Original thought

1122: 

Original thought is frightening because it clashes with our long-held beliefs.  If we can finally give up eating animals (and wearing them) a whole lot of other things will fall into place.  But we won’t know anything about that, first hand, unless we first give it up.  We can no more imagine the benefits of a plant-based diet than we can imagine it instigating a release of our inner fear.

The animal-question stirs up fear, and we always ask the same sort of question, “Where will it all end if animals are no longer there to provide us with food and clothing?”

Because an animal-free lifestyle is unimaginable, the omnivore can’t begin to consider having respect for these ‘food’ animals or regarding them as individuals.  They’ll ask the inevitable question, “What will happen if we give animals the same consideration, the same right-to-a-life, as we grant those of our own species?”

Once upon a time we enslaved humans, and once we beat children, and once women were regarded as property.  Now such ideas seem absurd, as soon enough will ideas about freeing animals.

By applying the same animal cruelty laws to farm animals as we apply to companion animals, we arrive at Animal Rights.  This can’t happen while the majority of people have good reason to attack animals, for the purpose of wanting them dead - with no reason to bring about their deaths unless they want to cannibalise them.  The records show that they’ve committed no crime, so it seems somewhat unfair that we should have such contempt for them.

Non-humans are probably the most peaceful beings we’ll ever know.  Killing them and then eating them makes no sense, especially since animal-based foods are no longer needed for good health and premium nutrition.

Animals are a benign presence in our world - we aren’t predated by them and there’s no other justification for hurting them, unless you live in a dessert, in the ice-lands, or on an island where growing food crops is not a realistic option.

The cow, chicken, pig, goat, duck, sheep, deer and fish are the most (but not the only) non-humans to be enslaved by us.  It’s not difficult to appreciate their inner beauty since they appear dignified, uncorrupted and guiltless.  Whereas, the same can’t be said of humans.

So, here’s a thought - is it possible that we can’t tolerate any other being that might show us in a bad light?  Could it be that we hate the idea of animals being more highly evolved than us?  That they understand in their own way the intelligence which underpins their own harmlessness, or rather how unintelligent we humans are, for attacking them because we can.  Is it possible that we attack and kill them for pleasure and not out of necessity?

The violence-intoxicated human will always  say, “Make war on them, then kill, and then eat them”.  That reinforces our physical superiority over them.  We are the dominators, they the defeated victim.

We abuse animals (so most of us believe) because we, as chief predators, want something out of them.  But it’s a warped form of predation, because we keep animals as slaves, ‘on tap’ and we’ve been doing it for a very long time.  We’ve stopped thinking about it in terms of right and wrong.  In fact we’ve done so much damage to animals that we can no longer bring ourselves to study them in order to learn from them.  Since we can’t attribute them with intelligence, we can’t appreciate what their non-violence could mean to us, and therefore won’t learn how to bring it to our own species as a pattern for our own lives.

Following on from this, we don’t see our failings originating in our violence towards them and can’t see the reason, now, to set up safe havens for those animals presently being kept captive.  Which is why, alongside today’s Animal Rights initiative, there is a need for people to not only go vegan but to take up an all-round peace-approach to life.