THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606280087
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: 65 lines
MUCH OF the continued debate over the arrival in Norfolk of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which opens its Front Street doors Monday, has seemed to me to be ``not-in-my-back-yard'' posturing.
As long as PETA was headquartered in Washington, I daresay most Hampton Roadsters cared not a whit about its often theatrical, sometimes ``disorderly'' activism for animal rights, which dates back 15 years.
But interfere with my precious sport fishing? Call out the state legislature. Bring in the governor. The Virginia way of life is being threatened by outside radical elements. PETA's messing with my fun!
(I now know how to get a bill passed quickly: Find a fisherman.)
People tell me it's ``human nature'' to protect ``what's mine.''
But possessiveness, territoriality, resistance to change, they're learned behaviors, just as sharing and empathy are. Or listening to other points of view, however alien, without reacting defensively.
As we await PETA's much-anticipated - even dreaded - arrival, it occurs to me that a good place to start in addressing some of the conflicting views it incites may be the ``back yard.'' For it's in our back yards that we develop feelings for other life, human and animal, and derive ethical principles that govern our conduct.
After all, PETA is about ``ethical'' treatment, right and wrong, responsibility. The basics learned at home. However perceived.
I don't intend to tell PETA advocates how to practice their principles, some of which I agree with, others I don't. (They certainly make the ``mainstream'' animal-rights movement seem more ``mainstream.'')
But I think they would do well to remember that we find our place in the world first at home, where we often eat fish, have fond memories of fishing with Dad, and usually don't talk about a fish's nerve endings.
Which is not to say that we can't be taught if we want to learn. But then we still might choose to fish.
Most attitudes toward animals, of course, develop in back yards filled not with fish, but with dogs and cats, companions whose well-being depends solely on us.
Some of us, a great many of us, learn to love and care for our companions, to respect their animalness, and share their lives.
Some of us learn to use them for our own sport and amusement.
And some of us learn that they are disposable.
I'll never forget being told by an acquaintance that he took his children's puppy to be euthanized before leaving on vacation because he didn't ``have the time'' to find a kennel. Death was more convenient. Now divorced, this swell guy is raising four sons, who were never told the truth.
I wish them luck. They need it.
I'll also never forget the reaction to this story of two other people who heard it - a man and a woman, who between them have three (and a half) divorces and seven children.
Neither one flinched or said a word. Each just nodded, implicitly accepting the callousness.
The woman now has two out-of-control ``yappers'' of her own, penned up during her 12-hour work days and allowed to run wild when she is home.
I could go on and on with stories about human ignorance, neglect and cruelty toward animals that we consider companions. And PETA says fish feel pain?
The way we treat such animals says a lot about our humanity, which we then teach to our children. In yet another cycle.
There are many back yards out there. I hope that PETA's presence in the neighborhood will open some of them up, not seal them off. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is a lawyer and book editor of The
Virginian-Pilot. by CNB