What makes a human? Is it supreme power above all other creatures of the Earth or the highest compassion and responsibility? Which of them is genuine to human nature and our attitude to the world we live in? The documentary Earthlings is dedicated to finding the right answers to these questions. It tells about the way we manage our relationships with nature and its inhabitants. It tells about and shows unpleasant things most of us not only did not know about but moreover would not like to hear about or see. The way we behave with animals be wild animals, domestic animals or even pets is ultimately wrong. The film tells about all sorts of the exploitation of other species that we employ.
Firstly, about the way we behave with our so-called best friends – pets. Cats and dogs are used as toys in our cruel hands; this clearly is not the way we act with friends. Their trustfulness is used, and after humans are bored with them, they are left on the street unable to sustain their lives in unaccustomed and rough conditions. Secondly, the animals we use for food production – cattle and poultry. The conditions they are maintained in are horrible, along with the inhumane procedures they are exposed to – from painful operations without anesthesia to brutal, agonizing killing. Surprisingly, the fish industry is not clean too – the industrial trawlers that clear life in large parts of the ocean in one day are not the best example of humanity. The industry of leather and fur is also a cruel one – from the conditions in which the animals are kept to the ways in which the skin is brutally torn off living animals. The industry of entertainment involving animals such as bullfights, horse and other races, zoos, circuses are another source of suffering for animals. They are tortured physically and mentally, made to do unnatural things and to live in tiny artificial environments disabling them from fulfilling their natural functions and duties. The tests of cosmetics and medications on animals that are performed in the least painful way is another illusion. We believe this to be the inevitable sacrifice for our own well-being and prosperity and that so that everything is performed in a most humane way, however, this our belief is apparently a lie.
Sometimes the film is actually hard to watch because of the cruelty that is exposed right to your eyes, however everything becomes even more complicated when you understand that such actions take place every minute of every hour of every day, from year to year, moreover that this actually happens in every country and possibly even in every city. Although, we should not forget the mission of this film – to make a change to this situation.
The part of our conclusions from this movie and actual actions that we perform after viewing it is the critical part. If we simply watch these pictures of terror, agony, and cruelty and will only cry about how poor the animals are while buying another large steak and a couple dozens of eggs, then nothing will never ever change, and all of the deaths as well, as the efforts of the filmmakers will go in vain. So there are a couple of conclusions we should make – they can be classified as instrumental and ideological. The instrumental conclusions are the direct actions that we might do to reduce suffering such as become vegetarians, not wear natural fur and leather and many else. However, the second part – ideological conclusions are by far more important. We should adjust and shape our ethical system that will incorporate humane and rational attitude towards animals. Nowadays, our society employs an ethical system in which the rights of the animals and their position in our hierarchy of values is vaguely defined. To continue our evolution as only rational beings, we should adjust our worldview to incorporate all other forms of life in it. This is not the barbarian-like way of brutal power but the way of true might. We are starting to understand that humans cannot live in a barren desert all by themselves, our species is not self-sustainable – we can survive only in the complex system of millions other lifeforms such as plants, animals, insects, bacteria, etc. This is not the matter of our kindness; this is the matter of our survival as the inhabitants of this planet.
At the beginning of the film, the narrator describes the types of discrimination – racism, sexism, discrimination by sexual orientation – all of these concepts are very well known to us since all of these types of injustice are actively fought with in our society. But apart from these notions, Joaquin Phoenix introduces speciesism that is the type of discrimination of one species by another. Obviously, this concept nowadays is relevant to humans regarding our attitude to other inhabitants of the Earth. I do not fully agree with this concept. The term discrimination originally refers to the interaction between originally equal subjects, so by using this term we imply that humans and animals are originally equal which is obviously not true. There is a hierarchy of sentiency, rationality or evolutionary development and so all of the living beings should be bestowed rights based on their complexity. Such ethical system will not be about exploitation but cooperation and mutual responsibility. It is still yet to be constructed and implemented.
Works Cited
Earthlings. 2005. Web. 18 Jan. 2016.
