Inherited Debt

1860:

Debts affect the generation which follows. Young people wake up to the mess left them by their elders. They have no trouble putting two and two together to see what has happened and why. They’re familiar with self-interest, they understand how forests are being destroyed, they see how animals are being factory-farmed. They realise why poor nations are being made to starve. And they know we older ones are to blame for perpetuating all this destruction and cruelty and waste, for the sake of enjoying our own private, advantaged lives.

         

I imagine the young get quite angry when they think about what they’ve inherited. But to be completely constructive about the mess we older ones have left them, we need to look at human nature in general. We need to see what it has deteriorated into, but then to realise how it really hasn’t changed much over the centuries. It’s just that much more obvious now.

         

Unless we want the next generation to do exactly what we’ve done, we must stop adding to the collective debt. Unless we want today’s kids to spoil their own health, ethics and environment, as we are doing, we can’t afford to sit around passively, twiddling our thumbs. If we do, they will continue stealing as we did, until there is nothing left to take. The first and most constructive step we can take is to become vegan and encourage them to follow suit - it will have a dramatic effect on their health and the legacy of non-violence they leave to their own progeny.