Earthlings

The definition of a serial killer according to Wikipedia is:

An individual whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...motives for serial murder include "anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking"...victims may have had something in common; for example, occupation, race, appearance, sex, or age group...

Or in this case, species. I had never cried during any kind of movie in my entire life until I watched Earthlings. Maybe a tear or two during the Titanic (my favorite movie of all time) or during The Passion, which is even more emotionally gripping. However emotional the movies I have seen in the past may have been, nothing could compare to the sadness, pity, and shame that I felt as I sobbed watching Earthlings.

The movie explained in graphic detail how animals serve humans (willingly or not) on this earth. Companionship, food, clothes, entertainment, and science. All of what the movie outlined was hard to swallow, but one aspect was particularly difficult to watch - the theme of human superiority. It is obvious that in our society humans have more power than animals. As I explained in my last post, that is the way (in Christian beliefs) that God intended it to be. However, humans can sometimes act as though ignorance, arrogance, cruelty and disregard all go hand in hand with superiority - without taking into consideration the immense responsibility that comes with superiority.

Earthlings documented some pretty horrible actions by factory farm workers towards animals. Sure a worker must use a rod to guide an animal into a certain location - just to do their job. Some took it much farther than that, going to the extremes of beating animals just because they felt like it. Also disturbing was the immense amount of swearing from the workers. Being in college and in the Greek system specifically, I hear a lot of swearing and derogatory language. I don't usually swear, but it doesn't necessarily bother me. Hearing the dialogue that the workers had with themselves and the animals bothered me, a lot.

In addition to the swearing, there was quite a lot of cheering done by the workers. Not cheering in the sense that someone was winning a race, receiving an award, or achieving a goal but rather the cheering that occurs when a frat guy's friends find out that he got lucky with a girl last night. It was the most unnerving cheering. The workers were whooping and yelling because what they were doing to the animals excited them - how slaughtering animals could be thrilling I cannot fathom.

Ubiquitous throughout all of the sources I have been presented so far in this class is the main driving factor behind animal cruelty - money. "The values of wild animals have been reduced to their economic value" according to Earthlings. A century ago, animals were not factory farmed - they were family farmed. The many steps that led to the efficiently carried out mass murder in factory farms today was completely driven by the greed.

What is the difference between the murder of a human and the murder of an animal? As I have just described, what is being done to animals has three out of four of the same primary motives as serial killers - anger (beating the animals and swearing unnecessarily), thrill (cheering and getting excited), and financial gain (sought out by the industry as a whole).

For many, the life of a human has a much higher value than the life of an animals - however, that does not mean that the life of an animal has no value at all. As stated in Earthlings, "it takes nothing from a human to be kind to an animal". What occurs in factory farms, and in many other situations as described in the segments of companionship, clothing, entertainment, and science, shows humans at their worst - abusing their superiority and not accepting any responsibility for their actions. People do not have to treat animals the way they do. It is unnecessary and makes me ashamed. However, I am so happy that I am being exposed to this information, because -

"Ignorance is the first line of defense - but is breached by anyone that wants to know the truth".