I definitely understand your take on it, and I do think it's a shortcoming of mine that I can't feel as much for animals as I can for people (though I certainly do feel for animals—just not as intensely).
I don't perceive humans as inherently superior. Our species has evolved further, and to what end? With intelligence comes corruption. Dolphins are commonly perceived to be among the most intelligent animals and they've been known to gang rape one another. The more a creature perceives pleasure as a personal goal rather than behaving on instinct and preservation, the more likely that creature is to find deviant, destructive forms of pleasure.
In a tiny way my cat does this when he makes sure I'm watching him as he pushes the water glass off the table. He gets pleasure from misbehaving. All of us do. It's how we carve out a sense of control in our own lives. But the broken, fucked up among us only experience that pleasure through extreme acts.
I can't categorize better or worse in the animal vs. human debate. I think it's the same drive, but most people still have that categorization of human>animal. Is Emmett Till or Matthew Shepard different from an animal? That's the fucked up part (among many different varieties of fucked up parts). The people who attacked both of those boys did it because they qualified them as animals. As if that made it okay.
I don't really buy into the "animals are innocent and humans are awful" argument (not to simplify what you're saying) because I have no god and when I'm being honest with myself no free will. I believe in a determinist universe and I firmly believe in evolution. All species exist as they've been bred to. I think a lot of things about how the human race defiles the earth, about how Republicans can even exist without having to confront their own goddamn hypocrisy, but every trait in every part of our species is there for some unknown reason. Because at one point it was useful, and maybe we just need to wait a few more generations for us to evolve out of our destructive habits. Needs must, and all that.
Erm... a bit of a deviation from your original post, but relevant, I think.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 02:44 am (UTC)I don't perceive humans as inherently superior. Our species has evolved further, and to what end? With intelligence comes corruption. Dolphins are commonly perceived to be among the most intelligent animals and they've been known to gang rape one another. The more a creature perceives pleasure as a personal goal rather than behaving on instinct and preservation, the more likely that creature is to find deviant, destructive forms of pleasure.
In a tiny way my cat does this when he makes sure I'm watching him as he pushes the water glass off the table. He gets pleasure from misbehaving. All of us do. It's how we carve out a sense of control in our own lives. But the broken, fucked up among us only experience that pleasure through extreme acts.
I can't categorize better or worse in the animal vs. human debate. I think it's the same drive, but most people still have that categorization of human>animal. Is Emmett Till or Matthew Shepard different from an animal? That's the fucked up part (among many different varieties of fucked up parts). The people who attacked both of those boys did it because they qualified them as animals. As if that made it okay.
I don't really buy into the "animals are innocent and humans are awful" argument (not to simplify what you're saying) because I have no god and when I'm being honest with myself no free will. I believe in a determinist universe and I firmly believe in evolution. All species exist as they've been bred to. I think a lot of things about how the human race defiles the earth, about how Republicans can even exist without having to confront their own goddamn hypocrisy, but every trait in every part of our species is there for some unknown reason. Because at one point it was useful, and maybe we just need to wait a few more generations for us to evolve out of our destructive habits. Needs must, and all that.
Erm... a bit of a deviation from your original post, but relevant, I think.