Dog starved in museum
From news on the internet, this story was apparently a hoax. No dog was actually starved in a gallery.
However for the last few weeks I have know about this story, and I believed that a stray dog died in a gallery. The reaction against this story on the internet was exceedingly harsh. Everywhere I saw comments about the story, most people wanted to send the artist to prison, or simply kill him. It was complete outrage.
And I saw a bit of an Oprah show where they did an investigation into puppy mills, where dogs are kept in cages for their whole lives. People were outraged. Things were happening. Dogs were being "rescued" (or humanely put down). Everybody was exceptionally concerned about the dogs.
And the only real opinion I could get myself to hold about this topic was that I couldn't feel really bad about either case. I don't hate dogs, and don't want to hurt them. But I couldn't rush to a conclusion on the topic. There are trillions of animals that are kept in cage, caught in nets, and killed. It seems that people are lying to themselves if they believe they can both be concerned about dogs and ignore where their food comes from.
This type of gut reaction is apparent in a lot of places. Look at every side of the story, avoid being a hypocrite.
Kyler
1 comment:
I'm going to have to agree Kyler. You hear so often about how our generation in North America in particular has become "desensitized" to violence, cruelty, pornography, sex and any number of other things. I'll to suggest that maybe they have become desensitized in the same way to happiness and restraint. I would also agree that it is a question of scale. The image of one dog in one gallery is something that is of a scale that could be changed - stoping starvation in Darfour or ethnic cleansing in Europe on the other hand is not. Wat disturbes me the most is how majority of the criticism seem grounded in some level of moral (read religious) judgment. I can only wish that I too had the Dog granted power to condem all the things I don't understand. Life would be so much simpler.
Post a Comment