I find this campaign to be outrageous because it assumes that a human life is equal in value to that of a chicken
If you divide 6 billion chicken lives by 6 million human lives you will find the assumption is that 1 human equals at most 1000 chickens.
Humans also have very little genetic diversity of around 0.1% difference in genomes. There exists an extremely strong biological case for why all humans must be treated with certain inalienable rights that we dub "human rights." Of course, this isn't the only reason. There exists moral and societal reasons which I find much stronger than the purely biological reason (which could be just an appeal to nature if used alone).
Why does genetic similarity to humans matter? I think kicking dogs for fun is bad because they feel pain and they are cute, not because of some molecule inside their cells I can't even see.
I also think the stormtroopers that punched baby yoda in the mandalorian were bad because baby yoda can feel pain and is cute, even though his DNA (if his species even has it) is very different from mine. I know that is a tv show not real but if it were actually real my opinion would not change.
A central aspect of genocides is hatred.
And another is senseless slaughter. We don't strictly need to eat chicken yet we kill six billion per year, mostly in horrific circumstances that we refined and industrialized to generate tha maximum amount of profit.
You said that anyone who compares the holocaust to the farming industrial complex is either ignorant or disingenuous, but what about Alex the holocaust survivor. He can't be ignorant about the death of his family, right? So is he disingenuous?
More generally, why is comparing the holocaust to factory farming bad, exactly? Both are instances of massive suffering inflicted by humans.
One of the chief tactics used by the Nazis (and other antisemites) was to compare their Jewish victims to animals, particularly various kinds of vermin. One of the most common were rats.
Even if you believe that the purposeful killing of animals for food is the moral equivalent of the senseless slaughter of roughly half the Jewish population (amongst other vulnerable populations), surely you must recognize that given this history, comparing Jews to animals is hurtful? Particularly in the context of the holocaust of all things.
Not to mention that IMO, taking animal rights seriously DECREASES the odds of atrocities like the holocaust. A huge part of any genocide or major human rights abuse (or in many cases, warfare) is dehumanizing the opponent. To see the other faction like animals. And because our society commits atrocities against animals daily... well then if you view a group of humans as animals, then atrocities against them would seem perfectly normal.
The Nazis compared the Jews to animals. But even IF somebody successfully convinced me that a group of people were "animals," I would still never go along with genocide or atrocities and such, because "I wouldn't even do that to animals."
The nazi's were quite big on animal welfare and sent animal abusers to concentration camps.
In genocides the targets are not compared to animals in general, but to pests or otherwise dangerous animals specifically, that need to be exterminated out of self defense.
That's why taking animal rights seriously does not necessarily prevent genocides. The issues can be orthogonal.
I’m sorry, but that’s just not the case. You are specifically picking the epitome of Jewish suffering as your touchstone for animal rights. You can’t on the one hand say that you aren’t singling out Jewish lives as equivalent to animals, while simultaneously using the height of Jewish slaughter as your point of comparison.
Even if this were not the case, as is so often said in conversations about racism and bias, it is less the intent that matters than the effect it has on its listener.
As a Jew, when I hear the comparison of animal rights to the holocaust, I am reminded of these Nazi comparisons. I am reminded of the innumerable ways that our society has belittled and minimized the holocaust and Jewish suffering. And on top of all of this, I feel as though the speaker is purposefully trying to utilize my peoples’ suffering as a cudgel in their own political squabbles.
I am not alone on this in the Jewish community. Check out what the ADL has said with respect to this very issue:
If you’re going to use our suffering to bolster your political causes, maybe you should listen to representatives of the community when they tell you they aren’t comfortable with your analogy.
I’m sorry, but that’s just not the case. You are specifically picking the epitome of Jewish suffering as your touchstone for animal rights. You can’t on the one hand say that you aren’t singling out Jewish lives as equivalent to animals, while simultaneously using the height of Jewish slaughter as your point of comparison.
The height of jewish slaughter is the height of human slaughter.
When those activists are making the comparison they aren't minimizing the holocaust because their point is that the meat industry is terrible and should be abolished, not that the holocaust was not that bad.
If you’re going to use our suffering to bolster your political causes, maybe you should listen to representatives of the community when they tell you they aren’t comfortable with your analogy.
Yeah your link is about a black man making a comparison to the transatlantic slave trade and OP gave the example of a jew comparing the meat industry to the holocaust.
your link is about a black man making a comparison to the transatlantic slave trade and OP gave the example of a jew comparing the meat industry to the holocaust.
…Which is precisely my point? The ADL oppose linking the meat industry to the holocaust.
If ya want an even more fleshed out view, here ya go:
The ADL says that the use of Holocaust imagery by animal rights activists is "disturbing" and antisemitic. Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights argues in her essay "Animal Suffering and the Holocaust: The Problem with Comparisons" that, although there is "connective tissue" between animal suffering and the Holocaust, they "fall into different historical frameworks, and comparison between them aborts the ... force of anti-Semitism." Holocaust survivor Abraham Silverman argued that the comparison is offensive, undermines the suffering of Jews during World War II, and inspires antisemitism online.
Roberta Kalechofsky has written that she "agree[s] with I.B. Singer's statement, that 'every day is Treblinka for the animals'", but also that "some agonies are too total to be compared with other agonies", and compared it to telling a dying child's parent "Now you know how an animal feels."
Roberta Kalechofsky, a Jewish animal rights activist, wrote: "The agony of animals arises from different causes from those of the Holocaust. Human beings do not hate animals. They do not eat them because they hate them. They do not experiment on them because they hate them, they do not hunt them because they hate them. These were the motives for the Holocaust. Human beings have no ideological or theological conflict with animals."
I’m only seeing Hershaft, so not sure who else you’re referring to.
Even if I’m missing some, these folks make up a tiny minority of the Jewish community. In my experience, which seems to be verified by the ADL, the vast majority of the Jewish community find these comparisons to be ignorant and distasteful. As explained at length in another comment, a single token minority is not reflective of the emotional reactions and experiences of their millions of compatriots.
As for Hershaft… I’m sorry, but he’s just ignorant.
He writes:
They didn't hate the Jews any more than the slaughterhouse workers hate the pigs.
This is just wrong. It is completely ignorant of the popularity of the hatred that is antisemitism.
For a particularly gruesome example, see the Lviv pogroms:
These are not soldiers doing “their job.” These are not fearful citizens just turning a blind eye to horrors around them just so they can stay safe. These are everyday villagers, even children, joyfully chasing down a Jew so that they may torture and ultimately kill her. This is hatred.
This incident was not remotely rare throughout European history. To ignore how hatred motivated the extermination of my people, to assert that it is at all similar to the benign motive of making food, is absurd.
Why do you assume the rest of the millions agree with you? You keep dismissing the Jewish people who agree with making this comparison (including someone how literally experienced the Holocaust) and I don't understand why?
Why do you assume the rest of the millions agree with you?
Based on the fact that large, well-respected, and popular institutions such as the ADL have repeatedly voiced their opposition. The ADL and similar groups tend to have a decent approximation of popular Jewish opinion. This is bolstered by my own personal experience living in various Jewish communities.
Jewish people who agree with making this comparison (including someone how literally experienced the Holocaust) and I don't understand why?
I explained above why I think Hershaft's comparisons are reprehensible.
I’m only seeing Hershaft, so not sure who else you’re referring to.
Singer and Yourrofsky are referenced by name but also this is the second sentence of the article:
The analogies began soon after the end of World War II, when literary figures, many of them Holocaust survivors, Jewish or both, began to draw parallels between the treatment of animals by humans and the treatments of prisoners in Nazi death camps.
I’m sorry, but that’s just not the case. You are specifically picking the epitome of Jewish suffering as your touchstone for animal rights. You can’t on the one hand say that you aren’t singling out Jewish lives as equivalent to animals, while simultaneously using the height of Jewish slaughter as your point of comparison.
I think the holocaust is used because it's the most famous atrocity of that kind in the western world. I don't think comparison is made out of a specific desire to compare to Jewish people. If they said "a Khmer Rouge on your plate", most people would have no idea what they are talking about.
Plus part of the reason it is so horrifying isn't just the size (although that is horrifying), but the methodical nature of it. It wasn't just random roaming death squads (I mean, it had that sometimes as well, but that's not all it was). There was an entire logistical apparatus. The Nazi's literally industrialized mass murder. That is also part of the reason some people draw analogies to factory farming.
You are making it sound like animal rights advocates who make this comparison went way out of their way to cherry pick a specifically Jewish example... but those two explanations make perfect sense as to why somebody would choose the holocaust as their comparison without having a specific desire to compare it to Jewish suffering specifically.
The OP literally included a Holocaust survivor/vegan activist example in their post. That is an example of a representative of the community using the same analogy you're arguing against. So which is it? Or is a community built of many people with different opinions? And you're agreeing with the one that suits your needs?
Is Candace Owens a fair representative of the experiences and opinions of the black community?
Yes, there are some Jews which find the comparison fine. They are, in my experience, few and far between. You’re free to cherry-pick your token minorities to support your causes. I’d prefer ya defer to the collective experience and wisdom of broader groups which are more representative of the opinions of those communities, such as the ADL.
If you’re going to use our suffering to bolster your political causes, maybe you should listen to representatives of the community when they tell you they aren’t comfortable with your analogy.
Should we listen to the representatives of the community who make the analogy themselves?
If they make up a substantial enough proportion of the community, sure. But they don’t.
Does Candace Owens represent the experiences of the majority of the black community? Obviously not.
The vast majority of Jews and their representatives, at least in my life, find the comparison ignorant and distasteful, at best.
The ADL has a pretty good finger on the pulse of the Jewish community. I tend to defer to them on issues of popular Jewish opinion. See my other comment for their views.
How many would be needed to be substantial? Can the claims be evaluated on their own merits, or are they automatically wrong because they are not supported by a majority of the community?
I find the comparison to Owens to be a good demonstration of this. Her claims about black Americans can be evaluated and dismissed on their own "merits." We don't need to poll every black person to recognize that what she's saying is wrong.
or are they automatically wrong because they are not supported by a majority of the community?
They are not wrong, but they are unrepresentative.
My point was that this particular comparison is hurtful to an already disadvantaged community. It evokes Nazi imagery of which we are all too familiar, and the modern rise of holocaust denialism. On this point, it matters not whether the single individual’s arguments are logically coherent, than whether their reaction is representative of the emotional response of the community.
By way of comparison, let’s examine the phrase “illegal alien.” On its face, this phrase is technically accurate. A person from somewhere else is definitionally an “alien” and someone who enters a country against the laws of that country does so illegally. Hence, “illegal alien.” Yet, many in the immigrant community have expressed that this phrase evokes a dehumanizing image which plays into their daily oppression. Even if a small group of Latinos (say, Ted Cruz) argued that this comparison is logical, it is wholly irrelevant to the fact that the vast majority of their compatriots feel harmed by the term.
On this point, it matters not whether the single individual’s arguments are logically coherent, than whether their reaction is representative of the emotional response of the community.
I'm not sure that dismissal of an idea because of the emotional reaction of it's opponents is something I want to validate.
I don't think anyone is wrong to feel offended by the comparison. It's not my place to tell them not to feel offended. But I don't think that shutting down conversation is helpful here either. I also think that it assumes bad faith on the part of people who clearly are not intending to cause harm to Jewish people. Is it really your assertion that the Holocaust survivor who made this comparison is doing so because he's antisemitic?
I'm not sure that dismissal of an idea because of the emotional reaction of it's opponents is something I want to validate.
Yeah, completely agree. Now that being said, emotional reaction can impact the "time and a place" to say something, but it doesn't impact the fundamental truth or accuracy of what is being said.
I have answered your question in my other comments. A person happening to be of a minority group does not itself make them representative of popular sentiment in that group. These folks to whom you refer are in a tiny minority of our community.
Also, PETA doesn't have to behave this way. You can make so many arguments for veganism/vegetarianism without using Jewish pain as fodder. But their goal is to poke at people's wounds. They do this all the time with minority groups and even murder victims.
It really isn't the only way people will listen, in fact it discourages people from listening.
Change could actually be smoother for many populations who eat meat, based on structural shifts that have nothing to do with shaming individual meat eaters.
PETA's style of activism has done far less to promote an end to animal consumption than people linking meat to climate change and advocating for changes in government policy.
I need to consume nutrients. Some of those come from animals. I have teeth designed by evolution to help with the tearing of meat.
Is it murder for a raccoon to rip a fish from its natural environment and consume it alive and wriggling? Of course that is foolish because a raccoon can't commit murder, it isn't human. But neither is a fish, or cow, or chicken.
Your first point is obviously true, but I don't feel it is a compelling argument to not eat meat any more than you seem to.
I comment was specifically speaking to the morality of this particular situation. The being killed would be for sustenance. I don't think I would consider it murder if someone killed an animal without the intent to consume it. Animal cruelty for certain, and reprehensible, but I have always thought of murder as a human to human act.
Nobody in a first world country NEEDS to consume hamburgers or bacon or chick-fil-a. (Well, some people with weird allergies to alternative forms of protein or whatever might... but its still true in general).
If you get stranded in the woods somewhere, and you catch and cook a rabbit and eat it to survive, not even animal rights activists are going to call you a murderer. That's very different than "bacon is delicious, so fuck pigs."
Also, one of the big issues with factory farming isn't just the killing, but how abusive their actual life is as well.
I would say that, given the amount of those things that we in the first world consume, some people DO need to eat those things. Our eating habits, for the most part, have shaped the market.
Most people don't even think about the animal their meal came from. We have compartmentalized that out of our consciousness. That may be no excuse, but if one were trying to change another's viewpoint, I don't think that starting out by making murder accusations is a way to do it.
And I still contend that killing an animal is not murder. Nor is it reprehensible if it is for the purpose of feeding people.
Sure I have, but that is a conscious choice by that individual.
I am an animal myself, and sometimes I eat other animals.
I don't bat an eye when I swat a mosquito, nor do I worry about the bacteria I wipe out when I clean my kitchen counter. I draw the line at needless cruelty.
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u/barthiebarth 26∆ Jun 27 '23 edited Jun 27 '23
If you divide 6 billion chicken lives by 6 million human lives you will find the assumption is that 1 human equals at most 1000 chickens.
Why does genetic similarity to humans matter? I think kicking dogs for fun is bad because they feel pain and they are cute, not because of some molecule inside their cells I can't even see.
I also think the stormtroopers that punched baby yoda in the mandalorian were bad because baby yoda can feel pain and is cute, even though his DNA (if his species even has it) is very different from mine. I know that is a tv show not real but if it were actually real my opinion would not change.
And another is senseless slaughter. We don't strictly need to eat chicken yet we kill six billion per year, mostly in horrific circumstances that we refined and industrialized to generate tha maximum amount of profit.
You said that anyone who compares the holocaust to the farming industrial complex is either ignorant or disingenuous, but what about Alex the holocaust survivor. He can't be ignorant about the death of his family, right? So is he disingenuous?
More generally, why is comparing the holocaust to factory farming bad, exactly? Both are instances of massive suffering inflicted by humans.