Saturday, February 26, 2005
Animal Cruelty Attitudes - PETA and Roadkill Candy
Two similar posts regarding PETA taking action against a new roadkill candy on the market. One calls it an "over-reaction," the other, ridiculous.
Bob at Commotion then comments:
"You can tell these hot dogs arent parents. If they were theyd know that children love to be grossed-out except by actual food, which can be condemned for so little as a slight intrusion by the gravy upon the rightful territory of the corn."
Children do not love to be grossed out. I would say Bob never took a walk outside his block. Small children are very curious about their world, including, for example, bugs. A small child that runs into a small colorful bug may just get fascinated by this new little wonder that popped out of nowhere. Usually the first thing the child will do after it observes the bug a little while is to go and touch it. It doesn´t matter what type of bug it is, a cockroach, a slug, a beetle. The child is not grossed out at all, quite on the contrary, the child is enormously curious. However, because the child will often have these "bug encounter experiences" with adults or older kids around it, what is the reaction of the adults?
"Don't touch that!" or, "That's yucky!" or, "Oh, what a gross bug!" The child is socialized into having these same gross feelings as it grows.
Now take a child that would be grossed out because of witnessing an act of cruelty to animals, but grossed out in the sense of uncomfortable and upset, not entertained. In this example, because this child is being loved and is developing healthy caring attitudes towards other people and creatures. You put this child in a culture where the adults teach it to have fun with other people or animals being tortured or killed and the child loses the empathy feelings and adopts the "laugh at" feelings. This process is called desensitization. Adults who socialize children in this way then claim, "Oh, my child just loves to be grossed out." As if it came out of the blue.
Anne at Haight Speech has an even "lovelier" view:
"Generally speaking, anything that annoys animal rights activists, especially PETA, is cool."
How sad. I am personally very much against animal cruelty.
Anne then adds:
"Roadkill happens. Everybody's seen it. It's accidental. Nobody goes out of their way to run over animals on the road. Also, cartoons typically make fun of incidents like being run over by vehicles, leaving part of the cartoon animal flattened with tire marks. Then he gets up and in the next scene he's fine. "
Regarding "roadkill happens and everybody's seen it" - so does murder, and just about every type of violence, and we´ve all seen it if not for real, then 1000 times on TV. That does not mean it should be made into entertainment or candy.
Haight Speech:
"Kids understand this is fantasy. You're a liar if you never laughed at the Coyote being run down by one of his own ACME products, or a random truck in a tunnel, or a train."
She misses the point. It's not a question of thinking fantasy is reality, it's a question of forming insensitive attitudes towards animal cruelty. Obviously, people who are insensitive think sensitivity is ridiculous. Cruelty to animals goes far beyond the local road. And yes, some kids do torture animals for "fun," and I would not be surprised if some older kids and adults would run over an animal for fun. And we also have an enormous problem with cruelty and negligence towards pets in society.
This is no joke, but it's a product of myriad insensitive and cruel attitudes towards animals.
And regarding "you're a liar if you never laughed at the Coyote being run down," actually any person who says a lot of kids or adults do not enjoy violent cartoons is lying. A child who is "fed" nothing else but crap TV, such as violent cartoons, learns this is what she is supposed to laugh at. A child that is given a different environment to develop may not like cartoon violence. Also, when a child watches anything and they laugh, they may be laughing for very different reasons than an adult watching the same thing. Quite often, the child does not make the same meaning out of what is being watched as an adult.
For the most part, I detest violent cartoons. I don't laugh, I don't think it's funny, it's not entertaining, their stupidity and violence irritate me a lot. I don't know for how long I've felt this way, that is, I can't remember exactly what I laughed at and what I didn't laugh at with TV programming when I was a child. I have one clear memory of a very unpleasant feeling at watching several TV series that had all kinds of stupid messages and which were being fed to me as "good entertainment" to watch. There was a shock in my mind, here I was watching things which I felt were no good, but I was getting the a big authority message that these things were good. Obviously at that time, I didn't have the intellectual tools to critique the environment I was in.
Anne takes a media product that is the same problem as the roadkill candy to justify why we should have mediocre, insensitive cultural products fed to children. Two wrongs don't make a right.
related entry: Stop Mistreating Elephants and Other Animals at the Zoo.
Ill grant that roadkill candy is in bad, ummm, taste but this is an over-reaction.
The fruity-flavored Trolli Road Kill Gummi Candy in shapes of partly flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels fosters cruelty toward animals, according to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
It sends the wrong message to children, that its OK to harm animals. And thats the wrong message, especially from a so-called wholesome corporation like Kraft, said society spokesman Matthew Stanton.
The society is considering petition drives, boycotts and letter-writing campaigns to get the candy pulled from the market, Stanton said. [emphasis added]
Bob at Commotion then comments:
"You can tell these hot dogs arent parents. If they were theyd know that children love to be grossed-out except by actual food, which can be condemned for so little as a slight intrusion by the gravy upon the rightful territory of the corn."
Children do not love to be grossed out. I would say Bob never took a walk outside his block. Small children are very curious about their world, including, for example, bugs. A small child that runs into a small colorful bug may just get fascinated by this new little wonder that popped out of nowhere. Usually the first thing the child will do after it observes the bug a little while is to go and touch it. It doesn´t matter what type of bug it is, a cockroach, a slug, a beetle. The child is not grossed out at all, quite on the contrary, the child is enormously curious. However, because the child will often have these "bug encounter experiences" with adults or older kids around it, what is the reaction of the adults?
"Don't touch that!" or, "That's yucky!" or, "Oh, what a gross bug!" The child is socialized into having these same gross feelings as it grows.
Now take a child that would be grossed out because of witnessing an act of cruelty to animals, but grossed out in the sense of uncomfortable and upset, not entertained. In this example, because this child is being loved and is developing healthy caring attitudes towards other people and creatures. You put this child in a culture where the adults teach it to have fun with other people or animals being tortured or killed and the child loses the empathy feelings and adopts the "laugh at" feelings. This process is called desensitization. Adults who socialize children in this way then claim, "Oh, my child just loves to be grossed out." As if it came out of the blue.
Anne at Haight Speech has an even "lovelier" view:
"Generally speaking, anything that annoys animal rights activists, especially PETA, is cool."
How sad. I am personally very much against animal cruelty.
Anne then adds:
"Roadkill happens. Everybody's seen it. It's accidental. Nobody goes out of their way to run over animals on the road. Also, cartoons typically make fun of incidents like being run over by vehicles, leaving part of the cartoon animal flattened with tire marks. Then he gets up and in the next scene he's fine. "
Regarding "roadkill happens and everybody's seen it" - so does murder, and just about every type of violence, and we´ve all seen it if not for real, then 1000 times on TV. That does not mean it should be made into entertainment or candy.
Haight Speech:
"Kids understand this is fantasy. You're a liar if you never laughed at the Coyote being run down by one of his own ACME products, or a random truck in a tunnel, or a train."
She misses the point. It's not a question of thinking fantasy is reality, it's a question of forming insensitive attitudes towards animal cruelty. Obviously, people who are insensitive think sensitivity is ridiculous. Cruelty to animals goes far beyond the local road. And yes, some kids do torture animals for "fun," and I would not be surprised if some older kids and adults would run over an animal for fun. And we also have an enormous problem with cruelty and negligence towards pets in society.
This is no joke, but it's a product of myriad insensitive and cruel attitudes towards animals.
And regarding "you're a liar if you never laughed at the Coyote being run down," actually any person who says a lot of kids or adults do not enjoy violent cartoons is lying. A child who is "fed" nothing else but crap TV, such as violent cartoons, learns this is what she is supposed to laugh at. A child that is given a different environment to develop may not like cartoon violence. Also, when a child watches anything and they laugh, they may be laughing for very different reasons than an adult watching the same thing. Quite often, the child does not make the same meaning out of what is being watched as an adult.
For the most part, I detest violent cartoons. I don't laugh, I don't think it's funny, it's not entertaining, their stupidity and violence irritate me a lot. I don't know for how long I've felt this way, that is, I can't remember exactly what I laughed at and what I didn't laugh at with TV programming when I was a child. I have one clear memory of a very unpleasant feeling at watching several TV series that had all kinds of stupid messages and which were being fed to me as "good entertainment" to watch. There was a shock in my mind, here I was watching things which I felt were no good, but I was getting the a big authority message that these things were good. Obviously at that time, I didn't have the intellectual tools to critique the environment I was in.
Anne takes a media product that is the same problem as the roadkill candy to justify why we should have mediocre, insensitive cultural products fed to children. Two wrongs don't make a right.
related entry: Stop Mistreating Elephants and Other Animals at the Zoo.
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