Anything but Silence

“Do you really believe, Mother, that poetry classes are going to close down the slaughterhouses?”

“No.”

“Then why do it? […] What is it that you want to cure humankind of?”

“John, I don’t know what I want to do. I just don’t want to sit silent.” (Elizabeth Costello, 103, 104).(image courtesy of: http://www.onenewsnow.com/uploadedImages/Media/Images/duct_tape_over_mouth.jpg)These words spoken by Elizabeth Costello in J.M. Coetzee’s novel rang incredibly true for me, even as I struggled to understand the rest of the book or even the specific points Elizabeth was trying to prove. I feel that my thoughts on the novel and especially on animal treatment discussed therein will be somewhat repetitive from what I wrote about in my last discussion board entry. Mostly, the overwhelming sensation I have is a feeling of needing to do SOMETHING. Anything, really, to support this cause of treating animals better than we do, to not let the injustices performed upon all kinds of animals daily continue.

The issues I have had the most difficulty swallowing are new in my mind – basically I’ve only just found this new passion to sort of “protect” the animals of the world since watching Earthlings in class, and I therefore don’t know all of the facets of the widespread topic of animal cruelty. However, I learned of a new one tonight when reading the novel and also Kafka’s “A Report for an Academy.” I had rarely before considered what life for an ape like that in Kafka’s story would be like – encaged, forced to perform tricks and tasks that the animal itself deems demeaning (if we are to subscribe to the theory that animals, or at least apes, have the mental capacity to perform actions that phrases like “deems demeaning” connote) all to please nothing more than human curiosity. Reads the report from the ape’s perspective, “No, I didn’t want freedom. Only a way out – to the right or left or anywhere at all. I made no other demands, even if the way out should be only an illusion,” (Course Anthology, 367). What a terrible, depressing existence.

Of course, Elizabeth feels the heat for her remarks, especially when they regard Kafka’s story and her outright comparison of treatment of animals like that ape to the Holocaust. The famous poet in Coetzee’s story, Abraham Stern fairly summed up the argument against Costello when he wrote to her, “the [comparison of jews in the Holocaust and cattle] insults the memory of the dead. It also trades on the horrors of the camp in a cheap way,” (Elizabeth Costello, 94). About this issue, I truly do not know how I feel. Like Maysie explained in her discussion board this evening, I am torn!

This is what I do know. I want to help. Tonight, in reading Kafka’s story, I learned about another issue I want to help with. I don’t think it’s right for tests and experiments to be performed on animals like the ones in Kafka’s report. I don’t think it’s right that the distinction between whether or not animals have equal intelligence as us has to be made for us to decide whether or not to cause them pain. They can feel. Period! I don’t know what I want to do: maybe I can give money, maybe I can tour a slaughterhouse, shelters, start a facebook group against animal cruelty, start a petition, walk to the capital and stand there screaming at the top of my lungs for someone to listen to me.

(Can I protest, will that help? Image courtesy of:http://dlproj.library.ucla.edu/derivatives/bennett/uclamss_686_b6_f9_2_k.jpg) I don’t even know how I feel about so many issues. But, like Elizabeth, I know this: I don’t want to sit silent.