How to Love Animals

April 26, 2021
“Why is it okay to kill 1.5 billion pigs this year, but an outrage to slaughter a dog?” asks Financial Times journalist Mance in his thought-provoking debut. A love of animals and rational thinking are “western society’s core values,” he writes, and yet the way humans treat animals is full of contradictions. To help readers understand animals’ place in the world, he follows the development of the RSPCA in England, created by a lawyer in response to the typical practice of horses being “flogged to death, so that travelers could take unnecessary journeys.” He covers other animal welfare and environmental conservation movements, too, pointing out their historically clashing ideals: proponents of animal rights would state that an individual deer is equally important as its herd, while environmentalists would argue the opposite. Considerable attention is given to the morality of eating animals, as well as how they are “degraded” before slaughter, and Mance discusses his own turn to veganism as the logical outcome of his concern for animal welfare. Throughout, the author is sensible and evenhanded, offering straightforward encouragement over contentious judgment: “We can work out what animals can offer us and what responsibilities we owe to them.” Mance’s plea for better treatment of animals will open eyes.