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To really keep separate, to really control people, whether low caste, uneducated or vulnerable, all we need to do is keep our distance and not get too familiar with them.
The necessary distance-of-separation depends on how soft we are - how far we want to ‘do the right thing’ by them, or how far we’ll be happy to screw them?
A range of exploitative attitudes pass from generation to generation till they become group attitudes. 'Separation-ists', learning how to put a person ‘in their place’, find it convenient to be on an ‘auto-pilot of dislike’. By disliking our victims we can better justify what we do to them. We’re primarily talking here about resource animals (so useful yet so docile), of whom there’s a vast population on the planet. Farmers say they love their animals. I don’t think that’s true. I think they rather dislike them. For, by actively disliking them (because they are different to humans), they can justify their heavy handling of them.
On farms, any amount of heartless treatment is fair game, and all the better if it’s routine and barely-thought-about. This emotional separation becomes an essential skill for those who are hands-on, working for the Animal Industries.
If you aren’t a ‘separation-ist’ you may be more attracted to the egalitarian, and likely you’ll have a yen for minority views ... and be un-put-off-able on the subject of differences. You’ll quite likely like those very differences, between other people or other species. If we are non-separationist, we’ll surely be in favour of giving anyone the benefit of the doubt and want to give to the marginalised the best treatment possible.
But separation-ists are still in the ascendant. Their view is keep others ‘in their place’, a ‘people-attitude’ which helps when applying similar attitudes to other species; culture-discrimination transposes to species-discrimination. Most humans rate animals (plus specific ‘lesser-people’) as being lower than themselves ... hence can treat them badly ... hence, not feel bad for doing so.
Humans do terrible things to animals and can still maintain the grimace of a smile. Equilibrium is reached, nothing bad is happening ... and a nice dinner is waiting for us on the table - what could be better?
And it’s always been like that down through the ages ... until, in the nineteen forties, someone had the audacity to call “crap”. They proposed to seriously question this.
Until we burst the bubble, about what really happens to animals, we will sit at the dinner table, just hoping there are no vegans amongst our number. Listening to vegans talking about ‘kinship with animals’ spoils your appetite, especially if you’re eating an animal at the time.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
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