What are the Impacts?

Interview: Tegan W.

For my interview, I chose to discuss the idiosyncrasies of animal rights and welfare with former Longmont Humane Society volunteer coordinator Tegan. As a staff member of the Longmont Humane Society for a few years, she was able to give me some of her personal insight into what she has seen change within the shelter itself and in the community regarding animal rights. Some of the main points are as follows:

Animals entering the shelter from undesirable situations
- A few times a month; not many animals come in as extremely abused or mistreated
- Mostly just people who abandon their pets or decide they cannot care for them anymore
Hegemonic hierarchy
- An uncommon train of thought, especially in today's culture
  - People want equality, but still have an ingrained sense of hierarchy
- Animals should be equals, but it is not easy (or maybe even possible) to transition society to one where we value other living things as much as we value ourselves
Political representation
- Not enough of it
  - To get into the political mainstream, you have to play by their crooked rules
  - Lobbying for money; many lose sight of their end goal of helping animals
- Need elected officials who understand the importance
  - Hard to get people to elect representatives on a platform that is less human-focused (due to ingrained human-first approach to life)

Animals are objects

Unfortunately, the direct impacts of this natural hierarchy and human-superiority mentality are that animals have been, are, and will continue to be used for our own gain as a species. The idea has been instilled within us that we are able to, and frankly should use the resources we see around us to help us survive. We believe that we have rightfully worked our way to the apex species of the planet, and with that comes the privilege of depleting the environment and using animals for our own survival instead of supporting other lifeforms as they struggle to survive in the wasteland that we have left for them.

Animals do not have agency in a human-first world

In this world, humans have decreed democracy as the "best" form of governance: we fight for it daily, express its importance, and discuss how we obtain and maintain it. As humans, we have agency to make democracy work for us. We are able to vote, express our desires, protest, disobey laws, obtain education, and start social movements, all because we are the top species on the planet and the only barrier to our success is ourselves. This platform is designed for humans to battle other humans, and as such it was never created to even remotely give other species a chance to be considered: humans can use this social, political, and economic platform to discuss why all humans should be considered equal to one another, all while ignoring the destruction of animal and planet rights.

Animal mistreatment and underrepresentation is just a part

Humans are seemingly on a quest to obliterate the planet in an attempt to fight their own battles, and that comes at the cost of anything that stands in their way. Animals being used and abused by humans without any powerful political, economic, or social representation is just a cog in the human-first machine: they do not get to write the rules of the game they are forced to play, much like the natural flora we destroy for our homes and roads or the sky and waterways we fill with pollutants. The idea that we are at the top of the natural hierarchy has driven us, as a species, mad with power and in an attempt to solve our own problems we entirely forget about the lives we eat, throw a ball for, and sometimes intentionally neglect.

It is clear that prioritizing and glorifying humanity is something so deeply ingrained within our societal culture and norms, and to alter in even the slightest will take massive communal effort and persuasion. It is not about forcing everybody to adopt an understanding of these realities, it is about enlightening humans to the destruction we ultimately cause to every other natural thing on the planet. We go so far as to put laws in place, as humans, to try to keep other humans from extensively and totally destroying flora and fauna, but we do not have a collective understanding of what it means to be human.

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