The seriously deficient fridge

1483: 

Our most valuable failsafe is supposed to be personal ethics, working alongside conscience and intelligent-thinking.  When following a social norm, something in our upbringing should stop us in our tracks for long enough for us to do some serious questioning. In this case: "Should I be eating this?"

That 'something' is often overridden by our senses.  Sensuality tugs at us like any temptation.  If we want something enough we'll numb our common-sense conscience and say to ourselves, "YES!!!  Grab those shoes",  "Bog in" to that steak or that chocolate bar. It's normal to be passionate about shoes and chocolates. So this is where a 'conscience-cauterising process' takes place - the mind manipulators go to work on us, to skilfully manage us, for this is the job of the normalisers.   'Normalising' involves being 'cool' about using questionable items. It's the job of advertising, which, not surprisingly, is a very wealthy industry. It is somewhat in the pay of the even wealthier Animal Industry, who is never unwilling to sink money into an effective advertising campaign.  

Copywriting (and continuity writing) leans heavily on the customer's 'temptatious-ness'.  Making us want what we don't need, etc. If customer-demand is there, the Industry will respond.  And, inevitably, the greater the demand the greater the zeal of the Animal Industry, to continue attacking ever more animals, for ever bigger profits.

From a tender age, there is a standard mind-fix imprinted on all children; they are exposed to that phrase, "They’re only animals". They conclude that it's okay to use, attack, kill and eat them. And, covering the safety angle, kids are informed that these tame animals pose no retaliatory threat.  And if they can’t retaliate, why not exploit them? After all, "Animals were ‘put here’ for us to use!"

Animals are seen as economic assets to the farmer or the drug company.  We, the consumer, let them do what they do to animals because they come up with the goods we want and benefit from. Our 'letting them' (giving our financial support) also 'lets' governments have voter permission to 'let' everything continue as it is.  No one plays the innocent part here. Pollies, producers, customers, we all allow Society to shaft the animals, and we allow it because there’s something in it for us.  This is where the word 'selfish' is not overstating the case. 

"I want". "I want ice cream". "I don't want to know about cows and calves, I just want ice cream, because there's something in it I like very much. And I want it, now".  In contrast, if I protest and boycott all the thousands of products which contain bits of animal in them, it seems as though there's nothing in it for me, except inconvenience.

What happens to our self regard when it's based on poor quality decisions? What happens when we act against our best nature, no longer acting as protective, loving and guardian-like people? What happens when we cave into cravings? Then, we have to turn off our protection-gene and switch on the indifference-gene.  And to make this possible we have to believe that animals don’t have feelings, not in the sense that we do.  Which makes them not much different to machines - and for machines there's no need for feelings at all.   But here's the thing - we don't equate them with our 'pets' at home.   If we did to our cat what we do to our cattle, we'd have the TV cameras crawling all over us.  They’d be exposing everything and everybody connected with the case, and telling us that "It's never-okay to hurt cats".

But it's okay to hurt farm animals - by all means, go ahead!

What is the difference between a mistreated dog and a mistreated cow?  Why aren’t we as interested in the cow’s emotional wellbeing as we'd be for 'companion' animals at home?  Why don't we give a stuff about a hen’s health unless it affects her ‘lay’?  And what's more to the point, why aren’t we mourning our own fall from grace, by letting our beautiful consciences close down?

The symptoms are clear enough, but the cure isn't obvious unless it's as simple as stopping being so selfish.  We have a ‘spoilt-brat’ attitude. "I must have it".  We must have milk on our corn flakes or our day won't be quite right.  Let's get our priorities right - human comfort first. Any compassion left over after that, by all means, be effulgent with it.  But never forget one's own convenience.  And remember, a fridge without a carton of milk is a seriously deficient fridge.