I haven't said that you would mistreat a child. I've said that you prefer dogs to your children, so it's only reasonable to assume that you give them preference when it comes to your level of attention.
Children certainly do need more attention than a dog. This is because they have far more complex brains, which must soak up a great deal more than a dog, which relies much more on instinct. A dog learns most of what it needs to learn in a vastly shorter time span that a child does.
Children of course become more independent as they grow, and they also encounter vastly more complex challenges as growing creatures than a dog ever will. This requires a level of attention from a parent that dwarfs that required by a dog owner. Dogs do not need to learn the incredibly complex social skills a human child must master. And so on.
They don't have any knowledge or idea that something or someone could potentially hurt them.
Neither do children, and the dangers to children overlap and vastly exceed those facing dogs. Not just physical danger; because the human psyche is so much more complex, the dangers to the heart and soul are far greater.
Animals are far more helpless than any human being
That comment is so inaccurate I'm surprised it's coming from a dog owner with children. An infant, a toddler, a youngster, are all more helpless than a dog beyond puppyhood, and take far longer to mature and learn some independence since the dog exists in a vastly simpler world, where instinct plays a far larger role. This should be self-evident.
When people hurt an animal, people are generally outraged, and laws are applied. Killing animals for food is a different matter. Even Temple Grandin thinks it's morally okay, and you can't accuse her of not caring about animals.
Not once did I ever say that hatred was ok. I said that the people I know who hate children aren't handicapped
Hatred isn't a neutral condition. It's not "just" an opinion, but a state of mind, a diseased one. To say that someone hates but has no "emotional handicaps" is to deny a fact of life, a universal truth passed down from time immemorial, a staple of religious teaching, including Christianity. Substitute "Jews" or "blacks" or "women" or "animals" for "children" and you may come to see this more clearly.
I will always have a more tender spot in my heart for animals than for children or people, but once again, that doesn't mean that I have any ill will towards them.
But ill will isn't necessary to cause pain and damage to a young psyche. One will naturally extend more care and attention to what ones feels more tender toward. In this case, it's only reasonable to think there is a chance that this preference will come at the expense of children.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
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8 years ago
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Whatlarks
8 years ago
There's a tone of zealotry in your posts. It's unconscious.
Your hypersensitivity implies that this issue isn't really about animals. It's about you -- more precisely, what you project onto animals. That's what you're really protecting.
You've partially anthropomorphized your dog. In other words, you don't actually see the dog as a dog. It's a fascinating psychology: On the one hand you attach some cherry-picked bits of humanity to a dog, and that allows you to love it even more. But on the other, you don't love as much the natural humanity of actual children. Fake humanity pegged to a dog = adorable; real humanity in humanity = not so much.
Of course it's vastly easier to handle a self-created, fake, cutesy humanity than it is to handle the real thing. Real humanity is vastly more challenging and complex. You've substituted a dog as a kind of container for a simplified and Disneyfied humanity you can relate to. You create a fantasy pure-hearted version of humanity. In that way you can easily feel a connection that you find too hard to reach with the real thing.
Your flouncing off in a huff in this thread, cutting off connection, is in line with that. A dog won't ask such tough questions. Questions like, "Why do you think of me as a cute human?"
Fyi, I don't actually have kids, lol.
Well, the LOL's on you, because you just revealed that you lack enough experience to speak credibly about parenting a child.
You yourself prove that you don't care if bad things happen to animals.
That's just slinging mud, and says more about you than me.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
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LittleFrida
8 years ago
I generally find people who react so hypersensitive in return to others who care about animals absolutely ridiculous.
All those tries to analyze why someone feels like that...I didn't even read through the whole thread cause it's always the same and very tiresome.
You don't need to "anthropomorphize" an animal to feel the same compassion like for a human.
That a human worth more than any another being is solely a men-made illusion in order to make ourselves feel more superior, which we aren't. The law of nature is that we are all born with an equal right to exist. Only religious of philosophical views make us believe that humans are something of higher value. It's something we get taught, but actually has no scientific basis.
A hypocrite is only who mourns the death of a dog but has a steak for dinner.
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Whatlarks
8 years ago
I'm sensitive to zealotry, in the sense that I recognize it, for example as exhibited by that poster. I'd actually been quite patient with them relative to others. I even defended their basic position. It's the extreme of their position I objected to. I think sensitivity to (literal) dogmatism is a healthy trait.
You don't need to anthropomorphize to feel the same compassion, and that wasn't what was said. The objection stems from a misreading.
You've declared a "law of nature," which is of course "a men-made illusion." There is no "scientific basis" for it, which is why you didn't state that basis.
Your own "philosophical view" is advertised in your last line, which relies on oversimplification to derive its conclusion of hypocrisy.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
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8 years ago
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Whatlarks
8 years ago
Most warnings about animal killing on this board are fine as far as they go. However, much extra attention has unfortunately been drawn by the energy of zealotry, exhibited by one poster in particular, who has gone far beyond a simple warning and made absolute moral pronouncements about art and other viewers.
Old Yeller would be much less meaningful without its animal death. So would another classic in film history, Bresson's Au Hazard Balthazar. Both films express the very opposite of indifference to animal suffering.
that anyone would be so concerned over a human not getting attention but find no problem with animal abuse even in a fictional sense. Tells me much.
That doesn't actually tell much on its own, since pointing out the discrepancy between one innocent creature "getting attention" and not the other isn't equivalent to having "no problem" with one or the other.
Speaking for myself, fictional images of both human and animal abuse were disturbing (the animal death implied off-screen), as they were meant to be. If I point out the discrepancy in someone's caring about one innocent creature and not another, there's no justification in assuming I personally have "no problem" with abuse of that other.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
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