According to the common majority opinion, the "farm animal" is often seen as something that is less valuable than us and that we do not concede any claims to.
Why is that? Tradition? Because it is like that? Because it's just an animal? Well, one reason, why we have learned to think like that, is called "speciesism". It refers to the phenomenon of moral discrimination of living beings due to their species affiliation. It also implies the idea that the life and suffering of another species is no less important to consider than that of one's own species. I know, in some situations difficult to imagine, for example, if the mosquito disturbs your holy sleep. I like to reach out for the newspaper and defend myself as well here. But let us now talk about individuals who have a central nervous system, which, like us, are vertebrates, and therefore feel the same pain as we do. So why have we now learned to find it normal to confiscate other creatures, to accept as a given that calves are taken away at birth from their mothers so we can drink their milk, or to accept that male calves (few months old) be processed into veal after birth? Can we not see parallels to racism here? Are these creatures not exploited the same way like the slaves earlier in the US? Do these living things have no will to live and to be happy? But they are still only animals, you might hear yourself saying again. And anyway that's normal, because humans have always eaten meat and it would just be like that? That would be way too easy. Why did we learn to think like that? Dr. Melanie Joy, social psychologist, named this phenomenon “carnism”.
Carnism
"What we call "normal" is ultimately nothing more than the sum of the beliefs and behaviors of the prevailing majority culture - that is the carnal norm - and as a social norm, carnism is so deeply anchored that we do not even perceive it (... )
What we call "natural" is merely the interpretation of history by the prevailing majority culture. However, it does not show the history of mankind, but the carnivorous history. Because it is not referred to our early fruit-eating ancestors, but only on their later, meat-eating offspring. In other words, we go back in human history only as far as necessary to justify our present carnivist practices". (source: Melanie Joy, 2014 in an interview with Jeff Manner. She is described it in detail in her book" Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism".)
Please, deviate from the idea that for example fast food chains suggest to us: pictures of happy cows on the green meadows with lush grass. The idea is wrong and deliberately misleading. The absolute majority of these creatures spends his time in industrial large enterprises, illuminated in huge halls with neon lights. This picture of the happy cow wants to give the consumer only a clear conscience. The content of the burger two or three years ago spent his life as dairy cow in gruesome existence in a milking parlor without movement, until it was finally moved with his conspecifics to the slaughterhouse, where it could already sense on arrival in the slaughterhouse, what fate would await them.
Most of us have probably already heard about the cruel images from the slaughterhouses through the media. Viewing these images, videos, movies (try watch "earthlings" on youtube) requires courage and a strong stomach. I myself could never muster that courage because I can not see this suffering. These pictures are always dismissed as an exception by the persons responsible for these conditions. In truth, and there is so much documented video footage from slaughterhouses of different countries, these pictures represent the daily norm of suffering and torture.
What is the main reason why we consciously look away and say, "I do not want to see that now, that's too cruel for me". The answer is simple. Because you do not want to deal with it, with the reality, as it is, because it would mean a significant change in your own understanding and the most serious: because you do not like to question your way of life.
The reason why I went vegan
I've always consciously looked the other way, not wanting to listen, when my former vegan partner at lunch tried to confront me with how terrible the conditions were. Until I accidentally stumbled over a documentary on television with the remote control, and first had to see how piglets were knocked to death with iron bars in a breeding farm
From that point on, it was clear to me personally that I no longer want to share my responsibility for the misery. Maybe that will give some of you a food for thought to think about your eating habits. And if you are worried about your health, or have ever thought about eliminating animal products from your diet: Man is not a born carnivore, he is omnivore. A vegetable nutrition is balanced and contains all the important substances that it needs for a healthy body. There are many independent studies of scientific institutes supporting this argument.
The pictures I used are from www.estherthewonderpig.com