Pain spectacles rule the roost Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Pain spectacles rule the roost - Essay Example Of all other discriminations that we are aware of, Peter Singer (5 April 1973) had reminded us, â€Å"one should always be wary of talking of â€Å"the last remaining form of discrimination,†Ã¢â‚¬  which is the discrimination carried out by humans towards animals. He argued that like any racist or sexist, we believe that animals have an inferior status to us because they belong to some other species and calls this attitude, ‘speciecism’ (Singer, 5 April 1973). It is true that humans have never had the habit of viewing animals as equals. But are we as a species, sympathetic to even other human beings’ pain, once we shed the cultural and moralistic attires that we have learned to wear through human history, and stand naked in our basic human instincts? A comparison of our attitudes towards animals, especially in the context of our habit of entertaining ourselves in watching dog-fighting and bull fighting can be made with our attitude towards violence in spo rts. The logic is quite compulsive. Singer (5 April 1973) has rather been blunt in his arguments regarding animal liberation. He observed nonchalantly that â€Å"people who eat pieces of slaughtered non-humans every day find it hard to believe that they are doing wrong† (5 April 1973). The Roman elites who enjoyed the fighting spectacle between the enslaved humans used to bring perfumed hand kerchiefs to the venue to avoid the distasteful smell of blood becoming too strong.