Human Entitlement- First Draft
In 2014, a British woman named Laura Cunliffe reportedly threw her kitten Mowgli in a microwave oven for a minute cooking the cat’s organs from the inside. The lady was punishing the cat for eating her goldfish. After the cat was taken out of the microwave the poor creature lived for another 90 minutes yowling in pain until it died. The woman was jailed for 14 weeks.
In 2008, two Australian men kidnapped a puppy named Peanut in the night from his owner and proceeded to torture the animal to death at a nearby park. The two men recorded the incident while they cut the puppies’ limbs, nose, and eventually it’s head off. The men laughed throughout the recording. The two men claimed that it was an act of revenge against the dog’s owner.
Even though these animal abuse cases are of an extreme nature, animal abuse happens every single day around the world and not just against people’s pets. Animals are tested on, slaughtered for their meat, fur, or other organs, forced to fight or race for people’s amusement, forcefully inbred to create the perfect pets, held in cages for people to see, and much more. To say that humans think that they can do whatever they please with these creatures and the Earth around them is an understatement.
Humans have had domain over the Earth for about 6 million years. The Earth has been around for billions of years but in the course of a couple hundred years humans have destroyed the planet almost beyond repair. With things like overpopulation, pollution, global warming, genetic modifications, deforestation etc. mankind has managed to wipe out entire species of plants and animals.
What gives us the right to do these things? Yes, we are harming ourselves in this process but we are also harming the environment and countless other creatures. Peter Singer, an Australian moral philosopher, once said, “If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?” With that being said, there is no question that humans believe they are entitled to the earth and all the creatures that inhabit it.
Dylan Root, a senior music education major at Morningside College, is a vegetarian and an animal lover as he puts it. A vegetarian is a person that doesn’t eat meat and sometimes other animal products especially for moral, religious, or health reasons. Dylan decided to become a vegetarian two years ago because his sister was a vegetarian. He says that it doesn’t feel right eating other sentient beings, or beings with consciousness.
“I feel like animals are just as valuable as human beings maybe even more valuable. If you think about it, when human beings do violent, hurtful things it’s usually thought out but when animals do these things it’s based off of instinct”, says Dylan. When asked if human beings feel entitled over the earth, Dylan agreed wholeheartedly. He states that we might even be a little too intelligent if we can kill animals without any remorse or thought.
Dylan thinks that people feel like meat is needed for a healthy diet but he says that he gets by just fine with a mostly plant based diet with some seafood and protein. He says that he feels so much more healthier now and rarely gets bloated or sick.
September 18th, 2018 at 9:25 am
Animals are tested on, slaughtered for their meat, fur, or other organs, forced to fight or race for people’s amusement, forcefully inbred to create the perfect pets, held in cages for people to see, and much more. -> shorten down this thought or make it into two sentences.
Overall, you’re off to a good start. The lead definitely grabbed me and made me upset.
I know you still have more to go, but how are you planning on resolving this story? Overall what should readers know or do after reading this?
September 18th, 2018 at 9:40 am
I agree that the third paragraph about animal abuse is effective, however, I think it should be shorter. Or, maybe it should be divided up. Also, I think that having a vegetarian and animal lover is important to use, but I was confused at first as to why you would use a music major for such a story, so there may be something to fix there.