‘Animals Are Victims of Slavery’

Carlsen feels strongly about the mistreatment of animals, as any sensitive person might, and then goes on and identifies the eating of animals, the wearing of their skins, or experimenting with them as part of medical research, as equal parts of mistreatment. He goes further and says that we tolerate this behavior because of our “unscientific” belief that “God gave them to us to use.” Well, that is sort of unscientific, but it governs most of our behavior, and not just in relation to animals. He refers to such beliefs as “mind-boggling distortions.” Apparently, since he is not subject to unscientific beliefs, and thus not at the mercy of mind-boggling distortions, he can see more clearly than most.

What Carlsen, and others like him, fail to see is that mistreatment of animals, where it exists, will not be stopped by trying to convince people that we are just animals ourselves. It is precisely because we are humans, and not just animals, that we have obligations to each other and to the lesser creatures.

PHILIP J. BOURBON

San Diego