nah i think it's social categories, not moral ones. Cool i've deconstructed the categories of "pet animal" and "food animal" and think that if you want to keep a holstein as a pet or raise cats as livestock that's a little weird (historically, culturally, and logistically) but not some great sin just because the animals are flipped around.

people keep lizards and weird bugs as non-traditional pets too, maybe it's easier to see compared to mammals that the thing that's special about a pet is that it's a pet, not the species.

[–] MattsAlt@hexbear.net 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

No, the thing that is special about all of them is that they're living creatures that can experience pain and have desires to live in their natural environments

Your example isn't doing any favors here. It's honestly more concerning that all that matters to you is the label you assign to a being that gives its life worth. You're explicitly acknowledging anything could be a pet that is meaningful to someone but some just get the shit end of the stick and are killed after a lifetime of torture instead

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Now hold on.

I'm a vegan, but I can recognize murdering your own pet as being even worse than murdering any other animal. The problem isn't that the dog is a pet, but rather, her pet. She just murdered a member of her family for pissing her off. That's serial killer shit.

I had pet chickens before I was a vegan and if anyone killed them back then I'd fucking- well. They wouldn't kill anything ever again.

[–] MattsAlt@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I don't know what part of the thread I'm in at this point, but I've said elsewhere here that I agree this is more unhinged than average carnism defense. The underlying issue I'm trying to tease out here is the imposition of a human's will upon the life of an animal because the human wanted to do that and didn't care about the animal enough to make a different choice

The parent to this developing struggle session was not equivocating the two, it was asking why one made carnists feel a certain way and the mass torture of animals for food doesn't

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The question necessarily implies hypocrisy on the part of carnists i.e. "if this woman murdering her dog makes you feel bad, you should feel bad when you murder animals" or even "you murder animals all the time, what right do you have to judge her for doing the same thing?"

I certainly read it as you trying to equivocate the two! And I doubt I was the only one.

[–] MattsAlt@hexbear.net 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If you eat meat and this kind of story upsets you, please do some careful examination of why the industrial animal torture industries do not.

The Internet is text based, assigning a tone to what is typed is purely a personal problem to put it bluntly.

They are asking why industrial animal torture is not upsetting but killing a pet dog is. Why is someone who feels upset about the suffering of a dog not also upset about the suffering of a pig, cow, or chicken? If it's purely the label of pet, we get back to the comment you replied to

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 11 points 7 months ago

Vocabulary creates tone and "the industrial animal torture industries" is far from a neutral phrase. If you can't read tone it's a skill issue.

They are asking why industrial animal torture is not upsetting compared to killing a pet dog because they are equivocating the two.

"Pet" is not purely a label, it is the social relationship between pets and their families. That is what is so upsetting to people. Equivocating would make more sense if she had a dog-meat farm, because those aren't pets. Horrible, but only as horrible as any other blood farm that raises animals for slaughter. Killing pets, though, is clearly different. That's killing family. People are going to get upset about it.

[–] JohnBrownNote@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago

is special about all of them

this is about interrogating why people think pets are different from livestock, something common to mammals (and talking about desires gets a little weird, but anyway) isn't going to be the difference between them.

You're explicitly acknowledging anything could be a pet that is meaningful to someone but some just get the shit end of the stick and are killed after a lifetime of torture instead

yes. although to slide in part of another comment i saw pop up while typing this

If it's purely the label of pet, we get back to the comment [queermunist] replied to

i think it's the social relation itself rather than the label being a talisman. We even attach to inanimate objects the same way sometimes.