LET US LIVE WITHOUT HARMING! Let us not be UNSCRUPULOUS speciesists.

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I was raised in the traditional Judeo-Christian culture according to which human beings are made in the image and likeness of God and are therefore the masters of all animals. These were created by the Lord so that we could use them at our discretion for our own benefit (Genesis 1:26), even applying cruelty to do so. I was raised in a country where, therefore, it was normalized to make animals suffer for pure entertainment, such as in bullfights, throwing goats from bell towers, and other even more brutal festivities.

Later I realized that in most cultures the conception tends to be the same, forming a table with four legs: objectifying speciesism, perverse narcissistic supremacism, exploitative anthropocentrism, and cruelty.

1. OBJECTIFYING SPECIESISM

It is a form of discrimination based on the species to which each individual belongs. It starts from labeling two completely distinct classes: us (humans), who are practically everything, and the others (animals), who are practically nothing. As if they were a simple meteorite in relation to the entirety of the universe—which is obviously us. That is, they are mere objects for our use and enjoyment, like a football that we can kick or a pen that we throw in the bin when it is no longer useful (use and discard).

Read: Let us avoid labels that are a blank cheque to HARM!

LIVING WITHOUT HARM: Let us not objectify.

This is a categorization:

1. Incorrect, because it has nothing to do with the taxonomic classification used by scientists, who divide sentient beings into chordates and non-chordates, vertebrates and invertebrates, which may be fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, which in turn have further subdivisions.

2. Absurd, because we, Homo sapiens, are also animals—specifically vertebrates, mammals, primates, apes, Old World monkeys, and hominids that, according to some studies, share 98–99% of DNA with our closest hominid cousins, chimpanzees.

3. Insensitive, because it does not take into account a very relevant fact: many animals also feel, and mammals experience the same emotions, with a similar intensity, as humans.

4. Unethical for considering beings who feel and suffer as mere things that can be harmed and trampled. They are not mere objects intended for our use and abuse, but sentient beings like us, each of them even with their own personality.

Objectifying speciesism is part of toxic gregariousness, within which there is also racism, ethnism, xenophobia and ultranationalism. All of them are different walls of the same building affected by aluminosis