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I didn't stay naïve forever. Eventually I realized that experiements done on animals are not always for the betterment of the animals life, as in the experiment Mrs. Rick described to me. I put the pieces together, started noticing the tiny lettering on my shampoo that read “THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN TESTED ON ANIMALS”, started reading in my psychology book about Harlow's monkeys, separated from their mothers to understand the importance of care-giving for development.
Here's what I don't understand. If we're doing all of these “learned helplessness experiments” (Spiegel, 67) on animals, cruelty punishing them until they “stop trying to get away from the source of their torment” (Spiegel, 70), and we're applying what we learn from these experiments to humans, then we're assuming that animals basically feel and react to things the same way humans do, aren't we? And if this is the underlying assumption of these experiments, then why the HECK are we treating animals so badly? Why are we willing to perform painful experiments on them that we would never subject a human to when we know that they are just as capable as us of feeling?
Robert Titus says that Victorian scientist tried to establish boundaries between “inflicting pain during 'justifiable experiments' and mere cruelty” (Website). I know that sometimes, experiments are done on humans that are... questionable, experiments that could fall into this category of “justifiable”, experiments that under any other circumstances would just be immoral and cruel. However, humans, at least today, are experimented on by choice. For example, some psychology, experiments entail a certain degree of deception by the experimenter to the participant. I know that deception doesn't really compare to Robert's graphic description of having to “forcefully slide the [guillotine] blade down [a] bird's neck” (Website), but experimenters are still required to have all participants sign an informed consent forms which explain to them what exactly the experiment entails, and at any point during the experiment the participants may stop. Amazing, isn't it, how psychology has such different ethical practices when it comes to humans and animals? Humans have the right to information, and the choice to refuse participation in experiments. Animals have no rights.
Example of an informed consent form.
http://vis.berkeley.edu/courses/cs160-fa06/wiki/images/f/fd/JigsawInformedConsent.gif
Well. They have the right to be experimented on, apparently.
Just like Europeans felt that African people had the right to become slaves. Just like the confederacy felt that they had a right to own slaves.
Oh. My. God. Speaking of the confederacy. It amazes me how I saw the UT commercial like... 50 million times during the game, with its deep voiced narrator and beautiful views of campus, an inspiring orang-lit tower, and a cheesy slogan of “what starts here changes the world”, and yet its apparently the most confederate campus in the nation. I love you, UT, but you're confusing me a little bit here. You want to change the world and yet your “statue's and fountain inscription” suggest you are living in a deeply confederate past. Now, granted, I did not miss the fact that this statement was made by a professor of history at A&M. Let's face it: that guy probabaly was not that fond of UT, and its possible that bias made him exaggerate. But there's no question that UT has quite a few confederate hero statues. After all, South mall has “four bronze leaders [who were] leaders of the Southern case”.
I would, however, like to put in a good word for UT. I understand the problem with having all of these statues of confederate heroes. However, I read a book called A Heart Divided a few years ago, set in a town called Redford in Tennessee that had been the sight of a major Civil War battle. One of the characters talks about how for the south, the war was different because the “hallowed ground” where the war was fought was right in their own backyards, and that today “half of white southerners are descended from Confederates” (Bennet and Gottsfield, 233). He also says that his great great grandfather fought in the battle even though he didn't believe in slavery and opposed secession. I think that the statues are bad in a way because they don't represent everybody: the people they are honoring were not heroes to everyone. But I can sort of understand how some of the people who fought for the South may have been fighting not for slavery but for... I don't know. For the south itself. I know that earlier in US history, people saw themselves not as American but as North Carolinian or New Yorkan. And here in Texas, we still sometimes refer to ourselves as Texan.
Map of the Civil War. (Blue is the Union).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/US_map_1864_Civil_War_divisions.svg/800px-US_map_1864_Civil_War_divisions.svg.png
Ugh. I lost track of where I was going with that thought... I think that my point is that the statues at UT can be seen in more then one light. When you look at them one way, they are honoring the confederacy and all that it stood for, which, sadly, included slavery. However, when you look at them from a different perspective, you might see them as honoring men who's loyalty lay with their homes, and not necessarily with slavery and all that this entailed. Robert E Lee, the commander of the Confederate army, was actually asked by Lincoln to lead the Union army and declined because his home, Virginia, was seceding, despite his opposition. There is actually a letter in which Lee says that he believes “slavery, as an institution, is a moral and political evil in any country”. All things considered, the statues at UT are without a doubt controversial, but may not stand for the Confederacy in quite the way it is usually envisioned.
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