Green and the bigger picture

946: 

How can environmentalists and conservationists be sensitive in one way, wanting to end whaling and deforestation, but insensitive in another,  namely to the plight of farm animals? They show sensitivity by the great work they do, especially for endangered species, so why insensitive to food, or rather the animal content of it? Why do they hold sausage sizzles?  It’s a confusing message these groups send.

If you’re the sensitive type (and you don’t need to be that sensitive to see what’s happening on animal farms) you are probably green. But how far green, and what does ‘green’ mean? If ‘greens’ are widening their awareness towards animal-rights, then that’s brilliant, because it’s the start of an alteration of daily habits. It’s starting out towards anti-violation and non-violence.

The saddest thing is not war, starvation, typhoon or disease, but the human condition. It’s like the milk turned sour by being left too long on the doorstep. The sour human allows no place for softness and compassion. They’re not even giving a nod in the right direction. Most people are sensitive enough to pick up what’s shown them, sour or otherwise, but then the question is whether they act on what they’ve seen.

Sensitivity is not a machine to be turned on and off at will. If you see a hen in a cage on a battery farm and it gives you a feeling, that feeling can’t be obliterated. It has been felt! We can’t be selective. It’s likely if you feel for trees and forests and rivers you will love Nature and therefore love the fauna,  and therefore love their cousins in captivity. So, we can be sensitive but not selectively so. We surely don’t need great gaping contrasts between the sensitive-me and the insensitive-me.

But specifically, related to animal slavery, with an underdeveloped empathy, what are we left with? Perhaps just a selfish desire for pleasure and a blind spot when it comes to our dodgy food habits. As a collective (the world in general) we have a few other human-generated problems such as war, starvation and to some extent disease. We can’t be held responsible for Mother Nature’s typhoons, but we can do something about the others by how we conduct ourselves at home, and by not exacerbating problems by continuing our animal-killing habits.

Humans are in a bind over this - whether to act for oneself or to blend in with others; as individuals we can make changes to our lives but we’re reluctant if it separates us from others we live amongst. So we compromise. And we have compromised down through the generations, taking up violence as a means of making our lives more comfortable. We attacked animals, resources, anything we could lay our hands on. We stole as much as we could carry off. This didn’t do much for our overall health or happiness, but it made us the dominant species. But so what? It hasn’t made us better, and it’s not likely to bring us happiness or health since so much of what we’ve done was all based on theft and cruelty and other nasties.

We’ve become a stoopid and violent species, and we all know that we don’t have to be like that (‘stoopid’, as in aware but ignoring the consequences). We’re stoopid because we’re violent, and we’re violent because we’re refusing to act on what we see, because it’s easier that way. That’s the point I want to make. We dismiss violence as unimportant, when used in certain circumstances. Presumably that includes anything we do to secure our own food supply?

And, of course, this is the point where vegans say, “Stop”; it’s no longer necessary for humans to eat violence-laden food. That’s basically the first point we make. You can choose it or reject it. You’re either for it or against it, you can’t have it both ways.

So, the dear human animal has eaten what it’s been told to eat, and hasn’t sorted out for itself what’s right and wrong ... well of course it has, but has then decided, while the gods aren’t watching, to stuff its collective face, enough to become overweight by eating yummy-looking foods. Some aren’t so stupid in one way, they know about empty foods and modern husbandry practices, they’re educated, but they’re ‘stoopid’ in a far worse way, they ape the high-living wealthy classes, they eat rich foods and they too die from stuffing their faces. But in addition, they censor what they know and what they think about. They act in one way, but they ought to know better.

It’s quite the opposite case with vegans. We know better, and we can’t stop telling people about it all. Most of all, we don’t want to be that ‘proper old hypocrite’ in order to enjoy life for what it has to offer. I’m sure many people live on the edge and have had to make compromises. I just wish they hadn’t chosen this particular compromise.