Choosing a superior route of advancing animal rights seems rather trivial to me when, just like learning math, different audiences prefer or even require different methods of teaching in order gaining knowledge and especially in order to respond. In addition to variations of learning methods, it is further difficult for me to prefer either nonfiction or fiction over the other as a means to promote animal rights when each of these two categories discuss the other as a valid source of information. Nonfiction writer, Wendy Doniger believes that “vegetarianism and compassion for animals is not the same thing at all” (643). In order to back this claim up with evidence, Doniger cites Elizabeth Costello, a fictional character created by J.M. Coetzee. “Elizabeth Costello vividly reminds us that it is unusual for most individuals to eat meat without killing animals…an equally normal for an individual to kill without eating the kill – or, indeed, any other meat “ (643).
I feel that choosing one side or other other from the fiction/nonfiction spectrum would only be detrimental to the advancement of animal rights because the two balance each other and fill voids that the other may not have the capacity to fill. With that being said, if I were forced to choose one or the other as being more productive in their fight for animal rights, I would choose non-fiction writers such as Doniger and Smuts. This decision was not made on which is more right or more data based, but rather what is more effective for me as an individual. The person sitting next to me may very well deem fictional writing as the stronger advocate because it is simply a decision of preference, rather than one is better than the other. It is a left brain, right brain sort of thing. It is not a person’s choice how they learn best, but one will generally prefer one over the other.
The idea of animal rights is far more concrete when it is tangible to me. Wrapping my head around abstract, imaginary ideas is much less convincing than hearing an argument based off of real life situations that I may be presented with in my future. I “gain a redeeming sense of compassion” when animal cruelty is compared with the treatment of the victims of the Holocaust because I have seen pictures of these people and have relatives who were submitted to such abuse (670). “Pain is pain, no matter what the species of the being that feels it” but, in my opinion, this I can empathize most with this statement when pertaining to nonfictional characters, rather than a made up father-daughter story such as Coetzee utilizes in his Disgrace. When Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped and nsot probably raped by her captor, my mom went out and bought me pepper spray and I am now very aware of my surroundings when I am walking anywhere alone. This was a true story that I felt was tangible. In contrast, Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones", a little girl is kidnapped raped and murdered. Was I afraid and sympathetic while reading the book? Yes. Did I change my attitude about life? No, it was not real, just a fictional story. In Jeremy Bentham asked the question, “The question is not, Can they reason? Nor, Can they talk? But rather, Can they suffer?” (726). Yes, humans and animals both fulfill all three of these requirements, but my question becomes, Can fictional characters reason? Can fictional characters talk? Can fictional Characters suffer? I do not believe fictional characters can do any of these three things because they are not real, whereas nonfiction writers of animal rights advocacy speak truths about those and towards those that can both share in similar feelings, emotionally and physically. This connection allows me to believe that, if necessary, I choose nonfictional writing as the superior route of advancing animal rights.
http://universitycenters.ucsd.edu/play-movies.php?start=2010-02-07&end=2010-02-13&page=6
http://www.proteatours.de/en/countrys/south-africa/travel-information/literature/index.html
http://www.rjgeib.com/biography/europe/germany/berlin.html
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