Animal’s Multiple Identity: Companions, Slaves
or…?
In
the history of human beings, animals have a rather intimate relationship with
people. Dogs, for instance, they started to become human’s companion since
about twelve thousands years ago. Their traits of living in a community and submitting
to a leader, etc that descended from wolves give it a chance for having
cooperation with people. Dogs watched over the land from being disturbed or
helped going hunting for men, and got foods in return. In that way, dogs and
human worked together in various fields from then on, such as in guiding the
blind, being a therapy companion and so on.
So does the cattle, though not quite the same, in the time of agriculture, farmers cultivated the land, growing crops with cattle’s great labor. During the process, the companionship was built up and formed a special bond between each other. As a result, the cattle were considered as subject-of-a-life, being sentient precisely, and treated like one of a family member of the farmers’. In the society of Taiwan, those who, especially the farmers, experienced the time when the mechanical equipment had not yet been dominant in agriculture have seemed consuming beef as a taboo, for ethical reasons.
So does the cattle, though not quite the same, in the time of agriculture, farmers cultivated the land, growing crops with cattle’s great labor. During the process, the companionship was built up and formed a special bond between each other. As a result, the cattle were considered as subject-of-a-life, being sentient precisely, and treated like one of a family member of the farmers’. In the society of Taiwan, those who, especially the farmers, experienced the time when the mechanical equipment had not yet been dominant in agriculture have seemed consuming beef as a taboo, for ethical reasons.
After the industrialization, however, the labor of animal, replaced by mechanism,
was no longer that needed, and caused the bond between human and some of the
animals to become weaker and weaker. In addition, in this time and age, living
in a concrete jungle and having a life style of modernization, few people get
the chances to have the experience of getting alone with the nature and the
animals. Now the bond with animals is established from children’s literature initiatively,
then we make the deeper connection with animals by visiting zoos, where animals
are categorized properly.
We
have a major change of the way we treat animals comparing to the previous time.
We now take most of animals as commodity that can be produced massively,
treated immorally and transacted at will. Laying hens were caved in hundreds
and thousands of piled battery cages, without the space for spreading their
wings, showered by the faeces coming from upper cages every single day, and,
through their life time, never have the opportunity to touch the ground by
their own feet, to rest in roosters, or to do whatever they should by nature.
And end up being delivered to slaughterhouses.
Considering there are countless animals
suffering and are lack of attention while countless animals such as cats and
dogs are being protected, it could be quite dubious that why we will have these
extremely opposite reactions toward them relatively. All as nature beings, all
once shared companionship with human, but now have different identities that
tagged by human’s will, either companions or slaves. 
Coming back to the question we mentioned last Thu, I think "identity" is something that is given by human, just human for themselves and for animals or even trees, sky, water, any things else... So I think, it is no problem to use the word "identity" for animals, but when you use this word - that mean you look at animals in the eye of human. I mean that, "you" - the human, give animals the "identity", the animal themselves don't have Identity!
回覆刪除作者已經移除這則留言。
回覆刪除Susie, your writing remind me of what I never ever seen. The body of your writing is ok, I can feel you, but the title "Animal’s Multiple Identity: Companions, Slaves or…?" - there is something I feel not very ok, like you have a judgment on the way people putting the identity on animals. I think that people don't put identity on animals as companion or slave, they simply use it as a means to entertain or to feed their hungry - just is different demands and different kinds of fulfillment.
回覆刪除The animal identities you want to discuss is the different treat between the livestock and pet, so you could narrow your title related to these two categories;the word 'animal' is vague because animals include wild animals and maybe the animals in the zoo are another category. Thus I think it is better that you could focus on the two specific animal categories for your discussion.
回覆刪除Is "animal right" your approach?
回覆刪除I think the title doesnt match with the content , or rather the word "identity" is not so accurate, what do you think about "role", And at he end you say "but now have different identities that tagged by human’s will, either companions or slaves", that make me think that you want to argue either for COMPANION or SLAVE, so you wouldnt need the "or ..?" in the title. (something like,animal roles in our society:companion or slave? ).
回覆刪除It is difficult to figure out a suitable title for already jammed
回覆刪除thoughts(me too...), so I am not going to say something
"constructive" here. But I have some pieces of advise want to
give you. First, you can find out what you really want to discuss
about, and base on that point, look for the information you need,
and avoid to be "towed" around by the information you gathered~
Second,information about animal rights can be found easily
on the website of 環境資訊電子報.
Also I recommend a book that may be helpful for your essay-
動物權與動物福利小百科.