> Spoken like someone who's never lost family.
in reply to the parent's comment that said:
> You killed someone's dog. This hits like losing family."
My comment will probably be flagged as well, but fine, I'll sacrifice some karma to show my support. I lost my mother due to cancer when I was eleven and I personally find it offensive when someone tells me they know "what it is like" because they lost a pet.
Sure, there are people who have horrible family members that mistreated or abused them, so the loss of a dog means more than the loss of that relative, but if you're going to claim that it is comparable to lose a human being that meant everything to you because an animal died, then we just have a totally different set of moral axioms and are fundamentally incapable of seeing the world in the same way.
I know that losing a pet hurts a lot more than losing a grandparent or aunt or uncle when they're not ever-present in your life. I have not lost parents yet, but at this remove in my life they are in many ways just people I used to know - my personality and values are quite different to them and I find it hard to empathize with their life choices. I think losing them would be similar to losing the little kitten I reared from a few weeks old. The actual relationship with my parents is mostly dead already, because it's been decades since we were close.
It's not about losing a human Vs losing an animal. It's about losing a relationship that is part of your daily life.
The question "do we want to maintain a hierarchy of grief" is absurd, there is not one human alive who doesn't already do that on some level.
Grief is grief. What's at the top of your list might not be the top of someone elses. You don't invalidate someone else's grief because yours ranks higher on your own list.
It's just a silly attempt to sidestep the argument.
Our cat died two years ago and although we've had a few cats over the years, this cat was special. I was totally unprepared for the grief and pain that I, and the rest of my family members, experienced. I didn't feel like I could really even talk about it with people outside the family because it sounded ridiculous to so many people with the view of "it's just a cat!" But not this cat, and not to us.
My aunt died the same year. She was my mom's best friend and growing up I was at her house, hanging with my cousins, all the time. She was a total sweetheart: a kind, goodhearted, sweet woman with a heart of gold. When she passed I grieved, but although I feel genuinely ashamed to write this, the level of emotional intensity - the raw pain - did not reach the same level as when our cat died.
Grief over the loss of a beloved being does not come from a rational calculus of that being's worth.
I lost my dad at age 20 and in the months after was mostly surrounded by friends that had no idea what losing a parent felt like. In their attempts, I never felt I had the right to discredit their grief as being lesser, be it for an ex-girlfriend or a dog they grew up with.
Now, the specifics - it seems to me the particular moral axiom in question here is that "human life is always worth more than non-human life". Others in this thread have pointed out that you can't use that to make statements about what sort of grief people ought to feel, and I would hope that whatever your moral framework, compassion for grieving humans (whatever their moral framework) should factor into it.
However, I also think it's worth tackling this particular moral axiom head-on. The value of a human life is not constant or consistent between people - your own family is worth more to you than a stanger's, and you even admit that a dog might warrant more grief than a terrible person, even if that terrible person is family. Well, the value of a canine life isn't constant either. If it's possible and justifiable to love a dog more than family because the family is bad, why shouldn't it be possible and justifiable to love a dog as much as family, because the dog is good? There's a continuum, not a hard cutoff of "humans > dogs". Even if you think the average human is worth more than the average dog, you shouldn't be surprised - or offended - by other people's bereavement.
(I'd like to add an argument-from-Hollywood: They even made a whole film about a man cutting a swathe through evil, violent mobsters in a righteous fury, because they killed his dog. They made a very similar film about a man doing this because evil, violent mobsters kidnapped his daughter. Clearly, the emotions are comparable, and according to hollywood dogs and family are both worth more than evil, violent, human mobsters).
I see this dichotomy quite a bit in the public discourse, regarding dogs especially, where 1/2 the world treats dogs as family and the other half thinks they are some play toy/object.
We have been living with wolves/dogs for a long time now, we're responsible for how they have evolved, and part of that is how they have evolved to bond with humans. It's not surprising to me that losing a dog feels like losing a child for some people.
> 1/2 the world treats dogs as family
Do you think that half the world, if given the choice between saving either their dog or a stranger's child in a disaster situation (e.g. a house fire), would choose their dog?
They have had border collies all their lives, who were all astonishingly clever (not just "tricks", but just with intuition etc). These dogs are basically their children.
The "child" part of your hypothetical makes it difficult to know. I think they would save their own dog over an adult, however they are both very compassionate and love kids so I imagine it would be difficult to fight that human impulse to protect a child.
Do you think a dog owner would risk their own life (to varied degrees) to rescue a family dog if their house started burning?
My dog is part of my family. She comes before any stranger.
I'm just at a total loss for words. I had no idea so many people value animal life above human life.
At what level on the spectrum does the offense creep in when someone tries to relate to the loss of a parent? Is sibling loss relatable? Half-sibling? Cousin? Brother-in-law? Where do we start the grief-gatekeeping?
If I lost 5 children and someone told me they lost a parent so they pat me on the shoulder and say they understand, can I be offended?
I have lost grandparents before, but felt nothing since I didn't know them. If someone told me they'd lost a grandparent close to them, I think it'd be offensive for me to say I could relate.
> I had no idea so many people value animal life above human life.
I think this is the problem. When people say they relate they are not claiming "my dog == your mom", merely that they have felt grief through loss of a relationship/bond. As emotional loss is relative, we don't currently have a way to measure if that loss meets threshold levels that make it acceptable for them to converse with us.
Granted that wouldn't be the priority that I would consider ideal, but I don't think it's illogical.
You may value a dogs life as much as a human, some do. But those same people don't go around with extreme care to avoid stepping on an ant, and would kill insects if they where an annoyance or risk to health. So they do stablish a difference between some animals, where ants are in a different tier than dogs, but humans and dogs are together in the same tier.
Personally I don't think it makes any sense. I do value animal lives greatly, and between a dog and a man I might save the dog in a split-second gut decision (and regret it later).
I reckon many people use feelings to guide (or greatly inform) their morality. Which might or might not be that bad to be honest, I don't really have a solid basis for my morality either.
I use a combination of innocence, vulnerability, consciousness and intelligence.
E.g a baby life is worth more than a 40 year old's.
There's no playbook for these values, you have to decide for yourself.
Why innocence? How does innocence make a life more valuable? It's true that the kid has done nothing wrong, whereas the 40yo has sinned thoroughly, but on the other hand the kid has done nothing good for the world, and the 40yo probably has.
And vulnerability? If a high-speed train/cancer/thug is going to kill a 40yo and a toddler, how does the increased inherent vulnerability of the toddler make any difference?
Many people manifestly value inanimate property, as long as it is theirs, over human life outside of close friends and family, so is it really a surprise that that is also true of family pets?
For me it is moral and ethical that I put the safety and well being of my dog above people. That doesn't mean that I don't care about others, and it doesn't mean that I would ignore trying to save them once my dog was safe, but it is what is right for me.
But I would blow my brains out if I let a little girl burn to death so that I could save my dog.
You are responsible for your dog, unlike a stranger. The dog trusts you entirely and would do anything for you.
If they did, they'd want to let us know. Now cats, on the other hand...
In another comment of yours you mentioned choosing a pet or a random child? What about another, supposedly easier question, which would you prefer to save? A human life or $23? $23 might seem arbitrary but I picked it from my personal experience with a charity I volunteer with called ICM. It helps those with ultra poverty in the Philippines and I've had the great blessing (and curse) to undertake a tragic trip to the slums to meet these people. So I know the best I can offer is mine and ICM's word but that really can save a life.
I want you to know I don't bring this up to try and start a fight or be argumentative but this question plagued me when I returned home and to some extent still does. How can I buy a video game (random example), knowing that money I've just spent could have saved a life?
How do I, how do we, live like this? I'm an Australian and statistically, we're only giving less with each passing year, and what we do give? As on 2016 a measly $764. For comparison our minimum weekly wage is about ~$670. The least able of us (that are able at all) would only have to give a little over one of their weeks to match that.
Personally I'm the sort of crazy where I think of this almost every time I make a purchase and for the longest time it was killing me. The TL;DR of how I was able to answer this for myself involves a lot of reading, looking and thinking is basically summed up as follows. For most normal humans (myself included) we need to spend on ourselves to make us functional enough to care for others. We are sadly not infinite source of giving.
However I think society today has forgotten or changed enough that we no longer see this self healing as a means to enable us to help others but as the point of living, hence the ever decreasing percentages of people giving but I still have hope.
I'm sorry at this point I don't know exactly where I'm going with this at this but it's not that people value animal life above human life, it's that they value their own life and quality of life above others and as sucky as that answer is, I hope you find it help answer your questions in a manner that makes more sense.
1/4 the human race wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, 1/4 would actually set the fire, 1/4 would only pour a bucket over your head if it didn't involve walking too far and especially if others were watching.
Note that I'm not necessarily trying to argue whether that would be correct in a moral sense.
Why don't people feel that they should sacrifice themselves and carry their grief and their emotional loss, and save the child?
I agree with some others in this thread, those that would save their pet are selfish beyond my wildest imagination. To save themselves the grief of losing a subjective family member they sacrifice human life for what is to outside observers just an animal.
Be as you want to be, but in this I feel justified in judging those people most harshly indeed.
In order to attempt to falsify a hypothesis you don't need to necessarily run a direct experiment on it. In fact, few things are testable like that.
Anyway, I think I have what I need to know as to how he tests his ideas.
Now, ask yourself how many would save their own dog if they weren't being asked or observed (and implicitly judged)?
I consider the link fairly strong evidence for my claim.
Now, if it was between a stranger dog and a stranger child I'd choose the child.
This is a fairly divisive issue (what my original comment was about), and further ostracizing either side of the debate is not productive.
We bread dogs to a form where there pure existens is our contact with them.
We bread them in forms and colors as we see fit.
We bread them in forms which makes it hard for them to breath, which gives them cancer with a high rate.
We should stop buying dogs because we like dogs. We should stop putting them in small appartments and get a service for handling our dogs because its inconvinient.
No doubt to many it feels the same. Others may feel that their pet is more valuable than the entire world. But let's be realistic, if a driver kills your dog you will not be awarded $x-$xx million. Now if they run over grandma or worse, a child...
That's the "It happened. We're sorry, how do we go from here..." thing. At some point it has to be valued by others. I also said that emotion is relative.
My point is that grief is subjective - people spiral into depression over losing pets, while their parents can die without them batting an eye. Teenagers, with all the out of wack hormones can feel the same way over losing a girl/boyfriend.
When people say "I know what it is like because I lose my dog of 10 years when I was 13", they're telling you that they too have felt great despair, grief and sorrow. They know the feeling deep in their heart and they're expression sympathy. Instead being offended and being angry, let the sympathy help you.
yes, definitely. I think what you're doing - dismissing the pain of others - is cruel and completely lacks empathy. I'm sorry that life treated you in such a cruel way, yet it doesn't excuse your emotional cruelty toward others. Note: i did lost members of immediate and extended family, including my father and our cat, to cancer, so i know the pain.
Just step back and think what you're doing here - people from the original post are heartbroken by the tragic loss of their dog, and the commenters express their condolences and empathy toward the grieving family ... and here you rush in with your pain and start shouting that their pain is incomparable to yours. I only hope that your actions here make at least your pain easier even if just a bit, otherwise it is just senseless.
Our attachments are defined within us, and not by what we are attached to.
Losing a cousin is different to losing a father, which is different to losing a grandfather. And all that is completely different to losing a child, right? And everyone responds differently.
So you took offense because you decided he was comparing dogs with mothers. Certainly he was not; and that was not the point, after all.
Of course, saying "I know how you feel about your mother cos I lost my dog" is incredibly insensitive and stupid.
> you're going to claim that it is comparable to lose a human being that meant everything to you because an animal died
If that person was that important to you, of course it's not comparable. I don't think that's what the other comments were saying though.
I lost grandparents I was close with; one was after many years of several diseases fighting for the kill, death itself came as a mercy. I love my dog dearly, he's very old and his last breath is near and I get teary-eyed just from writing about it. And still, he's nothing compared to the loss of my grandmother. But that's me.
Suffering linked to attachment to something can be great, not matter the something. It's the attachment that matters, and it's not produced by the nature of the thing, but by the experience the person had of the thing.
It's created suffering anyway, so the amount you generate is up to you, and is not related to the loss.
sure, you can shut it down, process it, ride it out, walk it off and whatever, but if there was attachment, memories, associations with places, events, other persons, or even with music, activities, etc. it can and usually will get emotional.
Some people are quick to get over it, some will die - literally - grieving.
What a weird thing to get worked up over.
Of course it's comparable. The result of comparison is what matters - and among those people who downvoted these two comments, there's not a single one who thinks that these two are equal. However, it's reasonable to assume that while they differ significantly, they're on the same order of magnitude - say, a tenfold difference.
The strength of the feeling might be different and vary depending on all sorts of things, but it's a similar feeling, it is claimed.
Morals only come into it when we have to choose which one dies: not relevant here.
Brené Brown on Empathy - The RSA https://youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw
That cat was there for me through some very hard times, in a way no human was. To me, that cat had more value than a lot of humans do. Humans are largely (but luckily not entirely) self absorbed in their own lives and their own problems, the cat was always ready and happy to be with me, no matter what. Obviously there are caring people in the world who go above and beyond for others, but there were few of them when I needed people, so to me, that cat was more important than most people, as she helped me when no person could and gave me the emotional support I needed. So of course losing her was just as painful as losing a person.
People seem mostly fine a week after losing their dog and once they get a new one it's like the old one never existed. Meanwhile in my family so many things have changed in ways that are hard to describe ever since my father passed away years ago, and one can still feel the repercussions.
> we just have a totally different set of moral axioms and are fundamentally incapable of seeing the world in the same way.
That set of moral axioms you hold was what allowed people - you spiritual ancestors, no doubt - to murder millions and millions of people of different skin color or believing in another god. It's what allowed people to abduct and enslave and murder whole populations for hundreds, thousands of years. The belief that "they are not people, they are beasts, so we can treat them like livestock" is what underlies nearly every atrocity ever committed by the "human beings" you hold so dear as a race.
Today, the set of humans seen as people expanded, which is a good thing. People seem to have learned that people everywhere are fundamentally the same: they feel joy, sadness, rage, love; they all bleed the same when hurt; they all live their lives enduring hardships and enjoying good things.
The thing is, all of that is also true for animals. They are capable of feeling joy and sadness, of getting depressed, of jealousy, of loyalty, of empathy, of fear and anger, of suffering. They cannot voice their opinions, but you know - there are disabled people who also cannot do this, due to disability or brain damage. Such humans are no worse as people than the others: their families love them, care for them, and grieve for them once they depart. Your "moral axioms" are then inconsistent: you should either promote all animals to human status or demote disabled people straight into gas chambers. Just so you know, we've already tried the latter, it wasn't great.
---
None of the above should be particularly controversial, these are the basics, so let me finish by citing a poem of Andrzej Bursa I quite like, which (roughly translated[1]), goes like this:
Children are nicer than adults
animals are nicer than kids
you say that thinking this way
I'll find that the dearest to me
is paramecium caudatum[2]
so what
I prefer paramecium than you
you son of a bitch
How about losing a child? Have you done that? Well, I find it offensive that you can say you experienced grief over the loss of your mother. Until you’ve lost a child you can’t say you know grief...
What a daft stance. Grief is grief. What someone feels is entirely subjective.
I think you might want to consider counselling, as you seem to be harbouring some real anger over what was presumably a long time ago. I know it’s not easy to deal with the untimely death of a parent - been there - but lashing out at others and holding your grief above theirs isn’t a healthy mechanism.
Of course a dog walking company shouldn't have that many incidents, but if a number of them hit you together you may have a financial problem.
Also, I think that companies are very wary of claiming responsibility because of legal battles. Once they behave like it's their fault, customers can sue them for a large sum.
I'm just challenging a bit whether this is the best way to go about this, although in my own opinion, all three points are correct: You messed up. It happens. But now it's up to you to try to make it better.
This is some company which fixes a 'problem' with technology. They have a platform for people to buy the service of dog walking by other people.
There is no certification you need to 'walk a dog'. Kids do this, every day people do this.
Accidents happen.
And yes whatever person was in charge in formulating that email, is not very good in there job. But come on this is probably some person or perhaps 3 or 4 involved in this particular 'support case'.
And i'm assuming that whatever insurance would take a dog walker, is something you would need to pay. And most of the people wouldn't.
Wow! I’m saving this for my customer support toolbox.
This is how it should be done.
what?
A pet may have been an active part of the family for a decade, participating in many of the same activities as the family from dinner time to family outings. Some pets are taken on specifically in times of emotional need, such as after losing a family member or in place of a child that can't be conceived. Such pets may not be actual humans but they do fill a role and fill a hole similar to one.
Again, not the same, but I can see circumstances where the analogy makes sense. And it's special when it does, this doesn't apply to every pet ever.
Different people have different experiences. Gatekeeping grief is so massively weird to me. Guidance for the future: instead of one-upping the griever with an IG post about how you are sadder, just show empathy and move on.
Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwGnCIdHQH0
Some family members are worth less to some people than their pets. But I agree with you anyway, it was a pointless comparison. Lets just agree on that it sucks to lose someone, human or other animal.
Agreed. You do three things in a crisis:
1) Acknowledge the problem.
You killed someone's dog. This hits like losing family. "We're opening an investigation" is a chickenshit message.
2) CEO needs to speak.
Personal call from the top. If a dog is seriously injured or killed while on your watch, the CEO must make the call. This shows seriousness to the customer. It also ensures top brass feels the pain. That pain prevents future mistakes and is a real emotional tool for correcting cultures.
3) Over-correct.
You'll pay for cremation. You'll pay for counseling. You'll refund every Wag bill they ever incurred. If the family decides to get another dog, you'll offer to pay for their shots and food for a year and pet insurance for life.
The message must be we are sorry, this is unacceptable, and we intend on making this about as difficult for us as it is for you.
(Checklist from a video (with unfortunately and unrelated political content) by Scott Gallaway [1].)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB-AyvgE8Ns