> So what's really behind resistance to the moratorium? From the Japanese perspective, banning whaling before banning the killing of other animals is a bit logically inconsistent. If your argument is about conservation, then bluefin tuna, a far more important part of the Japanese diet, is also far more endangered. (Minke whales, the species Japanese whalers hunt, aren't even close to endangered, though the IWC claims minke whale numbers have fallen in recent decades.)

So part of the argument lies in denying reality by making claims that differ with the IWC. We’re off to a great start here.

>If your argument is that hunting whales is cruel, so is factory farming. If your argument is that whales are smart, so are pigs. None of this amounts to a case for eating whales, of course, but the argument to single out whales for protection is not exactly airtight either.

Then another argument is a bullshit logical “gotcha.” ‘If you care so much about animal conservation, why doesn’t that extend to every possible animeal?!’ Sure, ignore the slippery slope fallacy and there’s probably at least one more in that bullshit line of reasoning as well.

>So “saving the whale” may be irrational, but so is saving the panda or the polar bear or any other cute mammal. Activism rides on symbolic actions. And just as the whale has become symbolic for environmental groups like Greenpeace, it has, in response, become symbolic for the Japanese, too. “The strong condemnation of whaling by the foreigners is taken as harassing the traditional values,” says Kobayashi. The Japanese government now heavily subsidizes whaling to the tune of $50 million a year.

And like you said, here’s the crux of the real argument for whaling: political, yes, but in reality, just simply financial. The government gives 50 million a year for people to go kill fucking whales. That’s all. No more, no less.

This has actually been the practice in a few human cultures