Hunting Does Not Exist

By Horisun Antunee

I was thinking about whether or not it’s okay to hunt today, and something occurred to me: hunting doesn’t really exist. The word creates separation from the reality that it’s being used to describe. The word, like most words, ecompasses many connotations. Those connotations are what hunting is. It’s the concept that people thrust over the reality of the situation. It only connects to people’s mental and emotional understanding of the activity.

Hunting is a sport. Hunting is a way of life. Hunting is nobility. Hunting is family. Hunting is everything purely conceptual that people thrust upon the activity being described. And that’s why hunting is always going to be wrong. It might be a sport to you. It might be enjoyable for you. It might connect to ideas regarding nobility or family or identity for you. But none of those things connect to the reality of the activity as it exists independent of yourself. The reality is death. You’re killing another living being. You’re killing. Killing is the activity. And in my mind, a discussion about the justification of killing could only become achievable when removed from the justifications of the connotations of the word hunting. 

So, for me, the question becomes whether or not it’s okay to go out and kill another living being. And I don’t know if it’s ever okay to do that either. But, it might be justifiable; I believe that it’s not acceptable to hurt another living being when it’s not done out of necessity. Necessity might grant justification to do things that were not previously justifiable. Given that, I believe that it’s wrong to kill something when it’s not necessary to do so. In addition, I believe that it’s wrong to kill something and not utilize its remains to the fullest extent possible. Having said that, it’s necessary for people to eat if they wish to survive. And sometimes people have to eat meat to survive (this is not always the case, as some people have the option to eat alternatives). So, sometimes it would be necessary for people to eat meat if they wanted to survive. And in those instances, I’m inclined to think that killing another living being to survive might be justifiable. But that is not hunting.