Where Do We Draw The Line?

A popular ideal within the world of vegetarianism is the confusion behind eating some animals, but keeping the others as pets. It seems to them a major paradox or a way to look contradiction straight in the face and still remain totally oblivious. This mindset seems to rule those who desire the abolition of factory farming. Regardless of whether or not factory framing is good or bad for America, it's important to look into the above image and mention what the purpose of it is.

It's apparent that whoever created the image is trying to implant within the viewers mind a sense of ludicrousness. The goal is to show absurdity through asking the viewer to draw the line between pet and food. I also find it interesting how the color on the pet side is much warmer, and then turns to red which is a much darker color (and also the color of blood which is within meat) when it gets to the food side. The message at the top of the poster which states that "all animals want to live" is also an over generalization. It's apparent that animals do have feelings, but the emotional capabilities of animals do differ from species to species. It's obvious that emotional or mental capacity isn't the main reason for animal consumption, but it does play a factor when deciding between vegetarianism or pescetarianism.

One thing that I do like about the billboard is that at least it gives the viewer the option of drawing the line. Within a short phrase they have established their stance and are asking you to take yours. You can almost sense what the call of action is immediately after viewing, they they want you to take a stand against factory farming and the production of meat on a grand. In fact, they would like you to forgo meat completely.

All in all, the message the billboard is trying to convey is that it doesn't make sense to kill one animal and eat it, but than spare the life of one that you know intimately. All though this does carry some clout, in reality, if it's intimacy of the animals that we really care about, the billboard is still somewhat erroneous because no one ever purposely harms their pet, factory farmers only ever kill the animals they don't know intimately.

References

(I couldn't find the original publication of this billboard, but I did find a gofundme page that wanted to create a similar billboard somewhere in Europe and they included the picture there).

“Click here to support Vegan Billboard Campaign organized by Susan Bolton.” Gofundme.com, www.gofundme.com/Veganbillboard.