What if it was the other way around???

     I just started reading Animal Farm by George Orwell and I wan't to ask the interesting question.  What if humans weren't top of the world and animals had the same rights as humans?  What if humans couldn't enslave animals to work for them and produce for them?  What if chickens didn't lay eggs for them and cows didn't make milk for them?  I think that these are some incredibly hard questions to answer that can bring up many moral and class related issues in our society today.

     At the beginning of Animal Farm, Old Major, the old pig who is considered the farm's wise animal calls a meeting to address an issue that he dreamed about the day before.  He talks about how the human's totally rely on the animals and that all of the animals on the farm have a use to the community except the humans.  He points out that they are the only animal that doesn't produce something or have a characteristic that is remotely useful.  He identifies that quote "Man is the enemy." and that "All the habits of Man are evil."(page 21).  He brings the whole barn to life against the humans.

     As I ask myself the questions posed in the first paragraph I can't help, but think that a lot of the criticism against the humans are completely correct.  Humans clearly don't bring anything positive to the ecosystems of the world.  Wherever they go, they destroy everything in their path and this has been happening throughout history for a very long time.  They have forced many animals into extinction by humans and they have managed to destroy our environment to the point that scientists are predicting when the Earth will progress to become unlivable.  We have cut down down forests and melted miles upon miles of ice in the Arctic.  We have exposed ground on the poles of the Earth that have not been uncovered for millions and millions of year.  To me this is totally unfair.  We are arrogant creatures that only think about our own good.  We will kill and destroy anything that lies in our path for advancement of civilization.  This is because we don't think about any of the other animals that use this planet as creatures that deserve any rights.

   I think that this world would be much better without the creature that is the human.  This is not possible because I am a human, but I think that we have to try our hardest to limit the impact that we have on our environment.  I think that our model way of living should be the way that Native Americans used to live.  They used to live off of the buffalo and their environment.  They used buffalo for food, clothes, and shelter.  They took only what they needed and nothing more.  I think that they are like the barn animals in the book.  Despite this we managed to destroy this too as the United States government hunted buffalo almost to extinction and forced the people that should be our role models into little tiny reservations that are a collection of the worst pieces of land that they could find.

     I'm sorry if this feels a little accusatory and I sorry about that, but I feel that humans have destroyed this world.  I think we have to admit this and work together towards a better future by not denying it.