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Professor’s article marks great leap for cows, but can we make strides against human cruelty?
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WHAT does it mean when we use the same pronoun to describe both a cow and people?
In today’s main commentary piece, renowned philosopher Peter Singer writes about a recent headline in The New York Times that read: “Cow Who Escaped New York Slaughterhouse Finds Sanctuary.” He praises the use of “who” instead of “that” to identify the fleeing bovine.
For professor Singer, language is important in that it can both perpetuate and erase injustice. He calls for further changes in English usage “to make it clear that animals are fundamentally more like us than they are like tables and chairs, paintings and mountains.”
Professor Singer’s fine article goes a long way toward arguing for the humane treatment of animals. For thousands of years — indeed throughout human history — animals have often been put to brutal deaths at human hands. Even today, as we pamper our pets, we still turn a blind eye to the woeful deaths of poultry in battery cages on industrialized farms across the globe.
So professor Singer is not making a song and dance about nothing as he praises The New York Times’ word choice. The use of “who” is a small but important step for human beings to make the world a better home for all living creatures.
Professor Singer’s article, however, is open-ended — it concludes with a simple factual statement that the use of “who” after a cow “reminds us who animals really are.”
This may leave the reader to wonder: Is it enough to treat animals like persons? If persons cannot treat each other like they themselves, what’s the use of treating animals like persons?
The world of persons has been and is still dominated by pride and prejudice, a divide between us and them, and a belief that absolute equality is out of the question.
While I salute professor Singer for his call to treat animals like persons, may I suggest we make a further call to first eliminate our more selfish motives?
Ancient Indian and Chinese sages once understood the wisdom of humility — only to be forgotten by later generations fed by the desire to consume and compete.
Ancient oriental wisdom
Wang Yangming (1472-1529), a great Confucian scholar and military commander, once said that everyone he saw in the street was a saint motivated to do good.
Wang Yangming gave one example to explain his view: If you see a child fall into a well, Wang reasoned, you naturally feel sorry for him or her — a proof, as he saw it, that everyone carries a good conscience, only to be blurred by worldly concerns. Wang therefore calls upon everyone to rediscover that conscience and apply it to everyday affairs.
According to the scholar of Buddhism known as Red Pine (Bill Porter), this ancient Indian wisdom, which has greatly influenced Chinese culture, calls upon us to give birth to thoughts and words of kindness instead of anger, compassion instead of harm, and joy instead of jealousy, toward all beings — not just human beings — because, fundamentally, we are the same — whether we are born from an egg, a womb, the air or the water.
Only when we believe we are all the same, can it be truly meaningful for us to treat animals like persons.
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