Is Having Compassion for Animals Considered a Weakness?

The chimpanzee is you. The cockroach is you. The person to your right is you. It's all the same thing, and there's no weakness in that at all.

I do find it curious that most of us can't tolerate images of animal abuse, but a drawn-and-quartered human being? No problem! It's probably because we've all been conditioned to believe that humanity is fundamentally flawed (bad), and therefore deserves whatever is coming to it. Animals are innocent in all of that of course, so they're spared the results of our self-loathing.

There's a sick psychological twist to all of this.

I think it's important to respect all life on earth and avoid destroying any when possible. That includes both the plant and animal kingdoms.

I never understand people that are perfectly fine seeing stories of rape, murder, or child abuse and yet become outraged at animal abuse.

So no, I don't understand someone who places animals higher than humans.

I also don't understand people who become outraged at a flock of birds being killed yet have no problems with forests being cut down or strains of corn being forever destroyed by our virus like consumption.

I have never been a beanstalk, but I imagine if I could communicate with one it would not want to die anymore than any other organism on the planet. I also feel sad when people abuse animals and also sad when I see wars or child abuse.

I am never "Okay" with any of these.

I understand that for the time being humans have to destroy life to sustain their own, but that doesn't mean that any one life form deserves more or less compassion than any other.

reply to post by catfishjoe


I think many trainers are misguided. If they are kind to the animal I do feel bad for them.



I myself have been known to hunt a time or two. I haven't the last couple years, I just don't have the time.


To take the life of an animal should be done cleanly and quickly. Time and effort should be taken, so that a person has the necessary skill to do so. Respect should be shown the creature and thanks should be given to the Creator for it's life. I thinks some hunters can exhibit a form of greed by killing strictly for trophy or sport.

I don't mind zoos that have large areas for the animal to roam, but I hear you on that one.


As far as animals used for testing.

There are plenty of hair care, make up, and cleaning chemicals already. Enough! If it isn't natural, stop making the crap.

Medical testing should be conducted as humanely as possible. Animals are a life form not a thing. Treat em well before and after and try and limit testing as much as possible.

Animals are not the equal of people in my eyes, but they should not be tortured or treated in a cruel manner because of someones laziness or heartlessness.


It is an imperfect world.

Kindness is a good thing.

Animals are a mirror that reflect back our own humanity, or inhumanity.

well... for me a person that doesnt love animals to a point to respect them is not a good human being.

Not showing compassion means you do not love them enough to respect them.

I personally don't see it as a weakness, however, it can sure seem like it sometimes. I've noticed that I am among some of those who look away from some PETA tv ads because it's just too depressing.
I know, ignoring it is not the answer, and in fact adds to the problem.

What makes me so angry is that I don't want to believe that people are as vulgar and sadistic to do such things to animals, much less other humans. I know that I refuse to accept some realities, and in that premise, I am choosing ignorance rather than denying it. The problem is that it is a choice.

This is not to say that I don't acknowledge the fact that people can be so terrible, it is to say however that I have partially failed to do my part in acting what I know is right. I have not made my voice heard, and in 50 years, it won't really matter anyway.

". . .the less he spoke, the more he heard."

No, I do not believe it is, but putting the life of an animal above a human being is disturbing. Lack of compassion for our own, breeds more lack of compassion. I think that once we master compassion for human kind it will naturally extend to all living creatures. As humans, when a lack of compassion is given by others to an individual, that individual finds it more difficult to be compassionate and so on and so on. Than in turn leads to a lack of compassion towards all living beings.
So, if you truly care about animals you need to find it within yourself to show more compassion to your fellow man.

Expat888
No .. you are not wrong .. a true human being has compassion for all living beings ..

Compassion is not the same thing as truly caring for another being. I can probably raise my hand along with others in this thread and agree I've felt disgusted at how animals are treated at one point or another. I can raise my hand on a lot of issues that disgust me. But how many times have I actually helped an animal, as opposed to simply being angry at how an animal is being treated on TV or (as I'm told) on a factory farm somewhere? I consider people who actually help animals or people who actually help others - in general - to REALLY care, as opposed to people like me who only appear to care from a distance, but it's only in appearance, not action.

I just hate a burrito with chicken in it. I have so many times in the past chosen not to eat meat because animals don't deserve to be treated this way. Yet when push comes to shove I'll be cramming chicken into my mouth and/or otherwise eating animal-based products. When it's all said and done I'm a hypocrite and my apparent concern for animals is a cover for a weakness I'm hiding inside me.

It's like I'm a vampire yet I want to believe I'm a saint. This vampire drinks blood and hates it but yet he doesn't have the resolve to stop it. He's convinced himself the saint and vampire can somehow live together in one person.

I don't care for animals. I'm not sure I really care about anything.

Half my 48 year life a Vegetarian, never killed an animal, catch and release policy on indoor insects...I consider this to be the thing I am most proud of.

Kindness in general is often mistaken by lay persons for weakness. I have surprised more than a few.

The best way to explain from my heart is that I save my wrath for those who truly deserve it.

It seems animals are captured and trained to entertain us. To me that's sad. I don't want to be entertained by shamu.

NthOther
The chimpanzee is you. The cockroach is you. The person to your right is you. It's all the same thing, and there's no weakness in that at all.

I do find it curious that most of us can't tolerate images of animal abuse, but a drawn-and-quartered human being? No problem! It's probably because we've all been conditioned to believe that humanity is fundamentally flawed (bad), and therefore deserves whatever is coming to it. Animals are innocent in all of that of course, so they're spared the results of our self-loathing.

There's a sick psychological twist to all of this.

There're probably some humans crowded into cages with wires and needles and tubes stuck into them for most of their lives and at the end they have their necks cut, but not nearly as many as there're pigs and chickens and other animals. With animals, the cruelty inflicted on them is so common and visible it's probably a deep prejudice inside us. See, it's abundantly clear there's a lot of human suffering on the planet, but frankly, humans are doing fairly well on this planet and the only threat to us is mainly from ourselves. The same can't be said for some of the animals who cannot stand up nor speak for themselves. Many are threatened and some are on the extinction lists. They're herded and shot and controlled for most of their lives by us.

If we don't speak for them or stand up for them, who will.

And btw I resent your insinuation that I will gladly watch a human being drawn-and-quartered because I somehow believe them to be flawed and unworthy. That's not me, that's you projecting what you think of me onto me. Wake up or something. People follow different roads in life and can't follow all of them, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with someone if they're a member of PETA and not a member of the Red Cross. I agree people should not put animals above other people, but if nobody joined PETA because there was always at least one suffering person in the world then, again, who speaks for the animals? Is the life of 1 person worth more than the lives of all the animals? What about the extinction of species?

I'm certainly no bleeding heart. I've not joined PETA and I've not joined the Red Cross. I've ate meat and sat lazily even as I was aware there were suffering people in the world. I've never served my country. I've always been fed and sheltered, despite these luxuries not being available to many others. And yet I can sit here and see animal rights activists and I can say they're a better person than I, even if they're not a member of the Red Cross or do not actively help other people, unless it's a loved one. Hollywood actors who've thrown money at charitable causes are better people than I. Even stock brokers and financial workers who've given a lot of their money away to disaster and relief organizations, despite the fact they've never visited a developing country or have never earned an honest living. I've seen these sorts of people ridiculed because of their actions and yet from my perspective these people are well meaning and deserving of respect and far ahead of me in becoming a human being.

I've seen all manners of people ridiculed for what they do and yet I see in them more humanity than in myself. What does that say about me?

Sorry, but I have to say, animals can be much more honest and trustworthy, than people. Most of the time, you know what your going to get with them. (Not all, but much more than us.)
If you see a growling, snarling dog, you know you could be bit.
People can smile and shake your hand, then stab you in the back.

But I do care about every creature suffering needlessly, human or animal.

Which means I kill spiders instantly. I just cannot handle them. But only if they come in my house.

I don't like suffering period, whether it comes to the one that is suffering being a human being or an animal. It's funny, though, that having compassion for others regardless of species, seems to be considered pathological in some way or a weakness. I have no problem with hunters if they are supplementing their food stocks and am not a vegetarian. I don't like hunters who chose to hunt for sport alone or to have a head mounted on their wall. I pay a little bit extra so that the eggs that I eat aren't penned up like this: www.elephantjournal.com... I do it in part because I think it's disturbing that any living thing should be penned up in such a way (human or not) and secondly, because I firmly believe that the quality of the food goes down when an animal is stressed and that looks like contagion central to me. I've rescued wasps and bees trapped in store windows (never been stung, mind you--even the wasp just groomed itself). When I lived on the rez, I rescued a wild pup, 2 feral cats, and 2 kittens abandoned at birth.

This isn't a weakness. This is my strength. I remember being at a neighborhood man-made pond when my son was just a baby and several of us noted that there was a mother duck that was just freaking out. She'd been quacking so much that her quacks were starting to crack and all of her little ducklings were nestled into her. Then, we, onlookers to her distress noted the source of it. One of her little ducklings had swam into a bit of old chicken wire, got trapped and had been popped up out of the water entirely. I politely asked a nice couple to watch my son for a moment and then, promptly waded into the pond fully clothed. I was a little concerned that the mother duck would get defense and snap at me but when I got near, she calmed down. Not even a single nip as I carefully extracted the baby duckling from its snare and set it into the water. They didn't even leave right away and I took a moment to squish down the chicken wire so it'd never happen again.

Waded back out to be confronted with a crowd that had developed on the shore. The responses were a mixed bag. Some remarked on how cool that was. One older man was yelling at me, now dripping and coated with the slimy green of duck crap and algae, about the risks of E. Coli. A couple comments on how gross it must've been. I didn't care what a single person thought on that shore about what I just did. I did what I felt in my heart was right.

Who the hell am I to stand by while something before me is suffering? Who the hell am I to rank another living thing as somehow being less important than I am because it is of a difference species than I? I cannot do those things. Yes, I can eat meat but that is the way nature works but is it natural for a duckling to become trapped in man-made chicken wire? Is it natural for a bee to become trapped on a store window? Or for people to dump unwanted kittens in a parking lot to die? Not in my book and those errs in nature I attempt to correct when I come across them.

When I lived on the Navajo reservation, I helped in the annual sheep butchering and stood there, unflinching, as the family sliced the neck, cooing a thank you to the sheep and promises that their meat, wool, skin, marrow, and even the intestines (for ach'ii) were all so very appreciated and would be used. I even knelt down and assisted in the butchering after the sheep was drained.

The Navajo view it as keeping a balance between oneself and the world around. You take what you need and no more. You respect all life when you come across it. Even spiders and snakes, frequently poisonous out there, demand respect and are not to be meddled with. Should one toy with nature, then very bad things may happen to you and yours.

It is in my mind that we should not hold ourselves supreme to the world around us. So many have forgotten that we do not exist in supremacy of nature but at its behest. We should be living in symbiosis with it and not as its attackers or defilers.

WhiteAlice
I don't like suffering period, whether it comes to the one that is suffering being a human being or an animal. It's funny, though, that having compassion for others regardless of species, seems to be considered pathological in some way or a weakness. I have no problem with hunters if they are supplementing their food stocks and am not a vegetarian. I don't like hunters who chose to hunt for sport alone or to have a head mounted on their wall. I pay a little bit extra so that the eggs that I eat aren't penned up like this: www.elephantjournal.com... I do it in part because I think it's disturbing that any living thing should be penned up in such a way (human or not) and secondly, because I firmly believe that the quality of the food goes down when an animal is stressed and that looks like contagion central to me. I've rescued wasps and bees trapped in store windows (never been stung, mind you--even the wasp just groomed itself). When I lived on the rez, I rescued a wild pup, 2 feral cats, and 2 kittens abandoned at birth.

This isn't a weakness. This is my strength. I remember being at a neighborhood man-made pond when my son was just a baby and several of us noted that there was a mother duck that was just freaking out. She'd been quacking so much that her quacks were starting to crack and all of her little ducklings were nestled into her. Then, we, onlookers to her distress noted the source of it. One of her little ducklings had swam into a bit of old chicken wire, got trapped and had been popped up out of the water entirely. I politely asked a nice couple to watch my son for a moment and then, promptly waded into the pond fully clothed. I was a little concerned that the mother duck would get defense and snap at me but when I got near, she calmed down. Not even a single nip as I carefully extracted the baby duckling from its snare and set it into the water. They didn't even leave right away and I took a moment to squish down the chicken wire so it'd never happen again.

Waded back out to be confronted with a crowd that had developed on the shore. The responses were a mixed bag. Some remarked on how cool that was. One older man was yelling at me, now dripping and coated with the slimy green of duck crap and algae, about the risks of E. Coli. A couple comments on how gross it must've been. I didn't care what a single person thought on that shore about what I just did. I did what I felt in my heart was right.

Who the hell am I to stand by while something before me is suffering? Who the hell am I to rank another living thing as somehow being less important than I am because it is of a difference species than I? I cannot do those things. Yes, I can eat meat but that is the way nature works but is it natural for a duckling to become trapped in man-made chicken wire? Is it natural for a bee to become trapped on a store window? Or for people to dump unwanted kittens in a parking lot to die? Not in my book and those errs in nature I attempt to correct when I come across them.

When I lived on the Navajo reservation, I helped in the annual sheep butchering and stood there, unflinching, as the family sliced the neck, cooing a thank you to the sheep and promises that their meat, wool, skin, marrow, and even the intestines (for ach'ii) were all so very appreciated and would be used. I even knelt down and assisted in the butchering after the sheep was drained.

The Navajo view it as keeping a balance between oneself and the world around. You take what you need and no more. You respect all life when you come across it. Even spiders and snakes, frequently poisonous out there, demand respect and are not to be meddled with. Should one toy with nature, then very bad things may happen to you and yours.

It is in my mind that we should not hold ourselves supreme to the world around us. So many have forgotten that we do not exist in supremacy of nature but at its behest. We should be living in symbiosis with it and not as its attackers or defilers.

Very nice post. Thank you.

reply to post by chiefsmom



Spiders and I have a deal. I don't kill you...you don't climb in my mouth at night.