I have long been interested in the many ways in which non-human animals (animals) have been viewed in different periods of history. A few years ago I published a post Henry Berg and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement– ASPCA founder Berg has been called a “traitor to his species” because of his views on the moral status of animals – but other commitments at my desk prevented me from doing more research.
Because of my abiding interest in human-animal relationships and how these interactions have evolved over time, I was excited to learn about something wonderful. bookOur Kindred Creatures: How Americans Felt About Animals by Bill Wasik, who was recently appointed as the new science editor The New York Timesand veterinarian Monica Murphy. In their deeply researched and engaging historical account of the moral transformation of human attitudes toward animals, they cover the contributions of many people, including Berg.
Mark Bekoff: Why did you write it? Our fellow creatures?
Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy: Earlier in the process of researching and writing our book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Satanic Viruswe found that many of the attitudes Americans now take for granted toward animals were formed in the late nineteenth century. Our aversion to cruelty and blood sports, our fascination with animals in entertainment, our limited recognition of what livestock is going through, our concern about the extinction of wildlife species, our ambivalence about animals in research domestic animals– all this appeared in about 30 years after the Civil War. For animal lovers, it’s amazing to realize that our ancestors didn’t always feel the same way as we do, but it’s exciting to know that there were specific people who supported and innovated the way we live with animals as we know them today.
Another thing we realized while working Rabid It is very interesting to read and write during this period. Newspapers, magazines, and books of the time provide richly detailed and colorful documentation of events and individuals that dramatically changed popular ways of thinking about the creatures that live among us.
MB: How does your book relate to your background and shared interests?
BW/MM: We are a married couple, a journalist (Bill) and a veterinarian (Monica). We love working together on projects that involve our shared interests of animals, history, and science.
MB: Who do you hope to reach?
BW/MM: Everyone! It’s primarily a book about the relationship between humans and nonhuman animals—the story of how we got to where we are now—but it’s also a study of a highly successful social movement, a biography of several American innovators, and an examination of how our culture collectively approaches complex moral questions. Plus, it has animal stories!
MB: What topics do you cover and what are your key messages?
BW/MM: the main theme of Our fellow creatures It is the story of the rise of the American animal welfare movement, which began in 1866 with the founding of the ASPCA by Henry Berg, but quickly captured the American heart and mind with the idea that animals deserve some level of care and compassion. Along with Berg in New York, George Angell in Boston, and Caroline Earle White in Philadelphia, she was instrumental in changing not only the laws, but fundamental attitudes toward animals.
But with the growing concern for welfare came other changes. We write about the rise of science-based veterinary medicine, the growing of animals in entertainment venues such as museums, zoos, and circuses, the American wildlife conservation movement focused on birds and bison, the industrialization of animal food production and processing, and unresolved evidence for the use of animals in scientific research. Along the way, we meet wonderful, complex people like the uncompromising French-American vet Alexander Liautard. charismatic showman PT Barnum and animal research advocates such as John Call Dalton and WW Keen.
Perhaps our biggest theme is that, although our love and affection for animals today stems from that time, it is a very selective affection: our pets are becoming more and more members of the family, but we often turn a blind eye to the extinction of wildlife or, worse, the suffering of animals raised for meat in meat farms. And you can explain the difference in feelings in large part to a difference in consciousness: while our pets have never been physically present in our lives, these other animals have never felt more distant. In the 19th century, people lived hand-to-hand with their animals, even in cities, but the dramatic changes of the time we’re writing in mean that the process of raising and slaughtering animals can take place hundreds or even thousands of miles away. In the end, the change in our attitude towards animals is due to a change in our lifestyle (or rather, don’t do it live) among them.
MB: Do you hope that as people learn more about this history, there will be more compassion for the nonhuman animals in their midst?
BW/MM: Well, we can at least hope so. At the end of our book, we raise the question of whether the kind of revolution that the rise of the anti-cruelty movement suggests—a truly fundamental change in how people treat the pets around them—can happen today. smart treating food animals and other suffering creatures with whom they may never interact. That would be a big change, and it would be similar to the spiritual change that most of us have to make. climate changeAnother issue is that it seems difficult for people to act in ethical ways when the effects of our actions are often indirect and hidden from us.
In general, such systemic problems can cause changes in the environment. But many of the worst problems we face today there is are systemic in nature, and unless we can re-educate our moral sense to recognize that we are responsible for the invisible consequences of our actions, we will never be able to solve them.
