Hierarchy

I know that a few people have already discussed the impact of hierarchy into society and the environment, but I was to address it too.

The first is the hierarchy of animals. I remember reading Brianna's post on eating insect. We don't have a problem with eating manufactured farm animals, but most people consider eating free and natural insects disgusting. Many people in other countries are fine with eating insects and many other types of animals especially when they are deficient of certain minerals. Maybe we should start eating more insects, there are so many of them and they are a good source of proteins. I like what Don Le Pan said about how we give meats from food animals the names of poultry, beef, or pork, but we don't do that with other animals. I've spoken to some friends about eating odd foods, or what we consider odd and coming from Vietnam, there is the stereotype that Asian people eat dogs and cats. Though I have never and never intend to, people in my region of the world do, but it's not as much as you would think. It's a very small number of people. And I'm sorry if this upsets or offend some people, but lately I've been thinking what rights do people have in saying they can't eat dogs or cats if they want to. There are so many stray dogs on the streets and if people are hungry and need to eat, then they should be able to if they wanted to. I'm not encouraging people to get dogs as pets and eat them, but if there are places that accepts that, then who are we to say that is immoral to eat dogs. What is the difference between eating a dog and eating a pig, or a rabbit or guinea pig that are also popular pets too? Also, there are so many laws to protect cats and dogs, especially if they are killed are abused, but what about other animals. I'm not saying that our main pets like dogs and cats aren't important, but what about extension of those same rights to other animals. Don't the animals that we will eat deserve rights too?

The other issue is with the hierarchy of humans and animals, how we like to separate the two things as if they are animals and plants. I talked to a friend yesterday and she said that if she was driving and she had to hit a baby or an animal to avoid the other, she would hit the baby instead of the animal and she was very serious about it. I don't know exactly how I feel about that per se, but I wonder if that actually happen how would she be trailed? I'm sure she would be sentence for a long time hitting the by and not hitting the animal instead. As for animal rights, I think that it is more important for us to turn our attention to people. In order to elevate the attention to animals, we need to place more on people because we are the ones that can make the changes necessary to give animals more rights and freedom. I think showing animals on tv and the cruelty they endure in factory farms aren't enough and they haven't made as much impact as we would like. So now we have to get people to make the difference, how so? I'm not sure. I know a lot of people say we need to concentrate on the animals, but in order to do so, more concentration needs to be focus on people because that's the only way we can change them. Animals and plants aren't the ones doing anything wrong, we are.