I grew up in a rural area around a lot of violence and death. I was completely indoctrinated into the objectification of everyone who was not human. 

I used to go out with a pole and hook fishes, bring them up out of their water, cut off their heads, gut them, scale them, cook them and eat their bodies without ever thinking how they felt with a hook in their mouths, in fear and suffocating. I never thought how their friends and families felt to lose them. I never even recognized their personhood for a second, just as I never recognized the personhood of anyone else who wasn’t human, but humans rarely ever understand fishes at all because we are so ignorant about them. 

I am still angry about it. Showing children to disregard the suffering of others, and to even enjoy it, is such a sickness. 

I am glad I am less ignorant about fishes and everyone else now, too. I defend fishes now, but most humans continue to insist that fishes are not intelligent and don’t feel. Humans show themselves to be unintelligent when they say that.