Limit to Animal Rights

“They are more like us than we imagined”. This is from Jeremy Rifkin in his “Change of Heart about Animals”. Why is there an explanation one how animals act? They don’t have the same thought processes as regular people would. Yes, animals can “grieve and play” and learn but what about being philosophical, be more compassionate to one another, end the mentality of kill or be killed? Even now, we humans still eat those lower than us (in this case cows, pigs, goats, etc.) and we consider ourselves transcendent. But, truly in all honesty, what is to say that we are not like animals?

In essence humans still have not found a way to suppress these animal instincts of ours. “The elephants grieved at the loss of their loved ones as they touched the deceased” elephants are not emotional creatures, however it is commonly known that they are of curious nature. There is no way to know for sure how they felt, nor the orangutans with “self awareness”. We are just like them just more so. For an orangutans self awareness we have our vanity, when the animal children play, the kids play… , and how we cope with the dead.

We don’t need to understand animals because we are animals. We still fight for territory, resources, mates, and the like. “They crave affection and are easily depressed if isolated”. Are we not the same as social creatures? There is no denying Rifkin’s arguments in the fact on how animals are, in fact, very much similar to us. But, what is there not to say we are not similar to them? Why fight for the rights of animals that we end up conquering over, when you can sit back and enjoy being at the top?

Ethan T.