C'est La Vie: to amuse sentimental dreamers

The lessening of human suffering is a mere dummy set up to amuse sentimental dreamers... –Lewis Carroll (543)

In a modern world, we are subjected everyday to images of death and violence on national television networks. I have personally seen images of gruesome images from police crime/accident scenes from family and friends of my family in law enforcement. There is a human curiosity with violence and death, as manufactured by media networks. Long gone are the times were you could turn on a news network station and view family programming, along with images on people and animals alike spending the day together at a city function. Sex and violence sells, and that is what seems to keep this perpetual system going. The more these images flood our entertainment activities, the more the public craves. In relation to this animal humanities course, images that do not surface often are of animals in these same scenarios. The images of animals being rescued, or advertisement to rescue animals are the extent that we exposed to the suffering of other creatures that we share this planet with.

Scientists and student researchers on the UT campus have conducted experiments on animals to further feed our fascination with sex. A student that had conducted an experiment in the Animal Research Center at the University of Texas wrote about his experience experimenting on quails to better understand the novelty of sex. His experiment “investigated the copulatory (sexual) behavior of Japanese quail and its effects on learning and memory” (553). To accomplish his task, he was forced by the nature of the experiment to practice vivisection, as to not corrupt chemical data. He writes that “The subjects did not receive sedation or anesthetic as those chemicals would conflict with the aims of the experiment” (553). Once the experiment had been completed, and the animals killed to feed the data, the published results of course left out the avenue taken to get the data for the research. The purpose of the experiment was to show “novelty diminishes the effect of sexual experience in male Japanese quail” (554). This student follows his recounting of the experiment with stating “as a former researcher, I am not uniformed. Moreover, given my appreciation for both sides of the animal rights debate, I do not consider myself a fanatic… While I appreciate the need for animal research, I completely disagree with vivisection” (555). Another student researcher reflects "there probably never exists a point at which I will become numb to these sites..." and I hope this thought stays with him/her (558)

For the human curiosity in the subject of sex, why not experiment with humans? This is a novel idea for if we were to suggest testing the novelty diminishing the effect of sexual experience with human males, the masses would be excited to find out the results. Behind the curtain however, would scientists be able to conduct their experiments without feeling pity toward the poor souls that would be killed after a sexual experience. The public would find outrage if they knew that people were killed to get these results. So why is it that the testing on animals, especially using the method of vivisection to get results for medical publishing, go unnoticed? The reason is simple, we enjoy the convenience of going to a bookstore and purchasing a magazine to learn new information and not knowing what goes on behind the curtain. How many Americans would daily drive thru McDonalds for their daily lunch if they saw how their food was prepared in the kitchen? I realize this is a far cry for a decent analogy for the torturous killing of animals, but what else do I have in my arsenal of shared experiences that would make the average/blind American to think about this point?

The author of the Alice children’s book series wrote an article for Fortnightly Review entitled “Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection” in 1875. So to the informed human, the issue of vivisection has been around for many centuries already. In this article, Carroll takes time to “attempt to formulate and classify some of the many fallacies, as they seem to me, which I have met with in the writings of those who advocate the practice”(541). He takes time to address thirteen fallacies that he has come across. The major problem today, as it was in 1875 is the dis-understanding of the practice. As I have stated before, the fact that the images and practices being kept behind the great green curtain of OZ. Animals suffer just as humans do, for are we not akin to others that share most of the same genetic code? Carroll writes in 1875, “For does it not presuppose the axiom that human and animal suffering differ in kind? A strange assertion this, from the lips of people who tell us that man is twin-brother to the monkey” (542). So why not the experimentation on humans? I do not, or will I advocate vivisection on humans, but the question makes you think about your own mortality. “Modern animal researchers… believe they are above moral obligations” (549). So what would this scientist say about experimenting on a fellow human? He might make a statement much as Carroll suggests; “He will tell you that this is merely a question of relative expediency,--that, with so feeble a physique as yours, you have only to be thankful that natural selection has spared you so long” (548).