South Korean dog meat farmers push back against growing moves to outlaw their industry
South Korean dog meat farmers push back against growing moves to outlaw their industry
Dog meat consumption, a centuries-old practice on the Korean Peninsula, isn't explicitly prohibited or legalized in South Korea
Dog meat consumption, a centuries-old practice on the Korean Peninsula, isn't explicitly prohibited or legalized in South Korea
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Dog meat consumption is a centuries-old practice on the Korean Peninsula and has long been viewed as a source of stamina on hot summer days. It's neither explicitly banned nor legalized in South Korea, but more and more people want it prohibited. There's increasing public awareness of animal rights and worries about South Korea’s international image.
I haven't met anyone below sixty who eats dog meat. Even if it doesn't get banned, I'm sure the practice will die out within one generation. It's definitely getting rarer and rarer.
It's sad that a fringe, outdated practice reflects poorly on the whole country. Most Koreans love dogs and they're as horrified by the practice as Westerners are.
I don’t get what’s so horrifying about eating dogs that wouldn’t be just as horrifying when applied to other animals. Why can’t we love other animals just as much as we love dogs?
I agree with you on principle. However, it shouldn't surprise you that people draw a distinction since dogs are often pets and people develop strong emotional bonds with them, whereas very few people have interacted with pigs or cows.
It doesn’t surprise me, but it does disappoint me. You’d think people would apply the logic they use for dogs to other animals as well, or at least see the hypocrisy.
I am truly and honestly trying to wrap my head around why I feel (as a meat eater) that cows and chickens are okay to eat, but not dogs or cats. For me, I think It's part social conditioning, part perceived intelligence of the animals, part eating habits of the animals themselves (dogs and cats are predators, cows and chickens are prey; pretty consistently, humans will eat the animals that don't eat meat).
As with very many things in humans, the logic doesn't match the emotional decision. I personally don't think there is anything morally wrong with eating meat and I understand that if I'm okay with eating cows, I should also be okay with people eating dogs. But I just can't seem to change that opinion.
What I absolutely can't support is the mistreatment of animals in farming. At the very least, we can respect their lives and respect the things they provide us when we kill them.
I've worked with pigs on an organic farm, and I'm convinced that if people in general spent any amount of time with a happy, relaxed pig, they'd swear off pork altogether. Pigs are extremely smart and sociable, and even have a sense of humor.
That being said, I'm with you, it's the unnecessary suffering that I can't abide. And it's not even a matter of intelligence; chickens are pretty dumb (though they're a lot smarter than people credit them for), and I wouldn't want to see one suffer either. They're sensitive animals all the same, as any basic interaction quickly illustrates. The idea that it's fine to torment an animal because they're dumb is borderline inhuman to me.
i respect your ability to self-reflect and assess yourself rationally and logically. It’s fine to feel the way you do, as long as you’re aware that your choices may not be rooted in inherent rationality or morality of an action.
Hypocrisy might be the most human trait out of all of them.
Should we love mesofauna and other invertebrates as much too? Because plenty of those are killed in the process of growing vegan food.
Feeding animals plants is responsible for 3/4 of the agricultural land. The goal of veganism is to reduce suffering as much as possible. There is no illusion of living on earth with zero impact, the goal is a minimize the impact. We could reduce the land use to 1/4 with a plant based diet. And obviously stop the intentional killing and abusing of sentient beings.
Then don't eat animals you have to feed. If you really want to reduce animal suffering as much as possible, then you should try to survive via hunting and fishing as much as possible.
In fact, if you consider that a wild-caught fish was likely about to kill other fish, then catching a fish may be as morally necessary as flipping a switch on a runaway trolley.
Why is it that you insist on killing others? My plant based diet is cheaper, healthier and creates less suffering. Do you think everyone could or should just kill wild animals when they don't need to? https://xkcd.com/1338/
a wild-caught fish was likely about to kill other fish, then catching a fish may be as morally necessary
The fish has no alternative and if you catch one you steal it without the need for it from other animals. Are you trying to make lions vegans? We have options, we have moral agency.
Killing animals is inevitable regardless of diet. Your plant based diet requires growing crops, but tilling soil and harvesting plants kills millions or billions of invertebrates. They are so small that they escape everyone's attention, yet they are still animals killed to make your food.
Fishing and hunting kills animals too, of course. But it does not require literally uprooting an ecosystem.
Finally, a trolley has no moral agency either. That doesn't mean nobody should interfere with it, or even destroy it if it threatens enough other lives.
Killing animals is inevitable regardless of diet. Your plant based diet requires growing crops, but tilling soil and harvesting plants kills millions or billions of invertebrates. They are so small that they escape everyone’s attention, yet they are still animals killed to make your food.
Are you a concern troll or do just don't know that we could reduce with a plant based diet the land use, the tiling of soil and the killing of those billions invertebrates? The intentional killing of 90 billion land animals and trillions of fish aside
Sure, you could reduce land use for farm raised animals.
But I'm not talking about eating those, I'm talking about eating wild caught animals. Unlike vegetables, wild caught animals require no land use at all.
Then from that perspective, you’d be fine with people eating dogs right
I would never eat dogs. I like dogs.
More generally, I think it's perfectly ok to have emotions, and I think it's ok to make distinctions between those who I'm emotionally attached to and those who I'm not emotionally attached to.
For example, I have houseplants that I nurture and I don't want to see die, but I don't really care if see some other plant of dying in the wild.
On Mother's Day, do you give every Mom a present or just your own Mom?
So you admit that you, and everyone else who supports the killing of animals except a particular species, purely because you personally think that particular species is ‘cute’, are being irrational and only bigoted against the practice because you like that particular species. Good to know.
Also, that ‘Mother’s Day’ example is beyond ridiculous. I love my own mom above all else, of course, but I wouldn’t be apathetic to other moms out there being slaughtered.
Well, there are children dying in parts of the world. Is it morally ok to give your children birthday gifts, take them to movies, and help them pay for college, when that money could be used to save the life of a distant child?
Noted vegans like Peter Singer argue that it's not ok. If a distant child's life is at risk, then, you must prioritize all your gifts towards helping the distant child. He uses the same kind of reasoning for his vegan arguments: a child is equivalent to a child just as a dog is equivalent to a pig.
I think that's ridiculous. "Irrational" or not, humans will always prioritize those close to them, whether their own children over others or their own pet over random animals.
I totally understand valuing your own pet over random animals (I would too) but those dogs in Korea aren’t your pets; they’re random animals that you have no association with.
Fair enough.
I would never eat a dog, but it's not my place to tell Koreans what to do.
Well, then I guess we both agree with each other.
Most Koreans love dogs and they're as horrified by the practice as Westerners are.
Do you have a source for this?
Straight from Wikipedia, quoting this article in Korean:
"In a 2020 survey of South Koreans, 83.8% of respondents reported never having consumed dog meat nor having plans to ever do so."
If it's that high it makes sense the business will end soon one way or the other.
Straight from Wikipedia, quoting this article in Korean:
"In a 2020 survey of South Koreans, 83.8% of respondents reported never having consumed dog meat nor having plans to ever do so."
I have Korean friends that love their dogs and don't eat dogs. I don't know any Koreans that told me they eat dog.
Does that count?
I’d like to see them ban other animal meat with just as much fervor.