The Unnecessary Slaughter of Asian Dogs and the Argument Against Hypocrisy
by Daniel Adleman

As almost everyone reading this article knows, every year, in Korea, China, and the Philippines, millions of dogs are tortured and killed in the most brutal fashion imaginable for the purpose of creating a so-called "traditional delicacy" that is often (mistakenly) thought to have medicinal properties. As someone who has a lot of love and respect for "man's best friend", this is an issue very near and dear to my heart. I find it disturbing that the ethical campaign to stop this senseless practice is often met with so much resistance. The most common argument against criminalizing this disturbing practice I refer to as "the argument against hypocrisy". I'm sure that many people are familiar with it. It goes something like:

I eat meat. I wear leather. And a lot of antidogmeat activists do, too. It seems to me that this is a clear case of hypocrisy. Why do many of these campaigners care about dogs, but not cows or chickens? And why should I care at all?

My response to this spurious argument is as follows: the best possible person, a saint perhaps, is someone who devotes his entire life to committing kind acts and ridding the world of pain and suffering. Unfortunately, the world is not run by saints. It's run by mere mortals. The problem with this state of affairs is that, in our short lives on this planet, we humans have all sorts of concerns, most of which have to do with our personal lives: paying the rent, putting food on the table, taking care of our loved ones, etc… Consequently, there is only so much time and energy that we can devote to helping others outside of our own personal spheres. Now, when someone tells me that I'm being hypocritical or inconsistent by devoting all this energy to helping dogs instead of cows, chickens, or even my neighbours, I respond that there are so many needy people and animals on this planet. Each and every one of them is deserving of our help, the dogs no less than the others.

Milan Kundera, the Czech writer, once defined loneliness as "…going through life without drawing anyone's interest; talking without being heard; suffering without stirring compassion". When I see the pictures of the terrible things people are doing, needlessly and senselessly, to those beautiful, trusting, loving creatures, "man's best friend", I think those poor dogs must be some of the loneliest souls on the planet. I choose to devote my energy to the dogs' cause because they need our help so badly and so few people seem to care despite the fact that the dogs have benefited the lives of so many humans. So rather than criticizing me for not being a saint, I suggest that the accusers go help whoever it is that they want to help. Then we'll all be doing our part to help those in need. In helping those in need, we should never worry about whether we'll be accused of hypocrisy. It is when we choose to ignore the cries for help that we're truly being hypocrites - as guardians of the planet and purveyors of compassionate justice.

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