Listening DB

When I was performing in the local theater company, the director always drilled a certain statement into our heads: "Listening is looking at the person speaking." For little kids (I was in 6th grade at the time), perhaps this was wise advice and it did work to an extent, but I've realized that this does not necessarily hold true. One time, I was chatting with my neighbor while he was talking. He caught me, and said, "Emily, listening is looking at the person speaking." So, I turned my head in his direction. However, my thoughts didn't immediately settle on what he was talking about. They wandered to my own embarrassment that he caught me and to the things that we were talking about. I saw him and took in what he was saying, but I still didn't really care and was more preoccupied. Also, when I'm trying to concentrate on what is being said in class or something, I will do everything in my power to focus on the teacher: look directly at them, sit up straighter, write down what I hear. But no matter what, my mind continues to wander to other matters. Not even more important things, just things that I find more interesting.

What I've realized is that to listen, I have to actually care about what is being said. And when that happens, "our minds become concentrated, sharp and clear" (Dass 100). When it comes to the suffering of people I care about, of course I will want to listen and respond in order to help them out. However, if I'm listening to something less interesting (Calculus for example), my mind is much more likely to wander. And my mind tends to wander back to issues concerning me or the people I've been listening to lately (that I actually care about). However, I have also found that the mind (or we, as people) can be very selfless.

One time, my friend and I were getting ready to go out one night. We were deliberating and fretting over what to wear, how to do our hair, and what color make-up looked good. I resolved to ask my sister what she thought, because her sense of fashion is much better than mine. When I walked into her room, I found her crying. Immediately, my thoughts about our evening out vanished to be replaced with concern for her. She explained her problems and all I could think about was trying to comfort her and deal with this new problem.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that although we are all selfish people and have our own thoughts and problems bubbling at the surface, compassion, in the end, wins. I was truly upset about my sister's troubles and pulled myself out of my own world and entered hers. I'm not entirely sure I can agree with Dass about how "in our zeal to help, we may increase the distance between the person and our own consciousness" (Dass 99). I find that listening to their troubles (while there are always going to be distractions) intensifies my focus and I am able to be a better listener.

So maybe listening is entering another person's world and leaving yours behind. I guess there really is a "breadth to our perspective" in that it's "aerial, wide-screen, panoramic,and yet able to focus quickly" (Dass 105). For my step-mom, it seems natural for her to listen. She's a psychologist and she has always seemed at ease opening up her mind and listening to my problems.

She seems to have advice to offer and always seems very focused on what I'm telling her. When someone listens to me the way she does, I feel this sense of security and like a huge weight is lifting off my shoulders. Truly listening to someone is so beneficial for them. It's like the person speaking can have more faith in you as a person and in how much they care about you.

Helping Out

For some reason, I have always felt that there is this fine line between helping and service. I suppose they should mean the same thing, but the effect on me (my personal character) seems totally different. Service—helping out at church, joining Student Council, volunteering at the nursing homes. That is the stuff that we complain about, the stuff that seems forced and at times, annoyingly out of the way. Simply helping someone, however, is so natural. “Compassion will come forth as needed…simply because it is its nature to do so” (Dass 15).

This reminds me of a time I helped out a random stranger at HEB. A woman was carrying a huge bundle of balloons and was struggling to fight them into the backseat of her car. I rushed over and assisted her in stuffing them into the backseat and then closing the door. Wearily, she turned to me with an appreciative smile and said thank you. I could see the appreciation in her eyes and I could almost feel the change in my mood as I headed into the store. I felt elated and lighter. Happier.

Ram Dass discusses that “our choice of how to help may turn on personal motives and needs” (Dass 14), but I honestly think that it depends. Sure, it felt good to help out the woman, but even without the repercussion, I am relatively certain I would have helped anyway. Because I know that I would appreciate it. I guess it really does boil down to that one simple rule: treat people like you want to be treated. However, I get what he’s saying when he discusses that people want to be doctors to have that title and respectability. I’ve thought about other health professions, but they just didn’t seem like they would be as self-fulfilling. Don’t get me wrong, however. I love the idea of helping people. For a long time now, I’ve considered the idea of being a pediatrician or a cancer doctor. It would be so nice to touch these people’s lives and have a chance to help them recover.

Does that make me selfish that I want to make others feel better? I’m not entirely sure I understand Dass’ whole point of view about that. I mean, surely helping a cancer patient isn’t selfish. There’s the risk that the patient will die and then you will be left to deal with the pain of losing that person and the pain of the people that person left behind. However, you were there and you made that much difference—which could have meant the world to these people even though you got hurt in the process.

I get worried reading too into the whole helping people thing. I like the idea that helping is just natural. It is something that comes with being a person—or an animal for that matter. The dolphin surely didn’t have much to gain from helping out the drowning scuba diver. Dolphins are harmed by people all the time and even hunted, so helping was the last thing that should have been on its agenda. However, the dolphin “was smiling” (Dass 4). It wanted to reassure and help not because it would gain from the experience, but because the diver would.

And it’s true: I do recall images of a place or circumstance “where going out of [the] way was hardly out of the ordinary” (Dass 8). And it still should be. I don’t mind going a little out of the way for people every now and then. And clearly those little actions can make so much difference. If we all did a little bit every day, it could mean so much—but if only some people help a lot and some don’t at all, it’s almost a lost cause. I have faith that people will continue to be friendly and helpful no matter how much changes in our society. And we will see that the people we are helping are not the only ones that leave that situation with a good feeling inside.

Racism

"You be discrimihatin'"
~Molly Bates (on racism)

Martin Luther King may have put it a little more eloquently, but I think many of us have a similar vision of a future without racism. However, I have already found, through firsthand experiences on many occasions, that this vision is a naive one. For example, there was a story on the news this weekend of a brawl that broke out at Chuckie Cheeses. As we watched my stepdad said, “no surprise they’re all black.” I looked at him disgustedly, but made no comment. I learned a long time ago that anything I say goes ignored. Also, a disturbing event happened to me my sophomore year of high school. A guy that is African American asked me to the prom. Thrilled at being one of the few among my friends to get to go to the prom, I excitedly prepared for the dance as any other high school girl would. We had dinner beforehand and hung out at the entire dance. The following Monday, I came out to the parking lot to see that my car had been vandalized. Just above the back passenger wheel were the letters “KKK,” etched in by someone’s accusing key. I had never before seen any sort racism firsthand and (I have to admit) had grown up rather sheltered. My parents (my dad and stepmom at least) had always strictly enforced racial equality. There were no racist comments in our house and I was taught to believe that everybody should be treated the same. Until this occurrence, I had never realized how present racism still is. I see now that it isn’t just the little deep-south towns that are still practicing racism. It’s everywhere.

These comments and actions are exactly what make racial equality so difficult. I’ve realized that more people are unconsciously racist than I realized (as well as consciously). Even in my own head, no matter how hard I try, I find myself thinking discriminating thoughts. So, even though my heart tells me that racism is wrong and my entire mind fights the urge to judge any person or situation based on race, I begin to realize that maybe a world without racism isn’t possible. But I know we can still strive for one. Already, our world has taken humongous steps to promote equality. Fighting slavery and fighting for civil rights are ways to do this.

Marjorie Spiegel states that “as long as humans feel they are forced to defend their own rights and worth by placing someone beneath them, oppression will not end” (Spiegel 18). It was so easy in the past to put others beneath us: the native Americans beneath the Spanish and British, the African Americans beneath slave-traders, and so on. Even though it is not as easy to oppress others based on race now, it is still possible. People can make comments that make them feel superior to others. Thus, they continue to oppress based on language. And as long as others let them, this is one way to continue allowing us to have a world where races can never be considered equal.

However, there is a new form of oppression that humans have turned to. This is the oppression of animals instead of humans. But, as found by Alice Walker in her story “Am I Blue,” she “almost laughed…to think there are people who do not know that animals suffer” (Course Anthology 317). I don’t want to be repetitive (from other DB’s), but I fully believe that animals suffer and until we humans can accept this, racism has merely moved from humans to other creatures.

Sexism, Speciesism, and the Illusions We Create For Ourselves

I have to say, I was extremely intrigued by what I read from John Dunayer’s “Sexist Words, Speciesist Roots.” It brought to my attention words with degrading connotations that I myself use and also how it can be not only degrading for women, but even more degrading to animals. I never really thought about the origin of calling a young woman a “chick,” but now that I see where it comes from, I realize that these terms for women cannot continue as they do. Casual words like “chick” and “foxy” now stir a feeling of anger and frustration within me. I’ve been letting people call me these things and (worse) I’ve been calling other people these things, not knowing that I am embarrassing myself and hurting the equality of women and men (and animals) that I have been strongly supporting.

Upon seeing the definition of a “man,” I felt completely indignant. A Man is defined as “a member of the only extant species, Homo sapiens, distinguished by a highly developed brain, the capacity for abstract reasoning, and the ability to communicate by means of organized speech and record information in a variety of symbolic systems” (Course Anthology 393). My immediate thought was “can’t a woman do that too??” I thought this was the definition of a human, not merely a man. After my immediate feelings of frustration, however, the degrading of animals was evident as well. I found myself seeing women and men and animals as all having special qualities that demand equality among us. These days, jokes are often made about women. However, I really don’t find them funny.

People laughing at a not-so-funny joke.

Societal values expect me to be a “good sport” and just laugh along with everyone else, but inside I’m thinking, “Wait. Laughing at this isn’t doing me any good.” It is increasing the gap between men and women and it goes against the feminist heroines that I admire for their courage and their ability to envision a life in which we can all be equal. A guy at my old high school used to go around with the same joke and I heard him say it to groups numerous times: “Hey you want to hear a joke?” and they nod. “Women’s rights.” Not wanting to seem like a tight-ass (pardon my language), I remained silent, neither laughing uproariously with the others nor contradicting his immature and unprogressive joke. Now, however, I feel a little ashamed of myself. I’m in the TC “Emerging Selves: The Autobiographical Impulse in Women’s Writing,” and I’ve seen how hard women have fought over the years to be heard and from Dunayer’s reading, I see how much progress we have yet to make to reach a world that does not degrade and does not discriminate. If I could go back, I would muster up the courage to speak against this person, even if it cost me my popularity, as I feared then it would. However, what’s done is done and I can’t change the fact. These jokes are one of many contributing factors that force women to continue to struggle for equality.

Additionally, I can see where Dunayer is coming from when he discusses how the decreasing of speciesism can help to decrease sexism. I feel really annoyed that we create identities for animals. I can’t understand how we can just come to the conclusion that pigs are “filthy” and “overeat” (Course Anthology 392). Maybe they appear so in disgusting meat factories, but in the wild, I find it completely believable that they are peaceful, clean, and normal-eating creatures. Also, I could see how playing with a kitten could be just as much “a pastime to her […] than to” the owner (Course Anthology 397). From a certain movie, the dogs expressed the fact that humans are slaves to the animals (it’s a random kid’s movie, but I can’t remember the name). In the preview, the dog states something along the lines of “I mean, do you see us going around picking up your poop?”

Babe: the story about a pig meant for food, but ended up proving to be worth so much more.

Thus, we really shouldn’t consider ourselves so much above animals. People will go through a lot of trouble to take care of their pets. People often include pets in their will, pay thousands of dollars for pet surgery, and clothe the pet and feed it ritually. For example, my aunt holds a very special place in her heart for a dog that her family bought after her daughter died in birth. The dog became something of a replacement of the child, forming a very close bond with my aunt. Now, her whole family goes through great lengths to care for and make the dog comfortable. These gestures seem obsessive to many, but for me I see that they are gestures that bring us closer and closer to a world where all creatures can be equal.

Animals are just as capable of thinking and feeling as we are. They have shown incredible capabilities of acting humanely toward each other, as proved by the experiment involving macaque monkeys. It was shown that “87 percent preferred to go hungry rather than harm their fellow monkeys” when faced with the choice of eating at the price hurting the others.

The opposite holds true for us humans; we, who consider ourselves so much above other animals. In the Stanford and Yale experiments, humans showed the capacity to cause great harm to each other. So, in my opinion, it’s time to get off our high horse and start treating each other (and animals) with more compassion and fairness.

Coetzee DB#2

In the case of animal ethics, I’ve noticed that a great deal of argument comes from the point of view of whether or not animals can feel and think in the same way as human beings. However, I am pretty sure I know the answer to this. I don’t think they can. I’ve mentioned before that I agree with the fact that animals do lack the intelligence that humans do. But they feel in their own way and think in their own way and I believe that their ways should be respected. Sometimes our reign over animals seems a little tyrannical: we’re smarter thus we can boss them around and do what we want with them.

For example, I think it is totally unfair that the ape had to conform to human ways to get out of his cruel confinement. The people want the ape to act just as they do and train him to, but they miss the point completely. The ape eventually succeeds in behaving just as they do but he states quite clearly to us that he “imitated them because [he] was looking for a way out, for no other reason” (Anthology 369). I didn’t really understand the motives for wanting the ape to act human, but I could guess. I thought that they could release him only if he were like a human. To them, animals deserve to be locked up in crates, but humans shouldn’t be. Thus, if he were human, he could be free like them.

However, I have to laugh at their “accomplishment.” Yes, they succeeded in making him act like them, but in his mind he seemed to be defying them a little. He wanted to get out of the cage and used all the resources he could to do so, even if that meant going against his instinctual tendencies. Yet, behaving like a human and being human are two totally different things: things that separated the ape’s desires from the human’s desires in this case. And maybe that means that humans want animals to act more like them in order to give them more rights. But I wish that weren’t so. I wish that we could just respect our differences and that would be enough.

Just as the people want the ape to act more human, Costello shows how Hughes is incapable of “inhabiting another mind” and instead inhabits “another body” (Coetzee 96). Humans show a lot of inflexibility in their actions toward animals. They want the animals to act and take up their habits and refuse to recognize the habits of others. The whole issue of animal ethics has definitely brought to my attention so many issues of the human race. I’ve seen how inflexible and insensitive people can be toward mere differences. Animals have proved capable of having very strong emotions and high intelligence levels, but they still remain inferior in the eyes of many.

The ability to treat animals with a higher respect than we do now could be very beneficial to our perspective. By accepting differences, humans are becoming far more flexible in general, which can lead to other satisfying results. This may seem off topic, but by showing more flexibility, we could most likely resolve issues involving racism as well. Not to mention, flexibility is extremely beneficial in diplomatic relations. Additionally, compassion is a virtue in my eyes. Having compassion for animals may seem like a weakness to some, but it shows that humans are willing to be kind to others. I think we can all help each other our and understand each other so much better through our compassion for other creatures, not only each other.

Also, the argument expressed by O’Hearne that “friendship between human beings and animals is impossible” was extremely upsetting (Coetzee 110). He states that we can’t be friends with animals because we have “too little in common” (Coetzee 110). However, what about a conservative simple-minded guy being friends with a liberal intellectual girl? It is safe to say that they have very little in common, but if have at least one thing in common, they can still find something to agree on. I have friends that I actually take pride in our differences and enjoy it. If we were all the same, we would lose those people who are gifted at art and those people who are great at math and science. They can’t all be alike, but they can still be friends. It’s the same with animals. Who says we have to have everything in common to be friends with an animal. Animal trainers befriend the animals they work with and dogs are commonly known as “man’s best friend.” I do not believe for a second that animals and humans can’t be friends and I have seen it disproved many times.

Perspective on Animals (Coetzee #1)

“By treating fellow human beings, beings created in the image of God, like beasts, they had themselves become beasts” (Coetzee 65). So, does that mean that eventually some being that thinks it has a higher intellectual thought process and consciousness can raise us for slaughter? I realize that animals may not “think and/or feel precisely as we do,” but just “think and feel” in their own way (Anthology 352). However, I don’t think that gives us the right to disregard their feelings and sense of being. Elizabeth’s argument about the bat is a way of approaching this situation. Nagel says that we cannot truly know what it’s like to be a bat, but Elizabeth argues that it is possible. I really don’t think that we have to know everything there is to know about another creature to empathize with it. For example, on my cruise over the summer, I saw a pod of dolphins swimming alongside our ship. I really don’t know very much about dolphins. But I certainly shared their joy in that moment and for this reason, I must agree with Elizabeth Costello that we can truly transcend into “any being with whom [we] share the substrate of life” (Coetzee 80). The dolphins looked so smooth, gliding through the water with their companions; to me, I felt the physical joy at the exertion of streaking through the water and the emotional joy of being surrounded by loved ones.

This picture's of a whale on our Alaskan cruise, but you get the point...

The treatment of animals seems to truly boil down to empathy and perspective. Elizabeth raises interesting ideas when discussing death camps. Killers in the Holocaust could stand being killers or even just bystanders because they refused to empathize with the people they were killing, even when they are fellow human beings! Even the thought of killing my own food gives me shudders. I recently read the book Barefoot Heart (which has nothing to do with animal ethics, but there’s one pertinent part). The father of the narrator must slaughter their produce (a cow in this instance) and the narrator expresses her disgust and how she can’t really bring herself to eat it after seeing it alive. This is because she can empathize with the animal and put herself in its perspective: the perspective being the victim of a killer.

However, I definitely have to admit that Norma had a good point when she discussed the idea of how you are raised and cultural values. If a person has been raised to believe that something is socially acceptable, what stops them from doing it? Do they naturally have moral values that stop them? It doesn’t seem like it. For us, the idea of eating a dog is sickening. Dogs serve as our companions, sometimes even best friends. So (for me at least) it’s kind of like eating a best friend (disgusting!). However, for other cultures and nationalities, it is totally okay to eat dogs.

Chinese food, but I don't think that dog is on this table.

It seems a little unfair that Elizabeth states she is a vegetarian to “save [her] soul” (Coetzee 89). If people haven’t been brought up or exposed to certain things in their lives, they really have no way of understanding that they are committing (in Elizabeth’s eyes) a heinous crime. I can personally relate to this. Before Earthlings, I really was ignorant as to where my meat was coming from and how the livestock was raised, treated, and slaughtered. I was extremely disturbed by what I saw and now I have a better understanding of the ethics behind our food and can empathize with animals a little more. However, I have to be understanding to those who don’t even know about the existence of Earthlings or who haven’t watched it. They don’t really know how bad the situation is and thus why it is such an issue. Take children, for example.

My baby cousin is eating beef and although I have given that up, I don't judge her for eating it. She doesn't know any better.

Children are seen as the most innocent of our population. They eat all kinds of meat, without any thought of the source of the food or the suffering the animal went through to end up on the kid’s plate. But does that mean that eventually they will be unable to save their soul? And I’m sure that Elizabeth wasn’t a vegetarian all her life. Why is it that all of the sudden her soul will be saved because she suddenly became more morally conscious about animals? So if I had to really take a decisive stance between Norma and Elizabeth, I would say: if you are conscious of the cruelty being done and can have the ability to empathize with the animals, you should definitely be more conscious of the source of your food and the treatment of animals in general. But I still think it is unfair to say that those who are unaware are damned.

Ignorance is Bliss

Ignorance is bliss. These words, no matter how true, have haunted me since watching the documentary “Earthlings” on Thursday. No matter how much I want to deny the sad and disturbing mistreatment of animals, I can no longer stand by and pretend that what’s happening to them “isn’t that bad.” I have talked to so many people since Thursday who say things like “Oh I could never watch anything like that.” These people, to me, are missing a huge perspective on life on this planet. It makes me sad that these people know that this is happening and yet refuse to watch it for their own comfort. Throughout this whole class, there were some key points of this documentary that particularly moved me.

First, the dog that was thrown into the trash compactor. This small gesture of neglect and cruelty was particularly horrifying for me. The poor dog was wounded and lost and instead of caring for it, the people found it more convenient and cheaper to discard it. I learned many new things from watching how even the pet industry leads to corruption and mistreatment. My sister had always encouraged adopting pets from animal shelters and now I see why. I cannot imagine being a volunteer at an animal shelter and being forced to put down pet after pet because people want pure bred animals. There is no need to create lives if they are to be wasted so easily—so many dogs end up getting abandoned or left at the pound because their owners cannot take care of them.

I could not believe the mass deaths that occur because of the desire to perfect the pet industry and this disturbing image of the poor dog thrown into the trash compactor is the result. As I watched the poor creature being crushed to death, I was disgusted that anybody could possibly bring themselves to do something like that. It seemed to expose the barbaric and suppressed nature of some people: the need to cause pain or to separate oneself from the feelings of those considered “below us.” I found this more upsetting than many displays of cruelty of humans on humans. This is because the innocence here was clear. The dog had absolutely no way of knowing what harm was about to come to him and it was wounded and completely helpless. Therefore, the abuse that an innocent creature was taking for the convenience of those that it is at the mercy of, was what most moved me about this spectacle.

Also, the treatment of the pigs was very sad to see. Pigs, I’ve been told, are relatively intelligent creatures. I watched the workers beat the pigs with sticks, yelling and cursing as though it was good fun. These pigs were being slaughtered and beaten right in front of the other pigs seemed to me the most inhumane way to treat them. They were forced to stand aside in their cages watching the death of the other pigs, merely waiting their turn. Also, the warehouses where they are raised made me see the lives (or lack thereof) that they lead.

I saw that these pigs rarely, if ever, see true sunlight, or feel air that isn’t polluted with the stench of their surroundings, or move in a space larger than a couple feet around them. They have no true feelings of life for the amount of time they are alive. And then, after a depressing and joyless existence, they are slaughtered mercilessly and, at times, slowly.

However, nothing could move me as much as watching my totem animal being rounded up and slaughtered. Marine animals, such as dolphins and whales, are some of my favorite animals in the world. I have admired them since I was a little girl and still do more than any other animals. Over the summer, I visited Alaska and saw whales and dolphins in the wild. They way they travel in families gave me a chance to see how they are so similar to us. The beautiful way in which they travel through the water makes them such a pleasure to behold. I cannot imagine ever having the stomach to wound such a beautiful creature. For me, it was like watching a friend get killed with no mercy or consideration as to the pain and suffering being caused. The sad cries issued from the dolphins no longer seemed foreign and wild to me. I recognized their agony at being torn apart from their families.

Their writhing movements on the cold cement as they suffocated only looked like the torture of another human being in my eyes. Thus, I watched the suffering and slaughter of the animal I connect most with: the animals that live within me. It saddens me to think that this cruelty occurs only for the desire of “exotic” meat. We want interesting food, so let’s hunt animals that wouldn’t normally show up on a dinner menu. This display of inhumane cruelty was the most effective piece of the entire documentary. It was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. I could also see how easily this can be compared to concentration camps in World War II. Huge groups of Jewish prisoners were rounded up. Then, the families were separated: wives from husbands, children from parents. And then, inevitably, death for some. I could see the parallel clearly and it moved me to tears faster than I could have ever expected.

In the movie, “The Jungle Book,” Mowgli tells a soldier that the order of animals is to kill to eat or from being eaten, whereas the order of men is to kill for sport. So many deaths of animals occur needlessly. Whether it is the excessive slaughter of farm animals (cows, pigs, chickens), the putting down of too many extra pets, or the need to have exotic food, the lives of these animals are too precious to waste. Every life matters, except for these poor animals. The animals that go into the industry that caters to mankind’s comfort. Ignorance may be bliss, but it isn’t right. I realize now that this lack of ignorance (at the expense of some tears and discomfort) has broadened my understanding of life and of what I owe the fellow creatures of this planet.