Post war

1052: 

1945, end of the war.  Three near-simultaneous events took place.

First, there was a war grinding to a halt, millions dead, millions dying of starvation.  Hitler died, parents celebrated in bed, confident now to start or enlarge their families.

Second, an atom-splitting device exploded over a Japanese city, showing how we could, in theory, destroy the whole planet, just by pressing a button.

These two events marked the close of one sort of barbarity but gave rise to another.

Third, the war had brought hunger and a much needed reliable supply of food for burgeoning populations.  The fastest and cheapest and most reliable method of protein production was to intensify animal farming, thus to cage animals.  Animals went from a state of mild slavery to brutal incarceration in conditions people would have found unconscionable a few years before.  But the longer these ‘welfare’ standards remained in place, the more unnoticed and acceptable they became.

The idea of confining a whole sentient species, holding their bodies in straight jackets for the span of their foreshortened lives was the order of the day.  As we started to exploit any useful biological event in an animal’s body so we brought outrageous barbarity to the farm, by effectively entombing living animals.

As the war was ending so the intensification of farming increased exponentially, eventually giving rise to some public outrage and the beginning of the Animal Rights Movement.