1855:
Materialism is rampant. Our
thirst for the material satisfactions of life is insatiable. To get the things
we want, we take trees out of forests, put people in slums and factories and
enslave animals. The rich have made fortunes - wherever’s a benefit to them
they’ve taken it, without restraint.
Perhaps we’re all complicit
since we humans dominate all other species, so that we can do as we please.
Apart from a few viruses that we don’t yet control, all other life forms are
subject to human whim, anything useable is used and anything in our way is got
rid of. If any human population falls out of line we, bomb it. If any useful
animal, like a kangaroo, can’t be farmed, we hunt it. If any life form becomes
an uncontrollable pest, like the rabbit, we spread disease in it’s environment
to eradicate it. Humans will stop at nothing to be in control. And whatever we
do is done with violence and without a second thought. And yes, it’s old news
that we humans are violent, the most dangerous animal on the planet, but
perhaps less old-news may be that we don’t think. We sometimes call it ‘second
thoughts’. We inherit thoughts and pass them on to newer generations, and they
on into the future, until we have no future, because much inheritance is self-destructive.
This whole business of look
after number one, and you won’t go far wrong, of course sounds appealing, but
it’s laced with danger. Unless and until we are focussing on anything OTHER
than self, we’re going nowhere. Once we’re focussing (horrible word) on the
other (another horrible word) we’re hitting unexpected and frightening things,
NOT the horrors going on but the scale at which we have missed it or not given
it this famous ‘ second thought’.
So, we come back to violence,
which overtly, covertly, by contact or by proxy is ruining what we laughingly
call ‘civilisation’. And it’s violence is mainly to be seen in the slow
agonising process of species-suicide, all completely avoidable and swiftly
reversible by one single action.
Control through violence is
passed on, from generation to generation, and initially this appeals to young
people who only see the advantages to themselves. They, poor buggers, don’t
know any different. Before around mid teens, their minds are so stifled by
authority that they can’t function, and certainly, tennage pressures being what
they are, ther’s not the space in the merest fragment of their independent
adult minds to leave space for ‘second thoughts’. They live as they learn, and
their mantra “Live Now” (which subtly implies live only for the now). They
adopt a carefree approach to all things. That is, until they begin to see
through it all.
Who is there to guide them?
Older people are intimidated by youth, finding young people’s vitality and
spontaneity so exciting they hardly dare to criticise them for anything (to
their face), and anyway, can’t keep up with them on the track or in thinking.
They dare not comment on lack of responsibility or lack of independent thinking,
because maybe they don’t have very much themselves. Conversely, young people
don’t usually find their elders inspiring or exciting at all, and turn to their
peers for support, which exposes them to peer pressure, group thinking and a
lot of un-‘second-thought’-out behaviour. Thus maybe the great dread, The Great
Dread amongst young people is that they will remain so, as big versions of what
they are now, unguided and prone to the quick, violent ways of the elders.
The Animal Rights movement is
hopefully brave enough to make a bold stand against one of the great
irresponsibilities of our time - the message, concerning the abuse of food
animals, may just be enough to reverse today’s indulgent trend and bring back
some sanity to our increasingly uncivilised society.
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