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In 1988, I chose to spend an evening viewing Victor Schonfeld’s “The Animals Film.” This was a strange and revelatory experience. Sitting in front of a small screen, the history of animal exploitation flickered before my eyes. From the first steps in the 1930’s when farm animals were crowded indoors for reasons other than winter, to dog and cock fighting, bear baiting, fox hunting and hare coursing, to name but a few. I already knew of this – who doesn’t – but I wasn’t prepared for one of the most disturbing examples of humanities grim cruelty toward animals, vivisection. Until then, I had an image of science as a dynamic, progressive, frontier-expanding activity, and of its practitioners as dedicated teams of rational, open-minded professionals whose motivation was highly moral and whose concern was to benefit humanity. Much of the evidence presented in this film suggested quite the contrary, with the main beneficiary of these tests being the company profit margin.
It is not difficult to understand why animals are treated so indifferently in a society where the powerful minority holds the majority in similar contempt. What is hard is to break the circle of unthinking cruelty, and this can only be done as people begin to question the accepted values of our way of life and the grim fact of our endemic destructiveness. Here, as with other conflicts, we must build our conceptual bridges with the resources of our age. Puzzling and agonizing though these clashes often are, we know we must somehow deal with them by working out; how we should ideally think about the world and relate to animals.
The way we think about the world has a fundamental impact on decisions concerning the treatment of animals and our relationship with them. Given the importance of this, it is somewhat surprising to contemplate that the majority of people never question the way they think about the world. In many cases the world is a place where everything is ‘natural’ and ‘inevitable.’ We seem to have an astonishing ability to close our eyes to the truth, to live in a world of delusions and make-believe. These characteristics, shared to a greater or lesser extent by all of us, have helped to create a sick planet and a great deal of suffering to animals.
If everybody showed respect and had compassion for the nonhuman world, the earth would then undoubtedly become a more balanced and healthier place to live. Furthermore, if people maintain that compassion they will automatically free themselves from their mental patterns of ignorance. Knowing what is beneficial to yourself and others, and being able to do it, is wisdom, which cuts through our fundamental ignorance. Indeed, “The greatest knowledge we can posses, Socrates maintained, the only knowledge that matters a damn, is the awareness of our boundless, fathomless ignorance.”
Essentially, what needs to be done is not that particularly difficult, it is just a matter of a simple turn-around in attitude. Just because the way we think about animals has been inoculated culturally (and not programmed into us genetically as those who take part in blood sports occasionally claim), does not mean the disease is not treatable. If changed attitudes then lead not only changes in our personal lives but also to policy changes at the corporate and government level, indeed we have cause for hope. As civilisations advance, the trend must always be toward increasing humanity and compassion, and deceasing cruelty and exploitation.
People need to educate themselves about vivisection and pass on this information to friends and family. It is only our ignorance on the issue that perpetuates this cruel and barbaric practice. Something can always be done if the will of the majority dictates it. You can find out more about vivisection from any of the following organisations: British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection; Dr Hadwen Trust; Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine; Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments; National Anti-Vivisection Society; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; The Humane Research Trust; Uncaged. There is also a selection of informative short videos on You Tube, just enter vivisection or animal testing/experimentation.
One of the most effective ways of turning changed attitudes into positive, concrete actions is by buying products not tested on animals. The grim fact is that all too many companies still test their final products and ingredients on live animals. Buying products that are cruelty free demonstrates to those companies that continue to test that you will not be supporting them. Nowadays, it’s very easy to find products not tested on animals and these can easily be found on the internet (i.e. Caring Consumer, Go Cruelty Free, Leaping Bunny, Uncaged, etc), in whole-food and ‘alternative’ shops, and increasingly in some supermarkets (i.e. all Co-op own brands are not tested on animals).
Unlike so many other animal abuses, the issue of using animals in product testing is one that ultimately rests with consumers. Reliance on animal testing methods for cosmetic and household products will continue unless concerned citizens speak out with their purchasing power. By making informed humane choices and encouraging others to do the same, individuals can push for an end to product testing and stop the needless suffering of countless animals each year.
Laboratory animals do not have a voice, so we must use our purchasing power to speak out for them.
About the Author:
Stephen Knight is the webmaster of Volunteer Latin America and the main contributor to the Latin Lounge
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Animal Testing – Support Brands Not Tested on Animals
Everyone knows animation when they see it. Animation is the process of using rapidly moving drawn or computer generated images to give the illusion of motion. Animation is what is used to make the Saturday morning cartoons you see on television and it is what is used to make those holiday specials everyone looks forward to seeing all year. Animation can also be done with 3-Dimensional objects like clay or action figures as in the very popular Christmas specials made back in the 1970’s that featured small dolls being filmed using stop motion photography. Animation used to be considered a novelty when it came to movies or prime time television shows. Studios would never think of putting animation in a position where it would be the feature even after the 1930’s when Walt Disney proved with Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs that animation could carry a full-length feature film. But over time something changed and now animation is threatening to be the method of choice for not only filmmakers but also prime time television producers as well.
For years the area of the animated feature film was the sole domain of the Walt Disney Company. Other companies would spring up and make the occasional animated feature but the only studio making their living, and reputation, almost solely on their animated feature films was the Walt Disney Company. Warner Brothers opened up an animation studio to compete with the animated short films that Disney was using to dominate the children’s market and Warner Brothers also wanted to use their animated short films as an enticement for theater owners to show their regular feature films. If the theater owner agreed to show the Warner Brothers feature film being offered they would get the animated cartoon for free. Since the cartoons from Warner Brothers were becoming breakaway hits, and many people were gladly paying full admission just to see the cartoons, it became an easy way for Warner Brothers to get their movies into theaters. But by the late 1970’s things started to change and animation was headed towards respectability in the mainstream media markets.
One of the people usually credited with bringing animation to the forefront is someone who did not deal in animation at all. Jim Henson was a puppet maker and he soon became world famous for his television shows, and movies, that featured his puppets that he called Muppets. In 1979 Henson released The Muppet Movie and while it did not change anyone’s mind about animation it did bring an interesting dynamic to the big screen that not many people had seen before. In The Muppet Movie there were puppets interacting with real people and being the main characters in the movie. Many movies before The Muppet Movie had used the idea of puppets, or animated characters, interacting with real people but The Muppet Movie was a sensational hit and it brought the idea to millions of people that had never seen it before. In 1982 Henson released The Dark Crystal, which was a fantasy feature film that used only puppets as characters and featured no actors at all. It wasn’t animation, and it was not as big of a hit as The Muppet Movie was, but The Dark Crystal proved that you did not need actors to carry a feature film. Six years later this idea was used to break open animation forever.
In 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was released and for the first time a feature film that used cartoons as its main characters won multiple Academy Awards. The film was monumental also for the fact that even though Walt Disney Studios made the film it also featured Warner Brothers’ characters as well. At the time it was released it was the most expensive movie ever made and it was also one of the most successful movies of the year. Roger Rabbit blew the doors off the animation world and suddenly studios everywhere we clamoring to create their own animated feature film. Animation had hit the big time.
Today two of the longest running prime time shows on television are animated. Family Guy is entering its eighth season on Fox network in the prime time Sunday slot and The Simpsons is entering its record breaking twentieth season on Fox prime time as well. South Park is entering its thirteenth season on Comedy Central and shows no signs of stopping. The Simpsons and South Park have both generated hit feature films during their run and the creators of South Park had a minor hit feature film when they made a movie completely with puppets. Today it is not unusual to find that two or three of the summer blockbusters are animated features and with the help of computers animation is heading into new and exciting directions.
For more information on animation, visit http://www.3dtoon.com.
About the Author:
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – The Animation Takeover