There is an interview of Andrew W.K. in the LAWeekly, and here are some interesting excerpts. Err,.. Let’s say that the man is not a deep thinker, let me explain it after the quotes:
‘I've thought a lot about food, usually cause I'm hungry and I just like food. Let's say you're gonna make a pizza. You're essentially destroying tomatoes to make the sauce and perhaps onion and garlic and spices. Then of course the bread is destroyed wheat for the crust, and you've got a cow whose life in some ways you've destroyed just to make milk and then you're destroying that milk or transmuting it to make cheese, and if there's any meat on the pizza you're certainly destroying an animal's life in that way. I love meat. Then you destroy the pizza when you eat it! It happens all over again. The pizza builds up you and it gives you nourishment. You destroy whatever's left in the form of human waste. The human waste has fertilizer qualities that build up a new plant which you can then destroy and make a new pizza all over again!’
Yeah, yeah the circle of life,.. first of all you cannot put destroying a pizza and destroying a cow at the same level because a pizza is not alive, this is ridiculous. And he does not understand the difference between a tomato and a cow? It’s called nervous system and thus suffering. I don’t understand the point of this rant, he is talking as if slicing a tomato was the same thing than killing a cow, totally a different level of organization.
He continues:
‘Nature is hell! There's a reason we built homes – because we can't survive out there! Wild beasts have no relation to how we perceive reality beyond survival. To try to humanize them, to try to put a humanoid presence on their body- like "Oh look, it's licking its hand." It's not its hand! It's a paw! I love animals – but I would rather my kids survive than any animals. I'd rather all animals be wiped off the earth entirely and still have my family and my friends' families and all the other humans here than the opposite of that.’
‘I don't think humans are the same as other animals anymore. We have to use our advantages and those skills we have to help all other species- namely us first. I'm a big believer that humanity is more important than other life forms.’
‘Comparing animals and humans is a very dangerous and very strange way to think. I've been vegan before, and this is nothing to do with animal cruelty. It's an ethical question. I don't think it's ethical to think of non-humans as equal to humans. I think it's a very basic survival instinct. What animal would ever kill its own young to save some other animal that doesn't relate to it at all?’
He is apparently not aware at any ethological studies about animals, there are many observations of Bonobos (some chimpanzees) helping other species, like birds, he is totally wrong on that one.
And I loved my cat more than certain human beings I have met, I guess many people can relate, and I don’t have any ethical problems with that.
I hate people who think humans are so above nature, people who practice speciesism as Peter Singer says, there is a profound continuity between man and nature, we are part of it, and no it’s not dangerous to compare humans and animals because we are animals, we are primates, we are basically chimpanzees at 98.7% DNA speaking… We may be intelligent animals with an exceptionally large brain but some members of my species have still to prove it. We eat, drink, sleep and fuck the same way than any other species, and no we are not that special, it is very well-established that higher primates have a certain degree of morals, so we have no exclusivity there, we are just a continuity… Andrew W.K. should not try to philosophize, he cannot go very far.
And if we are the more moral species that exists, our goal should be about reducing the suffering of any species, and then we could really be ‘above’ any other species.