Un-discovering is impossible

1642:

What’s it like being an animal? We’ll never know but I think we can learn a lot by observing them. Those we know best, dogs and cats, have an energy which is attractive, care-free, intimate, often friendly but without ambition. People can show these great qualities too, but only if ambition or opportunity doesn’t lure them away into becoming cold hearted. These days, we survive not by hunting for food but hunting for a social place. Survival in this difficult human world means we have to accomplish things, accumulate possessions and qualifications. We also have to learn how to cut off and become quite unfriendly. Along the way we become greedy for anything which might advantage us, which only later acts to drags us down like a heavy chain.

         

We humans who cause the most damage, find ourselves on a runaway train, investing whatever we've got into getting ahead. Along the way we find out how to exploit, using our brains to dominate both beings and resources.

Animals are a prime resource and the most exploited resource; we eat them, use them, experiment on them, imprison them and, as far as their feelings go, disregarded them. We’ve learnt about ‘using animals’ and it’s all turned ugly, and we’ve become caught up in our own struggle for 'advancement'.

Eventually we see how the exploiting ‘omnivore’, in search for advantage, has settled for enslaving animals. And for those on the front line, they are caught up with all forms of animal exploitation just to stay ahead of their competitors. All of us might wish we’d never learnt to exploit, since things have got so out of hand, but it's too late. Knowledge is irreversible.

         

We’ve been lured towards possibilities, lost control of our thirst for knowledge and then realised that what we’ve discover can’t be un-discovered. We can no more return to an innocent or simple life than we can unmake the atom bomb. Likewise, once we know what happens down on the farm, we might be haunted by it but we're held committed to it by our habits and addictions. The only option open to us is to atone, repair and act.

But who is this ‘we’? I can’t ban the bomb. I can’t change laws. I can’t ban animal slavery. But what I can do is live by my own code of conduct and perhaps lead by example. I have to be content with that, in the slim hope that I, along with others who feel the same way, will set a trend. If I stop using animals, that’s one more friend they have on their side. Once I’ve seen why human ambition is dangerous, I no longer need to run the risk of making the same old mistakes humans have been making for perhaps thousands of years.