'We'

1851:

Humans can discover great and wonderful things. We revel in complexity and discovery. We’re lured towards possibilities, even unto the vain notion of human intelligence being greater that the gods and Nature herself. That’s the point when we lose control of our thirst for knowledge and extend the worst parts of ourselves into new inventions which are death warrants for others. What we discover can’t be un-discovered. We can no more return to an innocent or simple life than we can unmake the atom bomb. Likewise, once we learn what happens down on the farm, nothing worse can haunt us. There is nothing about the routine torturing of animals that can bring us any comfort. All we can do is atone, stop being involved, and cross our fingers.

‘We’ should be acting ‘more appropriately’. But who is this ‘we’? I didn’t make the Bomb and I can’t ban it. I can’t change laws. I can’t ban animal slavery. But what we can do is live by our own code of conduct and try to lead by example. We have to be content with that, in the slim hope that we will set a trend. Again, though, who is ‘we’?

If we see the less fortunate and consider them, they may have a new friend and a new hope and have fewer enemies. If I stop using animals that’s one more friend they have on their side. Once we learn why human ambition can be so dangerous, we can reverse it on ourselves so that we no longer make the same old mistakes humans have been making for thousands of years. But when it comes to change, there is no ‘we’, as in collective thinking. It’s an individual’s act of making a change in one’s own life that is the start, if others are going to fall into line. Eventually, when the majority follow suit and stop being involved in the grisly business of killing animals for food, only then is there an effective ‘we’, and only then can ‘we’ bring enough pressure to change things for the better.