Second week of Suffering: How can you really describe pain?

JANUARY 14, 2010

This week in Suffering we had a vibrant conversation centered around expressing pain through language. The class is evidently divided about what it truly means to suffer, and if animal suffering is as valid as human suffering. I used to think that it wasn't, but I was ignorant and I didn't really know what the concept of a slaughterhouse really meant. I think it is important to have these varying opinions in class, but it does make me angry sometimes. To me it seems so obvious that an animal is conscious and present in her existence, how can anyone doubt that? Just because an animal cannot use English to express words describing pain, how can one say that the howls of an animal being slaughtered are not verbal expressions of pain?

As I said, it seems so obvious to me now, but it took me nearly 30 years to evolve my consciousness enough to consider all animals to be my non-human equals (except for maybe mosquitoes). I am still learning how to adjust my lifestyle to accommodate this new state of awareness, and it is a slow and resistant process. I am just glad I am not deaf to the language of animal suffering any longer.