Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To have argued with a beggar (animal abuse content)

186 replies

MinnieMoose · 05/08/2013 09:07

Was I being unreasonable to have an argument with a street beggar?

We were on holiday to Rhodes and visited Rhodes old town one evening with the children.

I had read a campaign in our hotel lobby from a local animal welfare charity, that was informing tourists not to give money to beggars with puppies. As they are taken from their mothers too early and are drugged to keep them quiet, all to gain sympathy for money.

They work as gangs and once the puppies have served their purpose they are killed, they are given no water and left with the beggar in the heat for long periods of time - not to mention the drugs they are given to keep them sleepy.

I was distressed to read this and we encountered a street beggar almost immediately on our evening out.

She was only a young girl (13 at a guess) and had a tiny black pup, asleep next to her.

I couldn't help but feel outraged, should I have turned my head and walked on?

I asked her where the pup's mother was, where was it's water/milk/food? How come the pup was fast asleep and couldn't be roused?

She looked at me blankly, so I informed the tourists around us not to give her any money and suddenly she understands english and begins swearing at me and giving me hand gestures of the "fuck off" variety.

Well then I saw red and an argument followed with lots of swearing and shouting, I am ashamed of myself but as an animal lover I couldn't contain myself.

We informed a policeman and she ran with the poor puppy under her arm.

My husband had taken the children away from the situation before it became heated, but was annoyed with me for causing a scene.

So was I being unreasonable?

OP posts:
maja00 · 05/08/2013 14:54

Obviously humans have decided that's the case Confused Who else would you like to decide?

woozlebear · 05/08/2013 14:58

Byt WHY maja? To me your post reads 'human life is more valuable than animal life, because we collectively behave in a way that values animal life less'.

You're absolutely right that's how we behave, but that doesn't make it an objective truth. The one does not prove the other, or make it 'right' or 'better' than another type of behaviour (other than by collective agreement). It's a behaviour system, and one that you and most people subscribe to, but it's not inalienable truth.

woozlebear · 05/08/2013 15:00

Oh x post.

MrsDeVere · 05/08/2013 15:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

woozlebear · 05/08/2013 15:07

Maja, as I've said upthread I don't think its our place to decide. Human life demands that we make decisions that could be taken as implying a value of this life and a value of that life, and we can look at our behaviour and see that we generally don't seem to value animal life very highly. (But a lot of human actions would suggest we don't value human life very highly either Sad)

That's a necessary outcome of the complexity of existence, but I think that's very different from thinking we have a right to baldly state - and believe - that human life is more valuable than any other. Why should anyone decide such a thing, let alone us? What makes us so special?

Wasapea · 05/08/2013 15:08

As woozle says, the point of debate is whether it's right that humans get to decide which species' lives matter.

The only set in stone certainty is that, if we're dealing in completely basic terms, nothing matters more than anything else. Everything dies and ends up the same way - as nothing.

Humans are fortunate and intelligent enough to have greater control over this than any other creature, but it's only our own ideas, relationships and levels of consciousness and awareness that make us believe, collectively, that we matter more.

Wow, this has become much more philosophical than I intended.

maja00 · 05/08/2013 15:14

woozle, there are no objective truths. One life is more valuable than another only because of the value put on it. Humans decide on the value placed on things in human society - it can't come from outside of us, unless you believe in an outside force that decides these things.

Whether is it right or wrong for humans to decide which lives matter most to humans is irrelevant, because it is the only way it can be.

Human life is more valuable. We decide this, collectively, because we are conscious of it.

LackingEnergy · 05/08/2013 15:23

This has probably already been said but a very similar story was posted a few months back about beggars who drugged very young children to gain more sympathy and stuff...

theodorakisses · 05/08/2013 15:24

This has become a bonkers thread..so because I don't rescue children I shouldn't rescue animals? I do what I see, and I have, as I said paid boarding fees for children but at the same time have had 52 foster dogs, innumerable cats and a few primates as well since being out of the UK. I also give up some leave to go to pattaya every year with a charity to educate young people who would have otherwise been old for prostitution. So bloody what if I rescue lobsters? Doesn't mean I don't care about humans

maja00 · 05/08/2013 15:26

Who has said that theodora?

theodorakisses · 05/08/2013 15:29

and once the slaters can say what they have done, I feel vilified. The Thai boys and girls don't even need to be trafficked because there is a market for them at home. It is easy to sit behind your PC

woozlebear · 05/08/2013 15:29

Maja - so we agree it's not an objective truth, then.

What I don't understand, is how you say that, and you say that it's just a belief we've arrived at collectively, but you still state it in such an absolute way.

You don't say 'I think human life is more valuable'. You don't say 'most people think human life is more valuable'. You just say 'human life is more valuable' like it just IS. A lot of people do think that, but it's not a statement I'm happy to subscribe to, so I'm still Hmm when I read it expressed in such a black and white way and I don't think it's a logical or meaningful statement.

And YY to wasapea. Very well put.

Wasapea · 05/08/2013 15:29

So bloody what if I rescue lobsters?

That may be one of my favourite MN lines Smile

theodorakisses · 05/08/2013 15:30

Platinum, read the thread

maja00 · 05/08/2013 15:36

woozlebear - of you'd like to test whether human or animal life is more valuable, try killing a baby and killing a hamster and see what the outcome is.

Wasapea · 05/08/2013 15:40

What a bizarre thing to say, maja.

mignonette · 05/08/2013 15:40

Theodora you are great. I once rescued a crab I bought in a French market as I could not bear to kill it.

Lots of armchair moralists here. IRL? I doubt it.

theodorakisses · 05/08/2013 15:42

Well babies do get killed in the UK, I read a article in the Guardian recently about the Internet charity who see horrific things done to newborns online in order to police the Internet. Is that worse than killing a hamster? Of course, but we don't stumble across it on you tube or Facebook so it doesn't happen. My point is that we should do something

woozlebear · 05/08/2013 15:42

Maja that post just shows that you still seem to be having massive problems distinguishing between these two statements:

  1. Human life is more valuable than animal life

  2. Humans base most of their behaviour and social structures on the collective assumption that human life is more valuable than animal life.

Your hamster/baby test would just prove the correctness of statement 2, not of 1. It is your use of statement 1 that I have questioned.

Wuxiapian · 05/08/2013 15:44

What a shame OP needed to start an AIBU conversation about this - she actually didn't know herself!!

mignonette · 05/08/2013 15:47

Well the question AIBU indicates a level of uncertainty about ones actions whether the person is soliciting validation or not. Glad to 'meet' a Mner who is not so bloody dyed-in-the-wool smug about her own decisions for a change but happy to accept critique (despite the pretty unpleasant abusive comments on here earlier).

maja00 · 05/08/2013 15:48

woozle, you are looking for an absolute truth that just doesn't exist. Values are socially constructed, human life is more valuable because we deem it more valuable.

There isn't some moral guide that exists outside of human society that can objectively tell you what has more value.

woozlebear · 05/08/2013 15:52

Omg

I'm not looking for any truth, objective or otherwise! I'm calling you on the fact that you have stated 'human life is more valuable than animal life' as if it WERE or EVER COULD BE some kind of absolute objective fact when it's not! It's just a collective agreement.

If we can agree that's it impossible for it to be an objective truth, why can't you see how meaningless it sounds as a statement?

maja00 · 05/08/2013 15:54

Just because something is socially constructed, doesn't make it meaningless or not real.

woozlebear · 05/08/2013 15:57

No, but nor does it automatically mean it is true or meaninful! You could use that argument to 'prove' that God definitely exists because there's such a thing as religion....