Separation

1073: 

To really keep separate, to really control people, whether low caste, uneducated or vulnerable, all we need to do is keep our distance and not get too familiar with them.

           

The necessary distance-of-separation depends on what makes us tick - how far we want to ‘do the right thing’ by them, or how far we’re happy to screw them.

           

A range of exploitative attitudes pass from generation to generation till they become group attitudes.  'Separation-ists' learn how to put a person ‘in their place’ and they usually operate with them on an ‘auto-pilot of dislike’.  By disliking our victims we can better justify what we do to them. 

In our treatment of animals (primarily concerning resource animals) we need them to be useful yet docile. The vast planetary population of domesticated animals need to be managed as easily as possible.  Farmers say they love their animals, whereas in fact rather dislike them.  For, by actively disliking them they can justify heavy handling. 

           

On farms, any amount of heartless treatment is fair game, and all the better if it’s routine and barely-thought-about.  An emotional separation is essential for those who are hands-on.

           

If you aren’t a ‘separation-ist’ you may be more attracted to the egalitarianism of differences, and be attracted by those very differences, either between people or other species.  If you’re a true non-separationist, you’ll probably be in favour of giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. You’ll want to give the best treatment possible to the marginalised.

           

But the separation-ists are still in the ascendant.  They prefer to keep others ‘in their place’, and it also applies to other species; culture-discrimination transposes to species-discrimination.  Most humans rate animals (along with ‘lesser-people’) as being lower than themselves, and this allows them to dish out poor treatment and not feel bad about it.

           

Humans do terrible things to animals and can still maintain a smile, knowing that a nice dinner is waiting for them on the table. Something delicious and meaty. What could be better? And it’s always been like that down through the ages. Until, in the nineteen forties when all this was seriously questioned. The possibility of an animal-free diet was mooted.

Until we realise what is really happening to animals, we will continue to sit at our dinner tables, hoping no conscience-pricking vegans come by to spoil our enjoyment; a vegan, talking about ‘our kinship with animals’, would spoil our dinner entirely, especially if we’re eating an animal at the time.