Am I Kind?

Am I a kind person? It’s a simple question, but nevertheless one I tend to push aside. I used to be able to say with certainty that I was a good person – someone who was always looking out for others. Statistically speaking, I won all the superficial superlatives in school that pigeonhole your identity so in fifteen years, even if your former classmates don’t remember your name, they’ll be able to remember you were the “biggest flirt” or “most likely to succeed.” The champion of the “Kindest” award in middle school, the “humblest” in high school, and the winner of an “Ethics” award my senior year, I had to be a good person – right? I’m not so sure.
Every Tuesday and Thursday I am faced with the fact that my treatment of animals makes my kindness questionable if not completely non-existent. According to Dick, it is our treatment and compassion for animals that determines our very humanity. Kindness for me was always about how I treated other humans – what did animals have to do with it? As it turns out, it has a lot to do with it. Compassion is defined as “The feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it; pity that inclines one to spare or to succour”(236). What I found most surprising about this excerpt is that the word “human” is not included in the definition of compassion. The definition refers only to “another” – which could hypothetically include the entire spectrum of everything that is living. If we are compassionate beings, then shouldn’t we have compassion for all forms of life? This is where my own level of kindness comes into question. To be genuinely kind means to have some form of compassion and point of relation between yourself and “another.” Why have I, for so long, excluded the importance of compassion for animals in this equation? Habit or choice?

On a similar note, one of the most striking notions in Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Sleep was that Phil Resch’s lack of mercy for androids made him indeed less empathetic. Rick, finds himself in sharp contrast to Resch, realizing that “throughout his psyche he experience the android as a clever machine—as in his conscious view. And yet, in contrast to Phil Resch, a difference had manifested itself”(141). If even androids hold some form of life and reason for empathy, then imagine the level of compassion we should exhibit towards animals. Once again, this idea brings in the notion of respect and kindness for “another” and not just “another human.”
Kindness is only a piece of the puzzle, however. The more important question I seem to be asking myself is if I am capable or willing to change? If I am emotionally intelligent, I should be able to not only exhibit “self-control” and “manage [my] disturbing emotions and impulses, and...channel them in useful ways”(263), but I should also learn to become a “change catalyst,” or a leader who can “catalyze change...recognize the need for change, challenge the status quo, and champion the new order”(264). Now that I am conscious of my treatment of animals, eating meat on a regular basis has become an undeniably conscious choice. When I stop by Quiznos in between classes or order my favorite meal – half a pastrami sandwich on Jewish rye with a side of potato salad – I am no longer inadvertently supporting the slaughter of animals I am supposed to have compassion for. My habit has become my choice.





...And I can't believe that this is what I have chosen.

On a similar note, in Sara’s blog, she said that “The viewers might feel sad for the animal, sympatric at best, but has no real connections to the animal: they never met them before, and they never will.” She’s right – how can I learn how to truly put myself in the shoes of an entirely other being? I cannot. But I can certainly be moved by their pain and moreover, I can make the choice to help relieve it.
In Dick’s novel, the only thing that separates humans from androids is their empathy and capacity for kindness. The trouble for me is that I do not believe animals should be treated in the exact same manner as humans. In my mind, there is an undeniable, distinct difference between a human and an animal. The trouble here, however, is that this reasoning has allowed me to deny animals of the compassion and respect they rightfully deserve. Maybe it’s not about treating them like humans – maybe it’s just about giving them the respect any life deserves. Moreover, it is not the eating of meat that disturbs me, it is the fact that these meat industries have robbed them of a life. Watching “Earthlings” and seeing baby chicks been debeaked, baby cows being strapped to a wall and fed a purely liquid diet, and “milk” cows dying from exhaustion after being hooked up to tubes their entire lives, it has become apparent to me, now more than ever, that I have helped to rob a living, breathing, feeling being of a life.

So am I kind person? I’m not sure, but if I’m as “emotionally intelligent” as I hope I am, I will be.