Empathy: What If We Personally Experienced Non-human Animal Pain and Death?

This is a scene from the television series Powder, in which a sci fi character forces empathy on a deer hunter by causing him to experience what the deer is experiencing. This short and powerful scene  articulates the most  fundamental argument of my thesis; that empathy (or lack thereof) directs our moral decisions and actions.

Marti Kheel, PhD: The value of an ecological model for creating empathy.

Marti Kheel articulates the world view which relates animals, nature and women and that guide beliefs, attitudes, and actions. Kheel, a feminist and animal rights activist, expounds on these deeply entrenched stories guiding current systems in her book Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective (2009). Erin Scott interviewed Marti in her home in Northern Caifornia on May 20, 2009.

 

How can we plant the seeds of empathy and care?

 Professor Kheel gets underneath the entire purpose of my thesis 

in these two important interviews.

Are Humans Designed to Eat Meat?

Marc Bekoff PhD.: Ethological Insights Into the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals

Animal Emotions: An Interview with Professor Marc Bekoff

Animal Sentience

Marc Bekoff: Who lives, who dies, and why: ignoring and redecorating nature and specious speciesism

Jeffrey Masson, PhD: On the Emotional Lives of Non-human Animals

The Pig Who Sang to the Moon

Why Do You Eat Meat?

On the Emotional Lives of Animals

The Face on Your Plate

There's a New Milkman in Town: Silk Almond Milk Ad

Of course the idea of vegan food alternatives being advertised nationally is appealing and this ad has its humorous merit. But, the gender stereotyping portrayed here is an extension of an ongoing sexualization of meat that perpetuates the idea that being compassionate is somehow feminine and therefore should be avoided.  In an attempt to masculiniize almond milk we are subjected to a ridiculously macho "milk man" who pretty much assaults and abuses a young man having breakfast. Is he his mother's new boyfriend? Yikes! It also denigrates cows themselves by claiming that drinks for people are somehow superior to drinks for "parched heifers."

While I give Silk a thumbs up for pointing out the fact that humans are the only species of animals who drink another species' milk AND the only species to drink milk at all as adults, this ad is offensive on other levels that shouldn't be encouraged.

[T]he war on compassion has caused people to believe that they have to help humans first. As long as we treat animals as animals, as long as we accept there is the category "animals," both the treatment and the concept will legitimize the treatment of humans like animals. - Carol J. Adams, The War on Compassion 2006

Normal and Natural for the First Time in Their Lives

If we embrace empathy, moral change is not only easy it becomes a matter of Normal and Natural. This is truly one of the most beautiful and inspiring things I've ever seen. Please watch this important video below.

Let's Make History!

Well done ad with cogent arguments by the Vegan Society.