A few years ago, Anderson Cooper and his guest, wildlife expert Jack Hanna expressed their outrage over the recent killing of a healthy young giraffe by the directors of a Danish zoo. The case received considerable attention in world media for a few days. The piece was a textbook example of the kind of silliness that results from unfounded, unexamined assumptions. While Cooper and Hanna fumed over the decision, the Danish zoo director patiently explained — as if speaking to children — that the ethics of European zoos were more oriented toward the quality of the animal's life while it lived, than to the length of its life.
Quality over quantity.
But American culture often has trouble with this way of looking at life. Here in the land of “Bigger is Better!,” all you can eat buffets, and runaway obesity, quality takes a back seat to quantity. Stupid slogans like “Stay Hungry!,” “I'll Sleep When I'm Dead,” and “Never Enough!” abound, while anti-depressants sell like hotcakes and prescription pain killers flood this sad land.
The unexamined assumption underlying Cooper and Hanna’s outrage was that the giraffe’s death could have been avoided. And they were shocked that the animal’s body was cut up (“In front of children!”) and fed to lions.
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