The Last Egg, The Lost Conscience

1219: 

Edited by CJ Tointon

Here’s the state of things at present.  We have billions of humans eating foods produced by animals, and they're unwilling to consider the feelings of those animals.  Perhaps they’re pushing the idea of 'animal rights' onto the back burner, because they’re more concerned with money worries, family matters, job insecurity, global warming, ill health, etc., etc. etc.  There’s so much to think about and no relief in sight.

When we're troubled and some sort of concern hits, we often open the fridge for solace.  We choose our favourite food as a pick-me-up.

We eat for pleasure and diversion, comfort and consolation, despite the negative health pay-back of certain foods.  Whilst vegans (and to a certain extent vegetarians) avoid unethical foods, others attempt to override the conscience-killing things they know about.  They eat indiscriminately, even when they know about the cruelty behind their foods.

Unless you’ve been living on Mars for the past fifty years, you’ll know well enough what’s happening down the road, at the factory farm or should we call it the enriched colony system production unit.  You’ll also know what happens at the abattoir (euphemism: 'Meat Works').  We all have the images etched on our brains, from what we’ve seen on TV.  We’ll know about it, yet we’ll push it aside.  So how do we justify buying this stuff, this egg?  We can say, "This is reality".  We can insist that these places have to exist because we need a proper breakfast!

 

Wake up in the morning.  Open the fridge.  Take the last egg from the carton, to be cooked sunny-side-up.  Somewhere else, in another place, there’s no sun-up, no sunny-side, just the glare of neon lighting - and another egg drops to the tray below, earning Ms. Hen one more day of life in the cage.  But one day there’s no egg, no product, no reason for this hen to be alive!  All that's left is a one-way ride to the abattoir (the 'processing plant').

It’s sunrise and the killing has begun.  Our little hen, having failed to make her daily egg quota, now finds herself hanging by her legs on the conveyor, heading for those revolving blades.  If we listen carefully, we can hear her scream above the cracking of the shell of her last egg.  The egg is eaten, the carton empty.  We must remember to put a new carton on the shopping list.  We mustn’t run out.  The cycle continues.

We see the cruelty (on TV) and we try to put it out of our minds.  We try to forget it.  And as we carefully slip the new carton into our shopping trolley, the deed is done.  We repeat the routine of purchasing and eating and trying to think less and less about the ethics of what we are doing.

Small children are good at thinking - they often express horror at the way animals are treated.  They often want to say something, but children are experts in survival.  They know on which side their bread’s buttered.  They know what’s allowed -  eat it or go hungry.  They know there’s only so much the 'big people' will take from them.   Kids understand that any 'expressed horror' won’t go down too well, so they learn to comply.  The child's resistance is slowly worn down.

But for a while there may be empathy and it may re-emerge later, when they have more independence and can allow their consciences to wake from a long sleep.

Young people have a much cleaner slate than adults.  They’ve got more excuses - no, reasons - since they’ve never had any real freedom to choose their own food.  As kids they are unique in possessing a relatively clear conscience.  Guilt hasn’t bitten too deeply yet.  And it follows that, as their independence develops, they'll be freer to experiment with new foods and move away from the habits of their parents’ generation.

What young people are observing in their elders, is that when you don’t consult your conscience regarding eating animals, your senses will happily take over.  Eventually the senses will control your choices and body completely, until your health goes down the tube.

Simply by not making our own decisions and continuing eating what our mothers fed us, we seal our fate.  Our metabolism slowly and often painfully weakens.  But - too late.  Our immune systems fail.  We fail the test.  And like our exhausted hen, who forfeits her right to stay alive, so do we forfeit the advantage of being able to think for ourselves.  We fail simply because we give in to our need to be sensually gratified.  We follow the crowd.