Summary Of A Change Of Heart About Animals By Jeremy Rifkin

Jeremy Rifkin, the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington D.C and author of “A Change of Heart About Animals” (2003), argues in this article that animals are much more like humans than we thought and that we should expand our empathy to our fellow creatures. Rifkin develops his thesis by comparing the similarities between humans and animals. An example of this is in paragraph 11 when he claims that animals show a sense of their own mortality and the mortality of their kin just like humans do. He supports this claim by giving an example of elephants standing next to their dead children for days after they have passed. The author gives that example of the elephants in order to make the reader understands just how aware these

In Jeremy Rifkin’s article, “A Change of Heart about Animals”, proves his statement that many of our fellow creatures also “feel pain, suffer and experience stress, affection, excitement and even love..”. I agree that animals share similar feelings as us, and I believe that they should be treated in a way that they can feel comfortable and care in their surroundings. Just because animals may not be completely the same as us, that should not give the right to a human to mistreat and abuse of an animal’s life. Animals can be well treated and cared for without giving them the right to be treated as a human.

We are not alone on this Earth. We, humans, have animals by our side. We share this inhabitable planet together with animals, and they should have same right as we do on this beautiful planet. Animals are pure instinctual living creatures who never think before following their instincts. They won’t think otherwise before killing a person. Animals who are able to surpass these barriers are able to receive our empathy and their rights, but in Jeremy Rifkin’s, “A Change of Heart About Animals,” he talks ideas about all animals should receive our empathy for great acts of the few. The individual animal receive its equal rights, not by a single entity achieving it for the mass, but by the individual must showing intelligences, emotions and feelings, and most importantly, the ability to co-exist with others; including human and other animals alike.

Rifkin has a point and has good solid evidence on his argument. He has one belief but other people believe in something else. Many people see animals a different way, some people just see them as pets others see them as part of their family which is nothing wrong believe me everybody has different perspectives of how they see things. Not everybody is going to have same point of views in arguments.

A letter written by Lois Frazier consists of additional opinions, on Jeremy Rifkin’s article “A Change of Heart about Animals.” Rifkin is an animal rights advocate, he conveys his belief that animals are quite similar to humans. Frazier supports Rifkin’s humane ideas and voices several novel opinions of disproportionate rights, such as confinement, affliction, and depletion.

Rifkin’s overall view of animals is that they should have more rights. I strongly disagree in giving animal more rights than some humans worldwide do not have. We, as humans, live off these animals. They are what we survive on. We need them for their meat and their fur. It is basically survival of the fittest. Giving animal’s rights should be necessary only if they are being abused. For example, forcing dogs to fight other dogs till one is dead. If the animals are killed for our basic human needs than it should not be wrong.

What is the difference between wild animals and humans? Humans live in a world of affection, where emotions and self moral rights matter. In the same manner as humans, wild animals live in a world like ours where they too feel emotions. So what is the correct answer to the question… Nothing in reality, wild animals are like humans. In a very similar matter, they both have common characteristics that relate to one another. In many researches today, it has been proven that animals feel the same effectiveness we have towards them. Studies have shown that animals are more like us than we understand; therefore, they deserve human rights.

The passage I chose to close read from We The Animals by Justin Torres comes from the first paragraph of Chapter Four, entitled Seven. The author begins the scene like any other day yet the tone of the author’s writing is of worry. Torres’ tone affected my own mood. I tried to imagine how it would feel to be in the position that the narrator was in. Someone had abused his mother; in this case it was most likely her husband. Yet, the trauma of this chapter is portrayed as something that is nonchalant. Paps, the narrator's father, has just presented his wife’s current health status as something the narrator and his brothers should just brush off. As I read, the narrator would state that “[Paps] said [this], [Paps] told us [that], [Paps] had forbidden us to set foot in [Ma’s] bedroom…” (Torres 12). Paps had clear superiority over the whole family. From my close reading, I came to the conclusion that Paps was the one abusing Ma that is why he never allowed the children to be near her. The more she slept, the less she spoke, and the less “true” information was leaked to the

In the article All Animals Are Equal, written by Peter Singer addresses the inadequacies surrounding the rights of animals in the societies of today. Singer opens the article by presenting a scholarly parallels between the fight for gender equality, banishment of racism and the establishment of rights for “nonhumans.” In order to explain this constant set of inequalities that seem to riddle our society, Singer readily uses the term “speciesism”, which he acquired from a fellow animals rights advocator, Richard Ryder. Essentially, this term is defined by Singer as a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species. Singer claims that if this idea of speciesism

Many of us, nowadays, eat and enjoy eating meat but many would agree that this is actually not an ethical action. Michael Pollan, in his persuasive style article “An Animal's Place" published in The New Work Times Magazine, on November 10, 2002 intends to persuade his audience that humans should respect animals and as long as they are treated well in farms and give them a more peaceful life and death it will be fine to eat them. According to Pollan, in today's huge industrial farms, cruel and unbearable things happen that are against animals rights. There is a high possibility that in the future these actions will stop as already some protest for animal rights have begun, because animals have feelings and farms take advantage of them thinking that they are mere machines, making them suffer. The solution to this conflict according to the author who supports friendly farms that respect and give a fun and secure life for animals. I believe that the author is convincing because he first makes clear what the argument is about, he then presents both moral arguments and

As a whole, Rifkin argues the importance of treating animals with respect based on the fact that animals share characteristics with humans. I agree that animals do deserve to be treated with respect and honor, but should animals really be treated like human beings? One must look at the imperfect world we live in, it is man against man, the survival of the fittest. This evolutionary concept even takes place in the animal kingdom, one must hunt and kill for survival. Thus, will giving a pig a toy or assuring that animals are happy, change the fact that they be slaughtered and become man’s source of nutrition?

Although Jeremy Rifkin, Bob stevens, and Lois Frazier have all written about their view on animals and how they are treated globally, but when bringing in animal rights groups like ASPCA and PETA, different bias and tactics are newly introduced.

In this passage by Royal Dixon, the author incorporated various persuasive techniques to build an extremely well-crafted essay, which encourages the readers’ respect toward the animals. By emphasizing the common aspects of the animals and the human, the author attempted to convey his points that animals deserves more respect. His logic and persuasiveness was strengthened through rhetorical question, criticism of the limitation of science, and emphasis on the interconnection between humans and animals. The author is mindfully persuasive from the very beginning starting off his essay by rhetorical questions. His intentional manipulation of structure of placing the rhetorical questions directly after the commonly held concept of “we cannot treat men He claims that the science is imperfect due to its defect of leaving out feelings. The author first discusses the descriptions of human in the scientific approach that humans are “merely a machine to be explained in terms of neurons and nervous impulses, heredity and environments and reactions to outside stimuli”. Consequently, however, he incorporated rhetorical question, “who is there who does not believe that there is more to man that that?”, provoking the empathy that humans are indeed much more valuable beings that such simplistic explanation. He attempts use this created empathy and apply this concept to the animals as well. This encouraged the readers to approach this matter not with the heads, but with hearts, changing the perception of animals not as a mere inferior creature, but as a being of intellect and feelings as humans. Although the author revealed his unsatisfaction toward mechanistic interpretation, he approaches his argument in a scientific way to counter his audience, who may still disagree with him based on the scientific fact of superiority in intelligent of humans over the animals.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals is a book about persuasion. Foer seeks to convince his readers to take any step in reducing what he believes is the injustice of harming animals. To achieve this, Foer employs many persuasion techniques and often changes his approach when he targets specific groups. His strategies include establishing himself as an ethical authority and appealing to his readers’ emotions, morals, and reason.

For my I.S., I am interested in how and when social movements that are based on the interests and needs of a particular race-based identity group are able to build alliances and mobilize support from the larger population. Specifically, under what conditions will Black social movements in the U.S. gain support from the White American population? Previous literature tells us that grievances, access to resources, and identity all play a significant role in an individual choice to join/support a movement. However, these previous studies do not explain why a person outside of the racial group around which the movement is organized would choose to join/support it. The concept of moral shock, a sense of outrage triggered by a specific situation that causes a person to seek political action, can be created and manipulated by social movement leaders in order to mobilize support from those who do not have a stake in the issues and who otherwise would be unaffected by the issues and events the movements are discussing.