1293:
Everybody knows we're
trashing the environment and doing things against our own ethical standards. But here's the justification trick - by
admitting culpability in one main issue-area we can ignore other much more
difficult issue-areas. Some measure of
environmental awareness shields one from any need for awareness of, say, animal
exploitation.
Animal use and abuse has
become so much part of our lives that the last thing a person would want to hear
is a condemnation of animal farming. It's
in that yukky area which leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. It never reaches the brain since it's an
automatic gut-feeling reaction, that cuts in to stop anyone, like a vegan,
having the chance, to speak about it.
My own rather futile strategy
would be to try ANY approach, despite knowing that I'll be either shut out or
shut up as soon as any opening remark is made. This is what I find usually happens: I open up
provocatively - saying that whilst animal farms were providing us with much of
our food they were little more than death camps. That's when eyes glaze over and there's no
chance to expand on that theme. I never
get as far as mentioning how animal farming is a major cause of greenhouse gas
emissions and general pollution. I never
get as far as suggesting that by eating so much of this contaminated produce,
our bodies are going haywire, and that was causing us to lose control of our
health. Nor do I ever get to talking
about animal foods being too ‘rich’ and being such fat-saturated food, leading
to obesity linked with over-indulgent lifestyles.
You soon enough realise that
everything which needs to be said is taken as an insult, and reason
enough not to have to listen to ANY expansion of the theme. Which means that there's an effective taboo on
a whole line of argument, since there’s an obvious link between each of these
issues - animal-use has links to many of the world's problems, the one issue leading
to the other and on to the next, ending up with the shameful state of affairs
where so many children in poor countries, even the country next door, are dying
for want of food.
One can point out the
connections, between certain specific actions and the worst possible
consequences, but most people can't find any way to see any of this, since they
are so caught up in the present system. They
are so keen on consuming animals and all the ‘goodies’ made available by dint
of farming them, that they can't heed the warnings. They continue as they have always continued. They can't make any substantial progress in
what they do or think, since they are standing almost transfixed, like a rabbit
in the car’s headlights. The
consequences of their action and inaction rush towards them and their first
line of defence is to stop in-coming information. It's the information that is rushing towards
them, threatening to crush them with a need for change. It sounds like something unpleasant, and it
touches their gut feeling.
Our biggest difficulty is
that we are not dealing with the brains of people but their gut-instinct. We might have a lot to say but no one to say
it to. The more one learns about the use
of animals, the more cruelty one sees, the less one can tell others about it. Either the cowardliness or the dishonesty of
ordinary people is the biggest shock; it seems incredible that so many people
are unwilling to see such obvious links between what they condone and what is
happening all around them. Millions of
children are dying needlessly and millions of animals are being killed
shamelessly, and everyone, it seems, turns away and goes about their business
as if nothing bad is happening.
No comments:
Post a Comment