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Explaining this philosophy also provides an opportunity to address another myth about ARAs: that we are misanthropic. We may love animals but by golly we hate human beings. My journey towards animal rights illustrates how far this is from the truth. I would never have become an animal rights advocate if I had not first been a human rights advocate, especially for those humans (the very young and the very old, for example) who lack the understanding or power to assert their rights for themselves. ARAs do not hate humanity. How could we? Any success we might achieve in the days and years ahead requires the cooperation of the other human beings with whom we share this fragile planet. In the struggle for animal rights, all humans are potential allies whose dignity and rights ARAs unreservedly affirm.

MORE VARIATIONS
Earlier I described two variations on the cat episode. Here is another one. Variation three: What happens is exactly as shown in the original video except in this one I confront the cook and charge him with cruelty. He is shocked that I think so ill of him. He treats his cats and dogs “humanely,” he insists, with “due regard for their welfare.” I say, “You can’t be serious!” He replies, “I am!”

What are we to make of a disagreement like this one? Should we say that the cook treats the white fluffy cat humanely because he says he does? That he acts with due regard for the cat’s welfare because this is what he says? I don’t think so. Humaneness is not in the eye of the beholder. The cook acts inhumanely. This is an objective fact in the world, not a subjective projection onto it.

To make my point clearer, consider this scenario. Variation four: Everything is the same as in the original video except it is your cat that the cook takes to the kitchen. Not for a moment would you say, “Yes, the cook certainly treated my cat humanely; after all, this is what he said he did.” Not for a moment would you even dream of saying such a thing! Well, inhumane treatment does not become humane treatment just because some other cat is on the receiving end. If the cook says he treats cats humanely, we are certainly right to say, “No, you do not.”

The reason I have included this fourth variation has little to do with what a cook in China might say and much to do with the actual words spoken by representatives of the major animal user industries. (We examine their rhetoric in Part III). Like the Chinese cook in the third variation, representatives of the meat industry and greyhound racing, for example, say their industries treat animals humanely; like him, they say they always show due regard for their welfare. However, after we confirm (in Part IV) that these industries treat animals just as badly if not worse than the cat was treated by the Chinese cook, it will be hard to believe them anymore.

Some people, I am sure, will doubt the truth of what I have just said. Surely these industries do not treat animals just as badly (let alone worse) than the Chinese cook. Surely I must be exaggerating. Would that this were true! As we will see, compared to how animals are treated by the major animal user industries in America, and despite industry assurances to the contrary, that fluffy white cat was one of the lucky ones.

LIMITATIONS
My discussion in Part IV is limited for the most part to the American scene. Much as I would have liked to have been able to include discussions of how the major animal user industries operate throughout the world, both the constraints of space and the limits of my knowledge worked against my doing so. In general, however, I do not think that how these industries do business in other countries differs greatly from how they do business in America. Granted, sometimes some animals in some places might be treated better, just as sometimes some animals in some places might be treated worse. As a general rule, however, I do not think there are vast, systemic differences from one nation to the next.

A second limitation should be noted. Humans exploit so many different kinds of animals, in so many different kinds of ways, that it is not possible to cover every form of abuse. Organized dog fighting. The whaling industry. The plight of America’s wild horses. Manatee preservation. The anachronism of “modern” zoos. The barbarities of roadside animal displays. The poaching of African wildlife. Bullfighting. The many torments animals endure in the name of religious practices and festivals. It is not hard to make a long list of omissions.

In lieu of trying to cover many practices superficially, I will be describing a few of them in some depth. Readers looking for more information, both about the issues covered in these pages as well as those that are not, can find this in our Resources section. Other resources on this site include photographs and videos that depict the beauty and dignity, the grace and mystery of other animals. In addition, some of these resources (the hard ones, so to speak) realistically depict the treatment animals receive at the hands of the major animal user industries. Be forewarned (and you will always have the choice to view them or not): these visuals do not try to conceal or minimize the tragic truth.

Billions of animals live lives of abject misery and go to their death in the unfeeling clutches of human cruelty. These are painful truths, but truths they are. One challenge ARAs face is to make the invisible visible; otherwise people will never fully understand the history of the meat on their plate or the wool on their back, for example. In this regard, the “hard” photographs and videos play an essential educational purpose.

A FINAL VARIATION
We return to the cat one last time, in the Epilogue, where I describe a fifth and final variation. Prior to this, in Part V, I explore a variety of ways in which people are turned-off by ARAs and try to put these turn-offs in perspective. The Triumph of Animal Rights is bleak if too few people want to make the goals of animal rights a reality. Like other social justice advocates, ARAs make our full share of mistakes. My hope is that people will not let the self-righteousness, tastelessness or violence of a small handful of ARAs prevent them from becoming ARAs themselves.

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