Self deception

1829: 

Even if we don’t actually take part in the grisly act of murdering animals ourselves, we give tacit support to those who do, despite feeling sad for the whole sorry business.

         

It seems that some humans are able to hurt animals without a second thought, whilst others can’t. However, most ‘kind-hearted people’ do stand-by and let it happen. It's rather as if they're watching the school bully beat up a small kid in the playground, and pretending not to see. They look in the opposite direction, in much the same way we do watching an ugly news items on TV. We regard it as a story. And we can’t afford to empathise too closely for fear we'll find it too depressing. We separate from it, as when reading fiction.

Imagine watching an animal being slaughtered at the abattoir. That's at the nub of things. Question: "Do I find it disturbing to be sharing the animal's pain or am I simply disturbed by my own guilty passivity? If we do imagine, or actually see-live, the pig imprisoned then slaughtered, we'll notice the nub. When the creature is facing it's helplessness, and showing terror. At this, we might feel outrage. But also, a nasty prick of conscience when we try to deny it or look away from it.

Eating meat is such an ordinary event. And yet now, knowing about the cruelty involved in the production of meat, everything should change. But it doesn’t. The surprise is that we can still eat meat and animal by-products, and still justify it. Any old way will do. Anything, in order to lessen the guilt and maintain maximum eating-enjoyment.

When there’s no honourable way out, we resort to self-deception, which involves a complicated negation of our most sophisticated bits and pieces, but in so doing crush our very spirit.