We're All Killers

            All men like meat and potatoes.

I am a man.

Therefore I like meat and potatoes.

The logic is irrefutable. And the reality is that I do like meat and potatoes. It works. Well, maybe it works. But there are problems of various kinds.

To start, you may not accept the premises on which the logical conclusion is based. I'll agree. Not all men like meat and potatoes. (And, although I maintain that I am a man, the definitions of the sexes nowadays are becoming a little trickier. I won't deal with that question now.) But that's only one issue.

You may object to the meal itself. If you're a vegan you certainly will. You'll object even if you're a run-of-the-mill vegetarian. You'll consider the killing of any animal wrong, let alone eating it. (If you're a vegan you'll take issue with any “ab”use of an animal – all use constitutes abuse – but that's not the point of this essay so I won't pursue it.) Which brings us to the question of what constitutes “killing.” Let me provide one dictionary's definition:

Kill – cause the death of (a person, animal, or other living thing).

The definition, however, is not explicit enough. I'm not much of a gardener, and I've killed many a plant. They're “living things” as well, and it's hard to be certain where to draw the line. So we use objective (I'll deal with the differentiation of “objective” and “subjective” in another essay) criteria. For that we're aided by the work of Carolus (Carl) Linnaeus who (sort of) solved the problem for us. Linnaeus (1707-1778) classified all forms of life as he knew them. His classification was based on observation, and he relied on the physical characteristics he could identify using the instruments he had available. Subsequently his categorization has been modified, but we still use a differentiation between animals and other kingdoms, as did he.

Here's the Merriam Webster view of an animal:

any of a kingdom (Animalia) of living things including many-celled organisms and often many of the single-celled ones (as protozoans) that typically differ from plants in having cells without cellulose walls, in lacking chlorophyll and the capacity for photosynthesis, in requiring more complex food materials (as proteins), in being organized to a greater degree of complexity, and in having the capacity for spontaneous movement and rapid motor responses to stimulation

As for plants, another dictionary sees one as

any member of the kingdom Plantae, comprising multicellular organisms that typically produce their own food from inorganic matter by the process of photosynthesis and that have more or less rigid cell walls containing cellulose, including vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, and hornworts: some classification schemes may include fungi, algae, bacteria, blue-green algae, and certain single-celled eukaryotes that have plantlike qualities, as rigid cell walls or photosynthesis.

We presume that all life is descended from the first single-celled organism, whatever that was. “Life,” therefore, includes not only what most of us think of as plants and animals, but also bacteria, fungi, and everything else that scientists may describe. So we have a problem concerning our distinctions. We can use the scientific definitions, but we know that they are, to a very great extent, artificial. (Remember that these definitions are man-made and arbitrary.  We could have defined animal and plant differently if we so chose.)   The steak we eat and the streptococcus we treat have a common ancestor. And so does the nail fungus that embarrasses us so. Are we any more justified in killing that fungus, or a malarial parasite, than a calf? What should we do about termites, mosquitoes, and rattlesnakes? Is it legitimate to use antibiotics to eliminate deadly bacteria? Are we allowed to wash our hands and brush our teeth? They will kill bacteria as well.

And what about the potatoes I eat with my beef? Linnaeus lacked access to, among other things, the microscopes we use now and to DNA analysis, so his classification has required modification (as ours will be modified by future scientists, who will consider our tools to have been primitive). But we know that we can change the definitions of the specific kingdoms at will while accepting the idea of a common origin of all life. And Darwin has instructed us on how it all came to be. Evolution presumably began with that first organism.

You don't have to bounce a ball on an ant (or step on one by accident) to kill – to end life. You can do so by stepping on one while walking or by uprooting a stalk of wheat to make “the staff of life.” And is the cause of dysentery, an amoeba, a one-celled animal, more precious and worth preserving than an oak tree? After all, an oak is only a vegetable.

Our differentiations are artificial. There are some “plants” that move and others, like the pitcher plant, that eat animals. There are “animals” that contain chlorophyll. Can we really draw fine lines concerning what constitutes life and what constitutes killing? Can we differentiate the important from the unimportant? Am I just as “guilty” for eating the french fries as the steak? And is killing and eating that potato a form of cannibalism? (I usually have tomato ketchup with my fries. Where does that fit in?)

I think I'll stick with logic. Right or wrong, it's more understandable. I know I'm a killer, but so are you.