Don't Kill Anyone

An Aryan ant - anthropomorphized for you and me.

I went to a House Show in New Paltz the other night to see a couple of acoustic DIY musicians, performing in a hot and crowded room, full of conscientious fair-trade-minded young people, who were killing insects with gusto. Everyone, even the few vegans I know and former vegans, were playing this deadly game: clapping their hands together and exclaiming "Yes!" when they revealed the broken body of a dead fly. Not one of these intelligent folks, who pride themselves on their alternative lifestyles, individuality, and non-corporate artistry, dared to even contemplate what it feels like to live "A Bug's Life".

A strong Animal Rights case can be made for our closest relatives, the primates, dolphins, elephants, and dogs. All are visibly emotional beings, who go about their day pretty much how we do: Hungry, needy, happy, frustrated, depressed, altruistic, violent, in love, and a million different other states of mind. They obviously possess consciousness akin to human beings. They all pass the mirror self-recognition test and perform well in other cognitive experiments.



This is the case presented in Steven Wise's books Rattling the Cage and Drawing the Line. Certain animals should be advocated for, Wise argues, because they have the most in common with human beings, and are in a privileged position to attain legal personhood, that is to say, 'they are not food'. Wise calls this "the reasonable minimum" and likens it to the abolitionist battle to end slavery. President Lincoln stood strong on the side of liberation, but was very clear that he didn't intend to offer blacks anything like equality. That was the reasonable minimum that was politically feasible in his day.

That's fine for a lawyer like Wise and I'm glad he's fighting the legal battle. After all, animal liberation will require fighters on all fronts. But really, the whole problem is 'exclusion'. All non-human animals are excluded from the sentient category. We get nowhere by allowing a few more of our relatives in, while continuing to exclude others. Food animals must also be granted rights, or they will never be secure for the chimpanzees and bonobos.



The vegan ethic must be taken to the extreme, to the endgame, or else it is just like anything else, exclusionary. That's why as vegans, we must be kill-free across the board. All sentient beings must be included in the Golden Rule or else it will only work sometimes, as is the case today, where endless wars, famine, rape, and exploitation, show how poorly our ethical system functions.



It's not easy to make a case for Bug Rights. The insect kingdom has many strikes against it. Insects have always been vectors for disease. They destroy our food. They have little redeeming value in their societal interactions. Their brutal matriarchies are well known. A queen and her male drones, brainwashed with pheromones. Also, they live in shit, just like pigs. And of course, they eat each other: the ultimate justification for our system. In one way or another, we've been at war with insects as long as we've coexisted.

Insects are so unlike us that it's hard to say what they're feeling, or if, as the philosopher puts it, an insect is "something it's like to be." That's when we forgo our intuition and see what science has to say. All insects, like all animals, have nervous systems and brains. They have special nerve cells, called nociceptors, that are responsible for feeling pain. It is therefore likely that they experience proprioception, or the sense of relative position between neighboring parts of the body. Put these two senses together, and you've got a "self", and all selfs are sentient beings, protected by the Golden Rule. But all sentient beings also have the right to defend themselves, and if necessary use lethal force. By law, humans are allowed to kill each other only as an act of self-defense. Bug bites hardly constitute a vital threat, though just the knowledge that they eat our blood is offensive enough for most people to maintain a killing posture towards them.



The vast dissimilarities between us and them serves to help insects at least in one regard: they are mostly not considered food by people of the industrial world. The insect is far too heterologous. She is gross and we wouldn't dare consume her and incorporate her into our bodies. Interestingly, humans consume other mammals, animals with readable faces, precisely because they are enough like us, while at the same time, disconnecting emotionally from them and denying the common experiences they share.



Man is the alpha dog superpredator on this planet, which would be fine if she didn't have a conscience. Does this make the lion evil? Should all predators be locked up? Our way of life is not applicable to the lion. The lion lives in the wild, and we live in a society with rules, all of which stem from the Golden Rule. In order to work completely, "Thou shallt not kill" and the Hippocratic oath of "Do no harm" must include all sentient beings. It doesn't matter if the lion won't heed it. The cows will. All the harmless herbivores that are confined, tortured, raped, stolen from, killed, and eaten, can follow this rule.

It takes an alpha dog with a heart of gold to straighten out all this mess. Veganism and world peace are just the beginning. That's when the real work begins.

The endgame is always the same: Don't kill anyone.

Blow on any bug, and she'll fly away.

Why is this important?



Because she's you.

You're her.