914:
We might think that by morally disapproving of
animal-product users, we’ll be able to stop them in their tracks, and get them
to discover the facts for themselves. We reckon we can shame them, set them off
in the right direction, and after that it will be a piece of cake.
If only it were that easy! People
might be much better informed today but values have become so warped that wrong
can seem right, especially when enough people say so. Eating meat and therefore
abusing animals, for example, might be contrary to our core values but we have
a way of making it okay to eat these same abused animals anyway. And if there
is ever any threat that something, like a favourite food, might be taken away,
that is when people are seen at their most implacable.
The human dilemma is whether
certain values should be judged important. Who is to say that one value
outweighs another? If most people, if almost all people, contradict a value,
then it becomes a diminished value, as if the principle behind it can be turned
upside-down according to popularity. It’s as if there’s a choice in how we see
right and wrong. It’s as if we can choose to endanger ourselves (and others) by
letting vested interest sway us.
So, here we are, going along with
life, thinking we have a handle on truth, until that truth begins to feel
inconvenient, and then it’s as if we have no choice in the matter; we have to
simply follow a new truth, to see where it takes us.
Is this what has happened, where
people have been persuaded en masse, to accept the unacceptable?
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