Are Cartoons Creating Animal Rights Activists
Cartoons often show animals with human attributes. Animals in cartoons talk and have social structures based on those of humans. They are nearly always shown as intelligent and gentle. By doing this does society create a false sense of empathy in children toward animals? Cartoons along with other changes in our culture are giving each generation a more skewed view of animals, nature and peoples place in nature.
Cartoons by humanizing animals cause children to feel that animals are the same as humans. This problem is sometimes exacerbated by pets that are treated as members of the family and a culture that has become more urban over time.
The urbanization of our culture has made human animal encounters less and less likely. By living in such an isolated environment and being bombarded with speaking, thinking, and feeling animals in cartoons children can't help but have a skewed view of animals and nature. Specialization in our society has also removed humans from the processing of their own food.
To most kids hamburger comes magically from the store or a burger joint they have no real concept of the cow as a farm animal nor the processing that takes place to create the food they use. Only a few generations ago the United States was a more rural country where most people either lived in the country or had grandparents or other family that lived on a farm. Hunting, fishing, and handling livestock was something that a large portion of society experienced at some point.
Children today are very isolated from nature. The skewed view of nature that is given in a cartoon can cause children to feel empathy for the fictional Bambi and extend that empathy to the reality of a deer.
Is this isolation and empathy that results the driving force behind PETA and other Animal Rights organizations?
Nature is cruel, this is a lesson that we as a society no longer teach our children. Animals are part of the natural food chain, just as we are. Humans happen to occupy the very top of the food chain this is our place. Humans are part of the natural world. It is as natural for us to kill and eat prey as it is for a wolf or an shark. By coming to know nature and animals only through cartoons many people lose the sense of their place in the world. No animal death at the hands of an ethical hunter or meat processing plant could possibly be as cruel as the natural deaths that most animals experience.
Parents should take care that children are exposed to nature so that they can understand both the natural cycle that makes some animals prey, others predators and our place in that cycle. If children were to see and understand the reality of what animals are and how nature works they would be less likely to have such a warped view of reality that they would prefer humans die than have medical tests ran on animals, as some animal rights groups advocate.
Links:
Animal Rights vs Animal Welfare
Cartoons by humanizing animals cause children to feel that animals are the same as humans. This problem is sometimes exacerbated by pets that are treated as members of the family and a culture that has become more urban over time.
The urbanization of our culture has made human animal encounters less and less likely. By living in such an isolated environment and being bombarded with speaking, thinking, and feeling animals in cartoons children can't help but have a skewed view of animals and nature. Specialization in our society has also removed humans from the processing of their own food.
To most kids hamburger comes magically from the store or a burger joint they have no real concept of the cow as a farm animal nor the processing that takes place to create the food they use. Only a few generations ago the United States was a more rural country where most people either lived in the country or had grandparents or other family that lived on a farm. Hunting, fishing, and handling livestock was something that a large portion of society experienced at some point.
Children today are very isolated from nature. The skewed view of nature that is given in a cartoon can cause children to feel empathy for the fictional Bambi and extend that empathy to the reality of a deer.
Is this isolation and empathy that results the driving force behind PETA and other Animal Rights organizations?
Nature is cruel, this is a lesson that we as a society no longer teach our children. Animals are part of the natural food chain, just as we are. Humans happen to occupy the very top of the food chain this is our place. Humans are part of the natural world. It is as natural for us to kill and eat prey as it is for a wolf or an shark. By coming to know nature and animals only through cartoons many people lose the sense of their place in the world. No animal death at the hands of an ethical hunter or meat processing plant could possibly be as cruel as the natural deaths that most animals experience.
Parents should take care that children are exposed to nature so that they can understand both the natural cycle that makes some animals prey, others predators and our place in that cycle. If children were to see and understand the reality of what animals are and how nature works they would be less likely to have such a warped view of reality that they would prefer humans die than have medical tests ran on animals, as some animal rights groups advocate.
Links:
Animal Rights vs Animal Welfare