Tag: interest

Animal Feeling

…There’s a reason we try to teach our children this kind of sympathy. Lack of sympathy, or outright cruelty, to animals, stems from the same mindset that, more egregiously, can deny humanity to other people by denying their capacity to think or feel. The Victorians considered women less rational than men, and regarded other races and the lower classes as less sensitive to pain, thus denying these groups full humanity and consequently full legal rights. Given these attitudes toward members of our own species, it is unsurprising that many Victorians felt panicked when Darwin suggested our kinship with other creatures.

Editor’s Note: I’m very happy to introduce our newest writer, Isabella Cooper! I hope you’ll enjoy this heartfelt, nuanced look at our feelings toward animals–and how we can avoid letting our sympathy become a “zero sum game.”

I am a strong proponent of the idea that the things you loved most at age six are probably the things you should pursue for the rest of your life.  The thing I loved at that age was animals. My first memory is of delightedly watching the sea lions at Monterey Aquarium. I can’t actually remember the fishy smell, the barking, or the antics of those particular sea lions, but I remember the feeling.  And that same complex feeling—a mix of awe and joy and something I can only describe as love–that I felt watching those sea lions returns to me whenever I see an animal happy or in its natural habitat, living its wild animal life.

sea-lions1

All children are fascinated by animals, even if not with the same intense, protective attachment I felt for them.  The first time it occurred to me to feel guilty about caring so much for animals occurred after going to see the 1994 live-action version of The Jungle Book with my grandparents.  My grandfather mentioned to my parents the way I’d cried when I thought Baloo the bear had died, but had been pleased when the human “bad guys” died.  I felt rebuked, as I always have when someone has suggested that my emotions are excessive or inappropriate.  Beyond that, the implication was that I cared more for animals than people.  It wouldn’t be the last time I’d face that charge, and feel like I was somehow a species traitor.  (Let’s just say no one was surprised when I became a vegetarian at fourteen.) But that experience with my grandparents was my first realization that a core part of my being might be viewed by others as emotional self-indulgence.  Continue reading “Animal Feeling”

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