Why are people so worried about the exploitation of animals?!
Answers: when a lot of the products we use are made by people in sweat shops in china who are clearly being exploited?
Well.. some people feel a "burden" for one particular cause, and don't feel they can solve "all the world's problems" so they focus on one area thata they feel they can make a difference.
Many people are unaware of the seriousness of the sweat shops, or which products they buy were made there. THey just don't know! Maybe they've heard mumbles, but aren't sure if it's urban legend or real!!
It is true that human exploitation should be taken even more seriously than animal exploiotation. Both should be stopped.
And for the record, the human exploitation should be stopped first! (EDIT: TO make sure noone misunderstood that statement.. I meant that to mean that human exploitation should be a bigger concern and a priority... I DIDN'T mean that we can't deal with animal exploiotation at the same time)
You have to understand.. MOST people are in my position:
It's easy for me to NOT eat meat.. but, while I'd love to help stop human exploitation, I'm not sure what I can do.. how I can get involved, or which products I buy may be produced this way! It's like, two people run up to you at the exact same moment. One says "If you help me.. with 14 hours of hard work we could cure cancer and save millions of lives!!" The other one says "Look! Someone drowning over there! It will only take you 5 seconds to save the drowning person." Which would you do first? You'd save the drowning person, THEN start working on cancer! Why? because the one person is more important? No.. because it's easier... you can get it out of the way without hardly thinking about it. Eliminating meat is like saving the drowning person. It takes no effort or time.. That's why we do it first, Not because we think the animals are more important than the exploited humans!
Yohan, consider yourself reported! Don't thank me! It was my pleasure!!
I love animals. It's unnecssary that their fur and maybe their lives are at sake.
Because they are weak minded.
Animal exploitation is done by human beings since time immemorial. The animals dont have a voice to tell us about how they feel, when they are exploited, and later killed by human beings for their selfishness. It needs to be stopped. I dont know what China's sweet shops have to do with this.
Because animals are treated badly without the choice of living or not. Kept in bad conditions for all there childhood and killed unhumanely at a young age.
Because animals can't talk. People therefore imbue them with a lovely cuddly personality and want to nurse them. In reality they're vicious savage and uncaring. Humans of course can talk, and express their feelings - which makes them anything but cuddly and helpless, so no-one wants to worry about them.
In reality an animal will survive far far better than a human, but hey - we're not cuddly, are we?
It's not that people don't care about the people/children in sweat shops, they care about the animals as well. I guess it seems that we care more about the animals because it's easier to get involved with that cause than to get involved with a cause that's in another country.
because animals are cute and fuzzy?
and maybe people reason that those people working in sweatshops have a choice to work there...or maybe it's because sweatshop workers doen't have a naked pamela anderson as their advocate...or maybe, if sweatshop worker exploitation were stopped other people wouldnt be able to get their clothing and electronics at a cheaper price. because isn't that the whole reason why sweatshops exist--so some people can cut their production costs and increase thier profit margins?
I think no living creature should be forced to suffer. That includes animals, people working in sweat shops, and children. In the US, there's not a lot that we can do about Chinese sweat shops--there's a little we can do about the exploitation of animals. Not much there either--but just b/c people are worried about animals does not mean that they are not worried about the other.
Because animals can be more at the mercy of humans in the sense that they cannot speak and if are small animals cannot overpower whoever is exploiting them. Exploitation of animals and humans are completely different...also, I would say that many people are also concerned about people who are being exploited in conditions such as the one you mentioned. This is not a great question...the two sides of it are not closely related enough to give a definitive answer.
Why should it be a competition? Are you saying we shouldn't worry about animals until every human being is happy? That's like saying, let's let the rapists, burglars, drunk drivers, etc walk free until our courts deal with the backlog of murder cases. After all, murder is worse than burglary.
I think it is ridiculous to assume we can't address both concerns. Being concerned with animal rights and humans rights doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. I am a vegan and very much against animal exploitation, but I am also against poor working conditions in foreign countries. I agree with the answerers who said that it is hard to control what happens in other countries. However, you can do your best to buy as much fair trade and local products as possible and avoid big box retailers when you can.
For me, and I'm sure for many people, it is simply easier to control my contributions to the animal industry, while my contributions the sweatshops are harder to track and eliminate.
Just out of curiosity, since you are trying to play the moral high card, what do you do to address the concerns of working conditions for foreign workers?
Can we not worry about both? Compassion shouldn't be selective towards just one species.
If you had $100 and saw two starving people on the street would you give all of it to one because they had a higher IQ than the other or would you divide it so both of them could have some?
"So worried about the exploitation of animals" Gimme a break! Cruelty and exploitation of people OR animals SUCKS - period. People choose to work in factories. Animals don't choose to be tortured, mutilated and killed. Except most of us would never know about the worst of animal exploitation, were it not for PETA. To quote Linda McCartney, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we'd all be vegetarians". Here's an exercise: try going to Peta.com and watch the many videos available showing outright animal cruelty and torture. It changed me forever. Try watching a 250 pound pork farmer (just for the hell of it) stand on a baby pig until the ribs break and it suffocates trying to scream, or how about Chinese factories skinning a dog or cat alive, so ignorant people can wear coats with nice fur collars. The gorgeous German Shepherd being led to slaughter even wags its' tail to see that person walking him to his agonizing death. Eat chicken? Try watching the video: "meet your meat" and try not feeling a bit of compassion for the poor creatures.
I dare ya.
apparenlty, it's because animals have more rights than humans.
There is no trade off for me. Just because I care about animals does not mean I don't care about other people. Part of being a responsible adult is to have concern for oneself, other people, animals and the world around us.
I guess rape victims will have to get in line and wait until every murder is solved before anyone acknowledges their suffering, right?
Murder is much more important than rape, so those women can go cry at home and leave us is peace.
You should go to an animal shelter and let them know how horrible they are to worry about all those animals when there are people living out on the street.
One of my favorite quotes:
"When nonvegetarians say that 'human problems come first' I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals."
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 1990
Not to mention most of us who care about animals have compassion that extends elsewhere too. Which is much better than not supporting anything, like most people.
I've found most people who try to get high and mighty against animal lovers are ones that do nothing for anyone but themselves.
OK so your reasoning is if there are other bad things going on in the world then the suffering of animals shouldn't matter??
Why would that make it any less important? I am against people being exploited as well as animals being tortured and killed needlessly. It doesn't have to be one or the other.
um, i can worry about animals and people at the same time.
i can also walk and chew gum.
duh.
why do you assume that because we are against the exploitation of animals we are for the exploitation of people?
Are we only allowed to stand up for one thing now?
I must have missed that memo.