the basic rule was that a good farmer took care of his animals first. But when push came to shove, they were still just animals. My father was, perhaps, not the best man to have a small farm. He was a good man with many good qualities. He was a compulsively hard worker, smart, and everyone liked him, but he was not empathetic. He would never, ever help anyone. He said every time he had helped someone else it had worked out badly for him. I never saw him being cruel to anyone, man or animal, but I think sometimes he was blind to suffering. I remember some treatment of the farm animals as things I would not allow or approve of now. As I said, not conscious cruelty and to some extent it goes with the territory, but there was also a casual cruelty that I wish had not happened. But I am sure this is common in farming. And corporate farming today, from what one hears of it, treats animals as if they were damned souls in one of Dante’s more pathological circles of hell. I am not saying this was an excuse, but the Christian belief is that animals do not have souls and therefore they do not have to be treated with the kindness and compassion that creatures with souls have the right to expect. One can love them, one can pamper them and spoil them and make them a part of the family, but when all is said and done they are not as important as a human. When asking who to throw out of the lifeboat the animals will go into the icy water first. No question. Of course we have all heard horror stories of research on animals in scientific laboratories. I remember when I was a child going to a farmer’s exhibition at the local state college where the featured exhibit was a cow that had had a window surgically implanted in its side so that the gawkers could stare into its exposed stomach. And earlier, seeing a story in a local newspaper of a Russian scientist who had grafted a second head onto a dog. All in the name of science. Usually the argument to justify this sort of cruelty is not that animals have no souls because heaven forbid that scientists consider even the possibility of souls, but that animals are not intelligent and so therefore one can do whatever one wants to them. I understand that one will judge everything by whatever quality one most values. Intelligent people are going to value intelligence above everything else and of course they are going to devalue anyone or anything that does not possess intelligence, or at least as much intelligence as themselves. I am not sure that is a valid way to determine whether we can abuse living creatures who do not possess sufficient intelligence any more that we can abuse animals because they don’t have a soul. I am not a vegetarian. I understand that it is our original sin that we must kill and eat other living creatures, man or plant, simply to survive. And PETA is, perhaps, not the best advocate for their cause. But in my old age it bothers me that we define others as inferior to ourselves and think that we can abuse or torture and kill them because of it. And I don’t even want to go into the long, monstrous history of genocide of other human beings on the grounds that they are less than our own, precious tribe. Buddhists seek the enlightenment of all creatures. I am not sure what I think of enlightenment, but I applaud their compassion. I am not sure where I am going with this. I am just finding the world sad and cruel and suffering this morning. God help us. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/1/2196661/-Animals-Souls-and-Intelligence Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/