Jeremy Rifkin Letters To The Editor Analysis

Dear Editor: In an article on September 1st of the Los Angeles Times, Jeremy Rifkin claims animals have the same understanding and concept of emotions we humans have, and that we should treat them as our equals. This idea of his is absurd, and if you really look at it you can see, he is just another animal rights activist trying to get his voice heard. Rifkin has claimed that animals feel the same emotions we do, either good or bad. He said “they feel pain, suffer, and experience stress, affection, excitement, and even love….” (Rifkin pg.33Parag.2) If this is true then that means animals can feel regret & guilt? Does this mean we have to feel guilty for the prey we kill? I mean we can feel guilty for them but we really won’t view it as a bad thing but a good one instead, because we are basically natural
born predators hunting our prey.
Like Rifkin stated “ If you believe in evolution by natural selection, how can you believe feelings suddenly appeared, out of the blue, with human beings?”(Rifkin pg. 34 paragraph 3) This very well may be true but like it said feelings came along with evolution but the natural relationship of predator and prey did as well. A predator is a type of organism/ animal that eats another organism/animal, the prey is the organism/animal that is being eaten. Just like evolution, predator and prey evolve together, meaning one can’t do without the other. They are a part of each other’s environment, not all predator relationships are about animals eating animals but also about animal eating plants like: rabbits & lettuce, bears & berries or grasshoppers & leaves. They can’t stop hunting or else they will die, most time both of them not just one. We are the top predator there are, so does that mean we have to feel empathy for those we hunt? Another point I want to make that goes along with this one is that, Rifkin stated that animals know and understand the meaning of ‘death’. For example, when he wrote about how
“elephants often stand next to their dead kin for days….” (Rifkin pg.34 para. 11) Do they really understand this moral concept? Then does this mean the vultures are the ones who are more conscious and understanding of this mortality? Does this mean that we should stop using lab rats and other animals as test subjects for the cure of diseases that can save our lives? It seems to me that people and Rifkin are more focused on feeling empathy for the things we eat and wanting to give them rights that they don’t realize we might need it to survive and that it’s all in evolution. If we mess with the natural course of things, there will be consequences. Yes, we can feel empathy for others but let’s not confuse ourselves into believing that animals deserve more attention and empathy then our fellow beings, because there truly are more important things out there that demand our attention.