This is essential reading for children and adults alike because it will help them understand the perspective of others.
I listened to the audiobookThis is essential reading for children and adults alike because it will help them understand the perspective of others.
I listened to the audiobook version of this on a flight from England to Rome this morning to help pass the time. And I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it was. I thought it would be a nice simple novel about horses that would help me feel relaxed as I tried to forget about my dislike of heights and airports. Instead, it’s a heartbreaking tale with a very powerful animal rights message.
The novel is told in such a clever way. It’s told from the perspective of a horse, Black Beauty. He experiences all manner of treatment from humans: kindness, neglect, ignorance and objectification. Some of his worse experiences are when he is a cart horse. And as I walked round Rome and saw the sad looking horses strapped to carts to drag tourists around the city, it made me think about this even more. Why do we still do this in the 21st century? Why are we still using horses as beasts of burden?
Of course, this is more prevalent in other parts of the world and in other cities. And it was even more prevalent during the era in which this book was written. And it is so easy to forget about the silent victims of society and history. This novel asks us to look a bit closer; it ask us to consider what our way of life costs other animals. And I really do encourage everyone to read it because it has a very powerful and very important message to share.
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I think it is very fair that I start this review by speaking about my own personal bias.
I’m a vegan. I’m also an animal rights activist and I’m an acaI think it is very fair that I start this review by speaking about my own personal bias.
I’m a vegan. I’m also an animal rights activist and I’m an academic with an interest in diet and the development of vegan ideas. I have the words “animal liberation” tattooed on my arm. I believe in it. I want it. I work for it. Therefore, I am naturally predisposed to agree with the arguments presented in this book. I am very unlikely to criticise them because many of them are also my own beliefs. So, if you want to understand what this book means to me and why I think these arguments are of vital importance, please read on. I promise to talk in a factual and relatively non-judgemental way.
Firstly, it is important to start by establishing exactly what animal liberation is as per Peter Singer’s definition. There’s are many common misconceptions associated with the term animal rights. It’s often satirised because it is seen as an indictment for giving animals rights equal to us in society. That’s not the case. On a very basic level, animal rights in the context of this book means the right to live. Animal Liberation is a case, an argument, that advocates that animals have the same natural inherent rights as us: they have the right to live and to not be used and exploited by others. Animals are not ours to eat or use in anyway. They have their own natural independence by this reasoning.
A large proportion of the book is focused on vivisection. It came out in the 1970s when much of this information was, perhaps, not as well known as it is today. It discusses all manner of animal experimentation that led to fruitless results. The counter for the animal rights argument is often that scientific advancement, medicine, and cures for various diseases would not have been achieved without animal-based research. It’s often dubbed as a necessity for human progress, but there are ethic alternatives available. And more to the point: Peter Singer demonstrates, through case after case, how much of this experimentation was completely pointless and fuelled by corruption, money and greed. It was often about producing paper after paper rather than achieving any real results.
It is my most earnest belief that the world would be a much better place if we had animal liberation because I believe that if we had a world where we treated animals as they should be treated – with respect and dignity- we would also have a world where we treated other humans so too. It is a logical extension of such a moral code. How could we harm another human when we cannot harm an animal? This is, of course, all hypothetical (and perhaps even idealistic) but there’s no denying that we would be more ethical, altruistic and better as a society if we did not use animals in such heinous way (or anyway.)
This is a book about ethics, the ethics of using and exploiting animals. Peter Singer provides a compelling and convincing case. He supports his claims with stories, examples and statistics to elucidate just how horrific the systems that exploit animals are. And I urge everyone to read it because it just may challenge the way in which you see the world.
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You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree. __________________________________...more
Sean Barrs
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Books:
animal-rights
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