The latest panic from the animal welfare lobby has arrived. Hundreds of cats rescued in Vietnam, whisked away from the supposed ‘catnapping’ crisis. British groups, ever eager to police the morals of the globe, urge global action.
But let us pause. Is this a genuine humanitarian concern or yet another symptom of a West that has lost its sense of proportion? Consider the fall of Rome, where bread and circuses distracted the populace from decay.
Today, we have cat memes and rescue missions. Vietnam, a nation with a proud history and a pragmatic approach to stray animals, is now to be lectured by the very people who brought us the factory farm. I am not unsympathetic to animal welfare, but when the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals operates as a sort of global moral police, one must ask: who appointed them?
The reality is that Vietnam’s stray cat population is a symptom of urbanisation and poverty, not a crime syndicate. And while British charities raise funds for Vietnamese felines, their own country’s homelessness crisis worsens. The intellectual decadence of the West is nowhere more apparent than in its selective outrage.
We fret over cats while ignoring the fall of our own civilisation. The Victorians at least had the decency to focus on empire-building; we focus on litter boxes.
