On fish II

In a music video by Foster the People, we see a fish that's been taken out of water and put on a table to suffocate. I'm sure the reasons for this are artistic, fun and entertaining.

Next, we see singer Mark Foster (or somebody else; I don't know) with his head in the fish bowl.

Suffocation is hell. So is life in a fish bowl, by the way.

In another video by the band, the same guy is practically slapping a fish that's trying to swim in one of those... ok, I have no idea what the hell those are, ornamental fish ponds that you sometimes see in shopping centres? (Fuck, I've always hated those. The animals are completely vulnerable to any random idiot that might pass by.)

I think that the face in the last picture tells it all. When we hurt fish, we have no idea that we're hurting them. They aren't cute. They don't communicate through emotional expressions the way mammals do. That's why even the nicest person with a thoroughly good heart can watch a fish suffocate without really feeling anything. The animal isn't crying or screaming, so the empathetic parts of our brain don't react. When it comes to fish, the lights in our heads are out. (When I sit on the bus and stare at the people on the streets, it's a bit petrifying to realize how many of them actually have that blank, insensible, dead look on their faces. The fish look. Yet I believe there's something happening behind the faces.)

If the first video included images of a puppy drowning in the water, everybody would be outraged. The video would get millions of dislikes. Puppies are saved by their cuteness.

It's all understandable. I'm sure Foster the People are completely decent human beings. There's nothing wrong with them. The problem is in the culture. These things should be learned. Hopefully some day they will be.

The ugliness of fish is a fateful fact. Even many the world's most famous vegans / animal-activists from P!nk to Jared Leto eat fish. At least occasionally. I kept doing that too for a long time after I'd already stopped eating factory-farmed meat. The idea of a fish in pain just simply didn't move me enough to make me change my ways. It took several articles in science magazines and a lot of information on industrial fishing to finally force me to let go of my excuses.

We're all vertebrates, but fish are fish and I'm a mammal, so they will always remain some sort of mystery to me. That's alright. That's how it should be. All I can do is to trust science, the heart and common sense, and try to keep on seeing myself in creatures that look so very different from me.