What you are describing is precisely why the animal agriculture industry uses the word humane and why we should point out the hypocrisy. Very few people would agree if they said that what they were doing is “benevolent”, “kind”, or “compassionate”. It would be pretty obvious that that’s not the case. But by using a word like humane which our culture has muddied they can get away with it. That’s why we have to call them out when they talk about “humane” methods of slaughter or that the way they treat the animals is “humane”.
I mean, they wouldn’t even be wrong if they said it was human. And by extention, one could argue that it was humane, when applying the origional meaning of the word. In my opinion people would be just as incorrect by saying what they were doing was inhumane. My beef here really is with the words humane and inhumane. The way people use these words, is perpetuating a lie about human character. Both words shouldn’t be used at all. Genocide is (in)human(e), slavery is (in)human(e), *ism is (in)human(e), …, pretty much every form of cruelty present on planet Earth is (in)human(e)*.
*) to be read as human, humane, inhumane (excluding inhuman)
If you use this way of thinking then the words humane and inhumane completely lose all meaning and the conversation is completely pointless. Regardless of the etymology of a word, what matters is the way that they are being used presently by society. And presently, no one uses the word “humane” to mean “something that a human does” because there is simply no reason to have a word that means that. It conveys very little useful information. And when the animal agriculture industry says that its practices are “humane” they are not saying “a human is performing these actions”. They are very clearly trying to imply that what they are doing is “good” without actually saying it because of how ridiculous it would sound.
I agree with the implying-part. But it is what is human, not what a human does. And the way humane and inhumane are commonly used are a fiction. Humane, is just arbitrary “good” “human” characteristics. For example compassion; We know, that at least some animals are compassionate too, so it is not something special only humans have. The in in inhumane implies, that the associated characteristics are non-human. Yet, every thing ever referred to as inhumane is absolutely human. Both words, when looking at them closely, just don’t make any sense, and I would go as far as saying are semantically incorrect. And humane as a synonym for human still would be as useful as the word human, just without any fictional connotation. The human brain, human society, the human experience, … If you want to continue this dialogue, please leave the topic of the post out of it. My critique of the word in-/humane was/is general. The post was just my discussion starter because it contained the word humane. Nothing more, nothing less.
