Vegans and companion animals

I'd suggest there are two popular attitudes to nature:

1. Nature and other species are a resource to be used as and when humans please. I guess all omnivores subscribe to this, knowingly or otherwise.

2. We are animals just like other species, they experience emotions just like we do. They are, therefore, entitled to the same rights as we are.

I think most vegans probably see things the second way. When it comes to pets/companion animals they are best treated as we would wish to be treated ourselves.

I'm in a minority of vegans who don't quite see things this way. I think each species is sufficient unto itself. I think it is narcissistic to look at other species and see ourselves: to project our own image, values and emotions onto them. A dog is (or should be) a dog, not a trainee human being. A cat interacts with us for its own benefit and then gets on with being a cat.

To see animals as like us or part of us is narcissistic - we are so enraptured by ourselves that we see our own image everywhere. We seek interaction with them on our terms e.g. by talking to them, or expecting them not to eat us, adopting them as quasi-children, instead of respecting them simply for what they are. By the same process we invest nature with the powers of a strong (wo)man God who will sort stuff out. Nature won't do a damn thing in accordance with what we want. It is the combined energy of millions and millions of interconnected organisms we are merely a big piece in an infinite jigsaw. Nature is disinterested - in the true sense of the word: 'she' doesn't have a vested interest in this, or any other, human affair.

There is a vestige of omni self-importance in vegan thought which is most obvious in the way we cling to our pets through compassion but deny them freedom in the long term. Much better the symbiosis of, say, our relationship with earthworms. They are busy being worms and happen to contribute massively to the soil fertility for our crops. Do I want to take one home to look after? I do not: I spread mulch on the soil, leave it to its own devices and respect it deeply.

In this, and all things I think we should attempt to minimise our impact, of any sort, on fellow sentient species. My veganism is merely an expression of this. The problem with domestic animals is that our interference is locked into their genes. They are stuck in a kind of Groundhog day of neither animal or human experience. I think it behoves all vegans to look after those pets we've got, then free future generations of this man-made suffering.

This is why I support the extinction of pets through mandatory sterilisation.