Hardened humans

1814a: 

If I believe there’s any trace of hard-heartedness in me, then I’m on my way to being barbaric, or something similar, which makes me afraid that I’m not heading in the right direction. It’s a fear of making no progress. When there are so many animals not safe from us, then we may say that we are dangerous beings, and I for one don’t want to see our species like that. On a personal level we most of us want to save our souls, and not have to conform or be held back by the bad behaviour of our own species. We know we have a reputation for violence, and if we aren't completely self-satisfied, then we're probably haunted by what we know that happens on our behalf.

         

Fifty billion domesticated farm animals who are alive today are currently on Death Row. None of them have any quality of life. None have any reason to live, since none have any contact with the natural world. If not consciously, then sub consciously, I’m sure people are aware of the ways they are involved in all of this.

I’m sure our own happiness is linked to wanting others to be happy too, whether they be humans or animals. Conversely, our unhappiness is undoubtedly linked to our attachment to those commodities extracted from animals who are being treated cruelly. We humans are social animals, we like to be with people and win their approval. But we also want to win self approval and don’t want to be weighed down by and become implicated in other people’s mistakes.

In the most sober and non-judgemental way, we can accept that we are all much the same under the skin but just at different levels of awareness. I’m fairly sure that our greatest differences are superficial. We can bring ourselves closer to each other by assessing and mutually agreeing about what is important and what is not? But if there is one big barrier stopping us getting close to one another it is the loss of discrimination between what is obvious and what we deliberately choose NOT to notice. This allows us to be led by those who provide us with products we want who happen to be the main perpetrators of animal cruelty. If we don't want to notice what they do then we can't be truly close to those who have noticed and have chosen to boycott their products.