Most of us lead lives that do not include hanging out with large animals. Cows are very interesting and excellent beings and I recently ran across a video that does a pretty good job of showing some of the playfulness and friendliness that many cows possess. It is true that some cows are grumps just as some humans are grumps but Snow Flower (the star of the video) isn't.
Stay with the video, at about 3:30 in you will get to see some playing and frolicking and that goes on for some time, at around 4:40 she is having a great time. The video is a chance to get to see a bit of one cow enjoying her life. It is easy to see that she is an individual and that she has her own view of the world, her own preferences, her own likes and dislikes. When we lump living beings into categories we then tend to lose sight of the fact that each are individuals.
A facebook 'friend' (Wong Oi Lee) posted this video and at first I passed over it but went back and was captivated. I think it is a good chance to get to know a little about a cow for those that haven't had the opportunity to do so in the flesh. My thanks to her for putting it out there for the rest of us to see and experience.
From what I could find out on the internet, Snow Flower was eventually moved to a herd of 'pet' cows and maybe there she will get to live out her life in comfort and safety.
That isn't what happens to most cow beings. It is hard to reconcile the joy and happiness that Snow Flower obviously experiences with the casualness and ease that most humans are willing to kill such beings...or to pay someone else to kill cows like Snow Flower for them.
I was watching a documentary about the killing of the millions of humans during WWII and one of the narrators said what was so hard to comprehend was that the killing often wasn't done by sadists or madmen...rather it was done by ordinary human beings. Somehow, not participating in the horror was unusual or extraordinary rather than participating.
That's terribly frightening...just as is the casual way in which we kill billions of living beings every year...we kill them just because we want to. And very few of us ever give it a thought...so many lives extinguished, so many joys unfelt....and almost none of us seem to care.
It is hard to find hope but there are humans that care, that object, that protest....and that's important.
If you are one that cares, that objects, that protests, that doesn't participate in the ongoing slow-motion murderous rampage most humans are engaged in....then...thank you, thank you very much....you are valued and appreciated and very much needed by all (especially me).
Showing posts with label cow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cow. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
"What's in a name?"
"That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." The quote is from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The astute Juliet is pointing out to Romeo that it isn't his name that she is infatuated with, it is him. In other words not the referring device (a name) but the being or thing referred to (him, Romeo Montague).
I ran across a study some time ago about names that has kept nagging at me ever since. The study itself is a couple of years old and was about the finding that cows kept on a dairy seemed to produce more milk if they were given a name and treated as individuals. Here is a link to a fairly well done summary of the study (conducted in the UK) and what the researchers thought about the results.
Now, keeping cows on a dairy is a not so accurate way of referring to a profit-making activity where living beings are imprisoned and exploited by being raped, impregnated and having their children taken away from them (such children are then killed immediately or sold into slavery) and their lactation fluids stolen...when these living beings are adjudged by their jailers as having decreased "efficiency" they are then murdered. Dairy takes on a different cast when we expand and explicate what it actually means doesn't it?
Anyway, not discussing for the moment the horrors of "dairy", one of the interesting things in the study is that we find that positive attention to cows seems to make them happier (the presumption is that their making more milk means they are happier). I say positive attention because the researchers point out that assigning a name is a proxy for the cows being the recipients of "nicer treatment" by their exploiters. The results of the study would have been different if the cows had been assigned a name and then routinely beaten every day. It is not the naming of the cow, per se, that is important, it is the behavior toward the cow that results in increased happiness.
A fairly straightforward little study that focuses on greater benefit for the humans if the cows involved are treated nicer.
I found the whole thing repulsive and disgusting.
Let's substitute the animal studied, let's pretend the study is about human animals in a slave labor and death camp called a dairy. The study shows if you treat the human animals better they produce more when working (prior to your murder of them after they are 'less efficient').
A more accurate name for the study would have been: "How to Maximize Your Profit While Committing Atrocities". But no matter the name; imprisoning, manipulating, hurting and killing sentient beings is unjust and atrocious.
I ran across a study some time ago about names that has kept nagging at me ever since. The study itself is a couple of years old and was about the finding that cows kept on a dairy seemed to produce more milk if they were given a name and treated as individuals. Here is a link to a fairly well done summary of the study (conducted in the UK) and what the researchers thought about the results.
Now, keeping cows on a dairy is a not so accurate way of referring to a profit-making activity where living beings are imprisoned and exploited by being raped, impregnated and having their children taken away from them (such children are then killed immediately or sold into slavery) and their lactation fluids stolen...when these living beings are adjudged by their jailers as having decreased "efficiency" they are then murdered. Dairy takes on a different cast when we expand and explicate what it actually means doesn't it?
Anyway, not discussing for the moment the horrors of "dairy", one of the interesting things in the study is that we find that positive attention to cows seems to make them happier (the presumption is that their making more milk means they are happier). I say positive attention because the researchers point out that assigning a name is a proxy for the cows being the recipients of "nicer treatment" by their exploiters. The results of the study would have been different if the cows had been assigned a name and then routinely beaten every day. It is not the naming of the cow, per se, that is important, it is the behavior toward the cow that results in increased happiness.
A fairly straightforward little study that focuses on greater benefit for the humans if the cows involved are treated nicer.
I found the whole thing repulsive and disgusting.
Let's substitute the animal studied, let's pretend the study is about human animals in a slave labor and death camp called a dairy. The study shows if you treat the human animals better they produce more when working (prior to your murder of them after they are 'less efficient').
A more accurate name for the study would have been: "How to Maximize Your Profit While Committing Atrocities". But no matter the name; imprisoning, manipulating, hurting and killing sentient beings is unjust and atrocious.
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