WEBVTT - Do Animals Have Natural Rights? 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:13.000 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:17.040 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry and this is 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:23.520 Stuff you Should Know, Part two about animals rare sweet. Yeah, 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.560 good one. And you wrote this for your buddies at 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.440 Primer Yeah. Yeah, let's give a little shout out to 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:35.720 Primer Stories. Um So, Primer Stories are basically doing for 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.240 uh the interactive medium, the same thing that podcast did 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.800 for radio and Ted Talks did for speaking engagements. And 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.440 I wrote an essay for him for season four and 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.159 you can check it out at Primer Stories dot com 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.279 slash s y s K go go check it out. 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.040 It's pretty neat, but it ties into animal rights and 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:00.840 uh humans. But you you did put this together, right. 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:02.920 I've put together this episode and then I wrote a 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:08.000 separate essay based on my research that, um is, it's different. Nice. 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.720 I'm Josh Clark and I did my book report on Yeah. 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.320 Luckily the primary dudes, Joe and Tim kept it from 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.280 devolving into that. Well, this was fantastic. I just want 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.600 to say that, thanks man, I appreciate it. Uh So, 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:24.560 I guess we don't need to set anything up. If 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.679 you haven't listened to the one on animal testing, yes, 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.520 stop right here, Yeah, just go do that and then 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.679 welcome to part two. Yeah, how awkward was that? I 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.959 thought it was pretty succinct. Okay, not awkward. Uh. So 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.880 tell me a little bit about your buddy Aristotle. So Aristotle, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.400 we mentioned him in the last episode. We're gonna say 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.200 that a lot. But Aristotle was one of the first 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.840 dudes to experiment on animals. I think I called him 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.400 a big dummy, you did, and as a joke, Yeah, 0:01:55.760 --> 0:02:01.880 and yeah, no, he's fine. Yeah he Uh. He was 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.080 a smart dude, he was. But one of the things 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.440 that he did not only um experimenting on animals, he 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.200 also came up with a hierarchy of animals based on 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.280 the souls he anticipated each possessed. He said, kitty got 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:21.040 pretty good, dog much better? What is that? Is he? Checkoslovakia? 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.640 I have no idea, No, I guess it'll just be 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.480 check now. Yeah, I don't know what that was unless 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.560 he's from like the fifties. It was It was not 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:37.079 Greco Roman? Uh, maybe Albanian. Okay, So Aristotle the Albanian 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.359 comes up with this hierarchy UM. And at the top 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:45.079 of the hierarchy, guess who humans And humans have all 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.480 three kinds of souls, the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.680 and the rational soul. We possess all three of those souls. Therefore, 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:54.799 we're at the top of the hierarchy of all the 0:02:55.600 --> 0:03:00.640 organisms on planet Earth. Below us are animals, and they've 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.240 got the first two. They've got the vegetative soul and 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.360 the sensitive soul, which means that like they like to 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:11.040 lay around and read UM romance novels, that's right. And 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.360 then you've got plants, and plants obviously have the vegetative soul. 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.680 So what he's describing are the different um I guess 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:24.280 life forces that he expected UM organisms to have. And 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.079 because of that, there was a hierarchy that was established. 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.320 And because of that hierarchy that Aristotle came up with, 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.640 we still view animals in a certain way today, like 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.440 we still basically follow that same hierarchy that he made, 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.360 uh hundred years ago or so. Yeah, And and the 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.880 whole kind of point of this episode is kind of 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.320 based on that whether or not animals have a soul 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.880 and where they rank or maybe should rank, and UM 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.280 it's sort of that's sort of going down the rabbit 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.800 hole myself of what a soul is and human even Well, 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.880 you're not the first to do that, of course, Um, 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.640 would you come up with? Would you come up with? 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.920 Everyone wants to hear, including me and Jerry? Nah, I don't. 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:12.160 I don't know. I'm still struggling with what I believe, 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:14.480 even at my advanced stage, and I think I will 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.280 till the day I die and become worm dirt. Right. 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.000 So that's one indication of what I believe. Your last 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:26.760 words are oh no, Um, But that that idea whether 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.960 or not animals do have a souls is nothing new. Um. 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:35.120 You point out very astutely that, Um, Judeo Christian wise, 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.160 they do not think that animals have souls and have 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.320 long held kind of a brutal attitude toward animals, like, 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.680 forget animals, just kick them in the face. I don't care. 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.000 That's a little harsh. But um, there the idea that 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.040 humans have dominion over animals very much a part of 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.920 the Judeo Christian ethic. Yeah, and should have dominion yea. 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.400 And that animals don't have souls, and that's reason what's 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.479 one reason why humans have dominion. That's right. It turns 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.760 out the Mormons actually are one of the few groups 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:10.480 in the West religiously speaking, that do believe that animals 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:17.479 survive into the afterlife. Mormons and then um seeks Muslims, Hindus, 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:22.960 big time Hindus, and Jane's Jainists. Um. They believe that 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.359 the best way to to um save your soul is 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.599 to protect other souls. So like you'll see a jainistum 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.839 with a little they they have little brooms and they'll 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.159 like wipe down or they'll they'll brush off a seat 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:37.960 before they sit on it because they don't want to 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.520 accidentally sit on any bug and take its life. Well 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.200 that's nice, that's uh. That's protection of other souls for sure. 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:48.600 Not like the cockroach, right, they'll still kill a kukara. 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.400 Oh man, I had a funny cockroach that incident last night. 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.520 Like I laugh, belly laughed for ten minutes. What did 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.839 the cock roads laugh? Well, there was a cockroach in 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.480 the room at some point that got away and um. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.560 Later on that night, Emily and I were in bed 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:07.400 and I was on my computer and she was reading 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:09.880 or something, and she looked up and on the ceiling 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.200 it was right above her and she, oh, there's that cockroach, 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.039 which I was shocked that she was that lazy fair 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.760 about it. I went, why are you not freaking out? 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:19.480 I was like, that thing's about to fall on you? 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.680 And right when I said you, he moved and fell 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.359 right on her. And it's so funny, like she's she 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.120 shrieked like a small child and jumped off the bed 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:33.600 quicker than I've ever seen her move. She scared my dogs. 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.279 I jumped and ran, but I didn't shriek, which I 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:42.040 just thought was very interesting dichotomy. Um and I killed it. 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.920 And it was just very very funny that she was 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:47.240 just like, oh, there's that cockroach, Like who are you? 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.719 You're not the Emily I know exactly, Like why aren't 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.359 you running? And she's super tired or something she was, 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.960 But yeah, it's just very strange. I think she learned 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.320 the lesson that a cockroach on the ceiling is not 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.440 on the ceiling for long means you roll out of bed, yeah, immediately. 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:10.000 So anyway, that's my cocorad story. Uh. Judaism they believe that, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.800 um well, it's a lot of debating in the Jewish community. 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.360 Some scholars say that they do have souls. Yeah, lately 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.960 they've been saying that, but only here while they're alive, 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.200 and they don't carry into the afterlife. Big work around. Yeah, 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:27.640 uh it is Uh. Pope John Paul the Second said, yeah, 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.120 you probably you you probably are going to see your 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.920 your little dog in the afterlife. Maybe it's possible. I'm 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:40.160 Pope John Paul. Everybody loves me. Would you like my autograph? Right? Me? 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:44.840 Gorby and Ronald Reagan rule the world? Uh. During the Enlightenment, 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.480 things change a little bit from the religious aspects to 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:52.080 more of a uh science based or philosophical and our 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:58.880 old buddy Descartes said animals have no internal experience, which 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.440 is very cold way of putting it. Yeah, he called 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.840 them automatons kind of famously actually, and he said that, um, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:13.400 they are capable of ex of responding to pain, but 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:17.880 because they don't have any internal experience, they can't actually 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:23.760 experience the pain. Therefore, when you, um are cutting open 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.400 a live dog and you're seeing it squirm and and 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:32.560 wrythe and agony strictly responding to a stimulus, it's not 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.360 actually going on. Like when Lucas testing out his new 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:41.720 hand and he's poking the like the different nerves or 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.320 the artificial nerves or whatever making the fingers move. He's 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.040 getting poked on the finger, but he doesn't feel that. 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.520 It's just a response to a stimuli. Yeah, I guess 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.040 very much like that. It's the same thing as like 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.719 with robots too. Yeah. I mean that's that's how essentially 0:08:56.000 --> 0:09:00.160 they cart decreed that animals were And that's some thing 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.960 that stuck out to me, like throughout researching this whole thing. 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.480 Humans have long just decreed that things are a certain way, 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.920 and that those decrees tend to fit whatever the human 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.880 wants to do to an animal at that time of course, right, Yeah, 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.320 that idea is sort of the basis was and still 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:22.280 kind of is for for scientists who experiment on animals. 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:27.920 They're trained to um to detach themselves emotionally and just say, no, 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.280 this is just a stimuli reaction. This is not an 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:35.160 animal that's actually feeling pain. Dogs don't have that. Dogs 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.240 don't have internal experience or internal lives, so you can't really, 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:45.480 I can't really feel pain or suffering. It's not true. Uh. 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.839 Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher in England. Correct, Yeah, a 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.560 big one and actually he's still around. They bring his 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:58.000 mummified body out for um dinners of the the guys 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.880 who run the college what, every once a year, and 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:03.840 he sits at the head of the table and his 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.880 head has actually been separated from his body, and they 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.439 bring that out too. It's in a case. It's pretty cool. 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:13.040 Holy cow. Yeah, as far as philosophers go, it's pretty neat. 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.560 So he had a pretty neat idea, which was, um, 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:18.720 you know what, it's not just about whether you can 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.719 reason with an animal, but can they suffer? He's he's 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.920 the one that kind of brought about this idea of 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.800 animals suffering in the same way that a human might, 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.000 which is a huge change. It was a big sea 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:33.520 change in the way that we saw animals, because up 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.320 to that point, the idea was that animals couldn't suffer, 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.880 and even if they could suffer, nobody was taking that 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.080 into account. But they couldn't suffer because they couldn't talk 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.800 or they couldn't rationalize. And he said, no, we I 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.359 think they can suffer. And he used his um philosific calculus, 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.719 which takes into account all of the suffering and all 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:58.199 of the happiness or pleasure produced by an event and 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:02.440 you weighed against one another and it's really involved. Actually, 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:07.640 but if you carry out Bentham's calculations, uh, you can 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.760 take any any event, any action, and determine whether it's 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:17.440 ethically like, morally correct or morally repugnant. And uh, he 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:22.280 came to the conclusion that experimenting on animals was morally 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.880 repugnant because animal suffering wasn't taken into account. And he 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.560 took it into account, and it wasn't just a one 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:30.320 off where he wrote an essay about it like this 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:32.480 is a well he went back to a lot and 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.319 was kind of an agitator for animal welfare early on. Well, 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.160 there's a lot of money in it, right. Uh So 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:44.760 moving on to and I think you make a very 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.959 good point here that the protectionism for animals really starts 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:54.360 around the time where we made the transition um in 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.319 in farming and how we raised in eight animals. Yeah, 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:00.960 because you sue like you be like I feel like 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.160 some beef for dinner. I'm gonna go kill old Bessie 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.360 r Cow. Yeah, And you love Bessie, and your little 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.960 boy or a little girl might cry about Bessie, but 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.240 then the parents would explain that you know, We raised Bessie, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.800 and we loved and cared for Bessie, treated Bessie very nicely. UM. 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.760 And the reason Bessie is here so Bessie can eventually 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:23.880 feed us, and we should um honor that in every 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.800 way possible by using as much of this animal as 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:31.240 we can and honor the life that she led. You know, 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.280 or if you had a bad parent, they just kind 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.360 of wheeled that cleaver in your direction and shut up 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.720 just as fast. This could be you. But that was 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.280 a huge sea change when things started to change and 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:47.240 industrialization took off, UH, and people were no longer connected 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.840 to the animal on their farm that they ate. It 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.959 was a sea change and how people I mean it 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.400 directly coincided with how people felt about animals. When you 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.520 could buy something in the store that looked nothing like 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:00.400 that animal. Yeah, it's not even called pig, it's called 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.640 pork or bacon or ham. Um. And then not only 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.400 that chuck something I left out here that came across later. Um. 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.520 This is at the same time when people move from 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.640 the farm to the factory, from rural um in interactions 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:18.440 with animals to UH to urban settings without animals. This 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.000 is when people started to keep pets. Yeah, you know, 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:25.080 I never realized what you just said there about pork 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.640 and beef. That never really dawned on me. It's never 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.800 called pick that. If it said ground cow, right instead 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:35.360 of ground beef, people would be like, reveal, yeah, some 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.880 baby cow, ground baby cow. Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense. 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.440 And such a dummy that that never occurred to me, Like, 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:45.760 is that where that came from? Calling them different names? 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.560 I would guess veal is probably like Latin for baby 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.880 calf or something. I don't think it was a purposeful obfuscation. 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.760 I don't know, would not surprise me. This is before 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.280 the advent of pr, so I think much more innocent, 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.080 naive back then. Chicken is but who gives? Who cares 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.240 about chicken? I was saying that, Um, this is also 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.240 the time when people began keeping pets around the house, 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:18.360 so animals, so we're removed from food production, and we're 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:20.960 we were starting to see animals not as commodities but 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.600 as sweet little things that we want to care for 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.680 and protect and like give food to and like let's 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.160 sleep in the bed with us. And it developed this 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.840 dichotomy of how we view animals today, which is, um, 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:38.920 animals are to be protected by humans, but we can 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.440 also eat them. It's totally cool. Uh. And that's a 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:44.480 really if you step back and look at it. It's 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.800 so easy to take for granted because that's how almost everybody, 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:53.160 except for vegans um view animals. It's really easy to 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:54.760 take it for granted. But if you step back and 0:14:54.760 --> 0:15:01.200 look at it, it's a very bizarre contradictory um paradigm. Yeah, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.080 it's sort of a deal people have made with themselves mfortually, 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.320 I think, and society is made with itself too. All right, Well, 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.040 we're gonna take a break and we're gonna come back 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:10.920 and talk a little bit about the fact that, as 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.000 of yet, there were still no laws on the books 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:37.840 about protecting animals. All right, before we left, I teased 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.520 about the laws of the land and while things were 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:46.640 changing maybe attitude in le Uh. In England. You point 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.280 out in the mid nineteenth century, it was still legal 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:52.920 to beat your horse to death if he was tired, 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.720 or to kill your cow if it didn't produce milk. 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.200 There were no laws in place or like a your 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:01.880 dog did something you didn't like, you could kick it 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.520 to death. Like It's just some people did that. I 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.840 think some people are still like that today, but are 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.640 restrained by laws that developed out of this era, out 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.480 of the nineteenth century, and where before there weren't any laws. 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.240 So if you were in impulsive puts, you could kick 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.520 a dog to death. You know. I can't even go 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.320 there with those stories that happened today, but that happened 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:31.720 even more then. That's a very important point though, is 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:35.800 like society as a whole wasn't just beating horses and 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:40.080 dogs to death. UM for the most part, right, I 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.760 think it was sociopath back then, and I think it 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.360 still is now, you know. UM, for the most part, 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.160 people did not do that, and people didn't even like 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.520 they didn't necessarily even turn a blind eye too it. 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.840 I think they did more because there wasn't a lot 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.440 you could do. UM. But it's probably along the lines 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:01.560 of where if you, UM don't agree with spanking your kid, 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.000 and you see somebody in the store like grab their 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.840 kids and spank them, you might want to say something, 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.280 but at the same time, you probably won't because you 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.320 don't know if that's a crazy person and or whatever. 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.720 You don't get involved. For the most part, most people don't. 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.160 I think that was probably very much the same lines 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:22.280 like where you um, you might see something like that happening, 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.959 but you weren't gonna say anything. I think that was 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:29.680 the social status quo at the time. But that said, if, if, 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.439 if the circumstances were right in the act was particularly egregious, 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.080 some someone might say something. There was a guy in 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:39.440 eighteen thirty four who in the middle of Washington, d c. 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.919 Beat his cow to death, and he was arrested and 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.160 charged with um not beating the cow to death because 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.400 again there was no law protecting that cow, but um 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:54.159 with creating a public nuisance because he subjected all the 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.720 passers by to the site of his cow being beaten 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:01.120 to death, and people objected to it. So even even 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.040 at the time when there wasn't any legal protection for animals, 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:08.000 there was still there was a line that was drawn. 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:12.600 You know, people weren't cool with it, you know. Interesting, So, 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:15.560 legislatively speaking, it was about the turn of the nineteenth 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:21.200 century in England when Lords Erskine and Morton got together 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.840 and they a bunch of times to try and actually 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.600 amend the code, the legal code and UH. One of 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.120 the first things they tried to outlaw with something called 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.840 bull baiting UH and I imagine bear baiting, which was 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.439 also a thing. And we'll get to this in a second, 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:42.160 but it's like Roman gladiator stuff. Yeah. It's when they 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.720 put a bull or a bear and they chain them 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.399 to a steak and a pit. Yeah, and put dogs 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.400 in there to fight and kill. Yeah. And bulldogs used 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.720 to be way, way more vicious and aggressive than they 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.200 are today. They actually had that stuff bred out of 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.600 them and they looked a lot different to um. But 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.200 that's where they got their name from. Bulldogs. Bear baiting 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:11.240 is still going on in Pakistan. Yeah, it's it's disgusting, 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.520 it's um there's a big push to stop it now. 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.920 There's a group called World Animal Protection International and that's 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:19.840 one of their big causes is to stop bear baiting 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.679 in Pakistan. But UM, I would encourage you not to 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.639 look that up and and look at pictures and stuff 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.679 un once you want your heartbroken. But um, it's amazing 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:30.880 that in s that's still going on in the world 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:35.879 at all. But it is uh and then Uh Martin 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:40.000 and Uh Martin and Erskin the great comedy duo was 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.359 going to say, too, what is it is? Because of 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.680 Martin Rohan and Martin is that where I'm thinking Uh, 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.600 in eighteen twenty two they actually were enabled to get 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.240 the first law pass in the West that made it 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.760 a criminal act to abuse animals, called Martin's Act after 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.879 Martin and Uh it was the technical name was an 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.359 act to prevent the cruel and improper treatment of battle 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.119 and it was specifically for livestock. And it was a 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.239 ten shilling fine three months in the pokey if you 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.080 didn't pay the fine. But what it did was set 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.520 a precedent for the future. It was very important it did. 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:14.240 It was only there was a law, right, there was 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.800 a law in the books protecting animals. And again, like 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.480 you said, it was pretty specific and technically there have 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.480 been a law in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.280 had a law in their Body of Liberties, but apparently 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:30.720 it wasn't ever enforced. But this is the first real law. UM. 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:36.640 And UH. The fact that Parliament was responding to this 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.920 um kind of aroused the public. Uh. We talked about 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:45.800 in the animal animal Testing episode the last one. UM. 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.159 How I think in eight seventy six there was a 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.640 law that passed that was passed like protecting animals during 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.959 experimentation thanks to Charles Darwin Um, that that came fifty 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:59.800 years after the first animal protection laws in the UK. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.920 So they've been there have been niche people. Groups who 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:10.000 had been agitating for this got actually the parliament involved, 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.560 and then the public became involved, which is usually the 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:17.080 opposite rum. Usually it's like these groups agitate, get the 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:19.840 public involved, and then the public get government to do something. 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:22.360 This actually kind of went out of order a little bit. 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.160 But the people who were agitating, these niche people were 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.720 usually very interesting people like Henry Berg is a really 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.360 good example. Boy, I love this guy. Yeah, you talked 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.720 about an agitator. He founded the created the A s 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.320 p C A, and um, he was a little rich 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:41.640 kid and he basically said, you know what, I'm gonna 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:46.879 kind of dedicate my life too walking the streets because 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:49.600 one of the things in eight sixty six when the 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.240 SPC A SPC I was founded was in New York. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:55.920 They said, you know what, you have the power to 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.199 go out and police these things. We're not really enforcing it, 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:02.320 but you can do so, and great, I'll do it. Yeah. 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.280 He was a true believer for sure. Um. I think 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.359 the first instance, as the legend goes, he saw he 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.400 was a Russian diplomat or a diplomat to Russian American 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.920 diplomat in Russia. Um, during the reign of the Tsar still, 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.359 he saw a Russian peasant beating his horse, and he 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.960 threatened to beat the man, and the guy responded very 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:28.480 in in a way that Henry Berg was like, oh, 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:31.240 I'm going to do this all the time. Now he 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:33.800 was like, I'm so sorry. Apparently the guy started crying 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:35.960 he was being talked down to by someone of a 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.960 higher station. Then when Henry Bird got back to America 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:42.520 and tried it, he found that people of the middle 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:46.159 or lower classes beneath him socially did not respond the 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.800 way the Russian peasantry did. They said, this is New York, 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.400 so he had to kind of So he would um 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:55.920 sometimes actually follow through on his threats and like beat 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:59.359 people he saw beating their horses. Um, I have no 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.560 problem with that. Yeah, I think most people didn't. But 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:05.000 he would also he'd go and break up like underground 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:11.000 bullfight or underground bull baiting that underground bullfight to both 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:15.480 going a uh. And he is buried in Greenwood Cemetery 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:17.119 in Brooklyn. If you want to go by and uh 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:19.800 lay some flowers at his grave and pay your respects. 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:22.640 I think I might do that next time in New York. Yeah, 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:24.600 and I mean even if you're not in the animal rights. 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.720 He was also a huge children's crusader, and he very 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:33.080 wisely never allowed, uh, the children's organizations that he funded 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.919 and supported, to merge with the animal organizations, because he 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:40.840 knew full well that the little children would take the 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:46.000 wheel and they would very quickly overwhelmed the sentiments in 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:50.280 the UM. The efforts on behalf of the animals. Yeah, 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:52.719 it was. It was pretty smart to keep it uh separate. 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:56.320 You got to keep them separated. You point out in 0:23:56.359 --> 0:24:01.080 this article very astutely that um abusing an animal is 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:04.399 it could be an indicator of violence toward humans. And 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:08.199 I know that. You know, uh a lot of serial 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:12.160 killers started out like killing animals first as their first try. 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:16.320