Humans are Perfect

At the end of chapter XXI, Candide asks Martin whether he thinks that humans have always fought each other. Martin replies with a question, asking him if hawks have always eaten pigeon, to which Candide answers that they have. Martin says that as hawks haven't changed, neither have humans. Finally Candide responds that the difference is that humans have "Free Will."

I can't say that I completely agree with what Martin said, as humanity has somewhat improved, but I did find Candide's reaction, a very human reaction. People for some reason always tend to believe that the human race is absolutely superior to any other, which quite frankly really bothers me. In terms of dominance, survival, intelligence, or the way we relate to each other humans are certainly superior than other animals, but that doesn't mean we're not animals or that other animals are bad. In a previous blog post I gave my opinion on bull fighting, and I don't mean to sound very insisting but animal cruelty and unfairness towards them is unacceptable.

I'll be brief with this, so to start off, during the last years an increasing number of scientific studies have shown that animals do have feelings, inter-specie relationships, etc (all those obvious things). Animals are not able to make advanced technology, communicate in a very elaborate way, but that doesn't mean people should underestimate them and feel worthier than them. As an owner of four dogs, I can tell for sure that they have personalities, relationships between them, an authority, a family-like structure and understand how humans feel about them. Treating animals badly affects them, even though they can't express them in human words. I don't like humans that are in love with their genetics and feel that evolution gives them perks. People who treat animals badly are highly likely to also be violent with humans. Again, I don't want to sound insistent, or a radical like PETA, but unless people want to be statistically related to criminals, they shouldn't be mean with animals. 

Some links you should check out: 

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/abuse_neglect/qa/cruelty_violence_connection_faq.html

http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/6/883.full  (notice how they refer to "non-human animals")