Vanity and Pleasure

1945:

We’re more likely to go for attractive or hard-wearing shoes than consider the ethics of leather. We’ll maybe eat non-animal foods for health reasons but not rule out wearing the skins of animals, because a shoe will not adversely affect our health.

         

Even with health itself, we may consider that the eating of junk food is okay because, especially when we’re young, health isn’t an issue. Later we put on weight. But even then, we only tinker with foods. Cut out the ones which fatten us, which is far from good health practice and a lot to do with vanity.

         

Whatever commodity we consider essential to our lifestyle, whether we are young or old, we try to squeeze what we can from what’s available. We spend big, risk debt, ignore warnings and mainly consider our own interests. We want to live for the moment. Above all we try NOT to become like those sad people (usually older people) who don’t live life or seem to have any real fun at all.

         

A young person’s instinct will be to paint their life with brush strokes from a brightly coloured palette. And to make it all look more exciting than it is, it’s best not to think about things too deeply, so as not to undermine self confidence. At a certain age, young people, who’ve been controlled throughout their childhoods, are suddenly free to experience every possible stimulating experience. And why not? “We only live once, so live life while you can”. That is, until the shutters come down and we are forced to change (usually in later years) by which time we’ve lost all the fun of life and become the victims of our own vanity. And in all that time we’ve maybe never considered the animals whose lives have been sacrificed to make our own colourful life possible.

Shoes

1944:

We live for pleasure and acceptance, young and old. Appearance is important, for young people especially. Fashion is important and particularly for young women, their shoes have to look right. But for vegan women there’s often not much to choose from. It puts them in a very difficult position, as regards fashionable footwear.  And so, to the general matter of shoes. When I look, I don’t see much on people’s feet other than leather, whether it’s hardy walking boots or part of formal footwear. It doesn’t cross people’s minds to think about this co-product of the abattoir. Animals’ hides are often more valuable to the shoe industry than the carcass is to the meat industry.

Indulge to your Heart's Content

1943:

Materialism is rampant. Our thirst for the material satisfactions of life is insatiable. To get the things we want, we take trees out of forests, put people in slums and factories and enslave animals. The rich have made fortunes - wherever’s a benefit to them, they’ve taken it, and without restraint.

Perhaps we’re all complicit since we humans dominate all other species, so that we can do as we please. Apart from a few viruses that we don’t yet control, all other life forms are subject to human whim. Anything useable is used and anything that gets in our way is got rid of. If any human population falls out of line, we bomb it. If any useful animal, like a kangaroo, can’t be farmed, we hunt it. If any life form becomes an uncontrollable pest, like the rabbit, we spread disease amongst it to eradicate it. Humans will stop at nothing to be in control. And whatever we do is done with violence and without a second thought.

         

Control through violence is passed on, from generation to generation, and initially this appeals to young people who only see the advantages to themselves. They don’t know any different. Their mantra is “Live now”. They adopt a carefree approach to all things. That is, until they begin to see through it all.

         

Who is there to guide them? Older people are almost all compromised, and anyway, they’re intimidated by youth, finding young people’s vitality and spontaneity so exciting they hardly dare to criticise them for any lack of responsibility or lack of independent thinking. Conversely, young people don’t usually find their elders inspiring or exciting at all, and turn to their peers for support, which exposes them to peer pressure, group thinking and a lot of unthought-out behaviour. Thus, we are as we are, and will remain so, unguided and prone to the quick, violent ways of our elders.

         

The Animal Rights movement is hopefully brave enough to make a bold stand against one of the greatest irresponsibilities of our time - the message, concerning the abuse of food animals, may just be enough to reverse today’s indulgent trend and bring back some sanity to our increasingly uncivilised society.

Involvement

1942:

Most people today are involved in a live-now-pay-later culture, believing that debts incurred will never have to be paid back. As with money so with every other material advantage - we accumulate useful stuff and don’t care about the damage caused in getting it or wasting it, when we no longer want it. We celebrate the abundance of things because there seems to be so much for the taking. We believe there’s nothing to pay back because it’s all free - the air, the water, the soil, the flora, the fauna - we take it all for granted and throw away what we don’t use. We either live high on the hog or we aspire to it. Our wastefulness and narcissism imprints on each succeeding generation.

Until we come to today when we hardly notice that our ‘smash and grab’ attitude is out of control. We no longer pass on to the young a sense of responsibility and frugality, instead we show them that life can be lived almost entirely for pleasure.

   

Probably the greatest pleasure comes at the expense of exploiting animals. There are rich pickings here. The supply of animal product has become endless, although there’s been a hidden price to pay - animal farmers have had to inflict ever greater cruelty on animals, to keep costs down, to keep prices low in response to fierce competition.

        

Our society lays-to-waste on a grand scale - throughout the animal-eating world vast numbers of defenceless animals are massacred (at a rate of 1500 deaths per second), and we do it because we can, because they can’t fight back, because the customer wants cheap food and because there are always unethical operators willing to undercut less-unethical operators. It’s a fact that all omnivores are caught up in this. And vegans aren’t.

Attachment and Detachment

1941:

What does it feel like to ‘respect’? When I’m deciding who or what to respect, or when to develop a relationship or when to trash things that are no longer useful, I find it’s easy to like the likeable. I can show amazing loyalty and affection for the loveable. Conversely, with the ugly or used-up, I notice how uninterested I can be.

I can see how it happens, with things I acquire but then get bored with, even friends I make who I lose interest in. I know it even happens with companion animals, who don’t have the same fascination as when they first appear on the scene. But whether it’s possessions, friends, cats or even gardens, they each have the power to benefit us or bring us down, depending on how we treat them.

I’ve found (rather too late in life) that in order to stabilise my relationships with anything or anyone I mustn’t try too hard. With people, as soon as a difference appears a threat is felt, as if they want me to be like them, or them like me. I don’t have that trouble with another species. It’s all easy enough with dogs and cats, because they don’t pretend to be other than what they are, and that’s so endearing. I’m happy to be around them - they’re always ready to play, and dogs especially are so loyal and affectionate, just as cats can be so intimate. They make me aspire to be close and affectionate myself. So, I’d say that animals can bring the best out in me, and squash any inferior/superior preoccupations.

The influence of a cat or a dog lets me see my sensitive nature but not necessarily my goodness, because with the less-dear or the less-loveable (human or non-human) I don’t act so honourably. That smelly homeless man, asking me for money. I ignore him. Or that not-so-attractive animal I might have eaten at dinner, In ignore any feelings that might spring up on the animal’s behalf. But this is where I’m sorely tested.

If I take a dislike to an animal (because I want to eat it) their feelings can easily be forgotten. They pose no threat, so I can say, “They can’t possibly hurt me even if I ignore them or hurt them. They have no power or hold over me”.

         

It’s easy to show my kindness to a cute puppy or a family member, but I don’t have the same inclination towards a stranger and feel even less to an anonymous farm animal that’s going to be turned into food.

But all that is changing. Now, in this age, I’m becoming more conscious of a shift taking place, where the hard-nosed human is starting to look ridiculous and the once reviled soft-hearted (“bleeding heart”), gentler, kinder character is winning favour. I can see the balance-point changing here - moving away from dominance and force to a subtler, gentler approach. We’re still in transition, things still blow hot and cold, but something is happening - a move towards the kinder and compassionate is looking to a lot of people like the intelligent way to go. The loyal, mature, sophisticated approach fits better with this ‘age of relationships’ - we’re learning how to relate to things, to people, to the disabled, to minority groups, to farm animals, to forests, etc. I suppose we are beginning to see the advantages of acting more interactively, symbiotically and more altruistically. It’s no longer such a foreign idea , to think in terms of sustainability being a vital necessity.

         

And before I get carried away with speculation on the ideal present and ideal future, there’s another important binding factor - doing the right thing. Once a duty or a strictness or a discipline is now becoming an enjoyment. Perhaps I don’t have to earn merit points and get your approval for what I do. Maybe it comes with the territory, of being less in need of outside encouragement. I see possibilities where before I saw obstacles.

If we are about to rescue our species from ignominy, it will surely be by way of a willing change, an attractive change, shifting the ‘conceptual framework’ of ‘right action’. And in helping to repair the damage we humans have done, it becomes the most fulfilling thing we could ever possibly think about doing. Enjoying doing it, in other words. Work as play as work.

Love

1940:

Love is one of those words which could easily be misunderstood. It’s over-used today. It can have enough sickly- sweet overtones to stop the word ever being mentioned. But love isn’t quite everything anyway, surely? Life isn’t just a matter of showering love on everything we see. In the material world, we have to attend to needs like clothing and washing, looking after our machinery. However, love can be turned around to be used for good purpose – like when we ‘love’ the fridge. It does a lot for us and deserves to be loved. It keeps our food cool and our beer cold. The fridge and the computer and the car, they each deserve respect, yes, and even love.

Our high-ideal lifestyles often show disrespect for ‘things’, and if we think of animals as mere ‘things’ that same attitude of disrespect is applied to them too, especially if they’re a source of our food.

We’re good at ‘loving’ but not always consistent with it. It’s often completely absent in our attitude concerning cruelty to animals. Somehow, we think it’s normal and therefore okay, because we’re real nice, loving people in other quarters of our life. So maybe, somehow, killing animals could be an act of love!! And the animals pleased to be of service!!

Extra Dimension to Life

1939:

If ‘vegan’ means more to us than just food, then it might be a new basis for our thinking. If you can ever see yourself as a guardian, as being protective and independent, then you’re on the way to meeting your ideals.

As a sort of patron-saint of lost causes, the vegan animal rights activist is always going to be on the side of the most vulnerable, the ones who no one else thinks about. There are no rewards, no praise, no encouragement, no notice taken of what you do. But if approval doesn’t matter much then you might just make it - to become one of the planet’s natural caretakers.

Coming Home

1938:

As confused humans, we feel happy being part of the dominant species, tempered by a belief that fun is bad, but not all fun. Yes, much IS bad, because it’s based on things we damage). Take for instance the ‘sheer enjoyment factor’ without the exploitative element in it. Imagine us using resources sustainably and sensitively? How proud we would be of ourselves.

It’s like when you come home from a holiday with big ideasnaa you watch them fade fast as you return back to where you were at. We get back to normal, doing the usual things, taking initiatives, cooking dinner - habits taking over.

Is it possible for our evening to be free of any element of damage? The goal here is surely to satisfy our need for sheer enjoyment whilst adopting a no-damage policy towards things, animals, people and even ideas.

A Conversation

1937:

People are afraid of getting tangled up in awkward situations, and veganism IS an awkward situation. Each fact concerning the treatment of farm animals can be a bomb shell, guaranteed to ignite a scene, especially with vegans probing attitudes too deeply for comfort.

What have we got here? A vegan pointing out some horrible fact (uninvited, unwanted details). You have to give some sort of polite response. Unwittingly, you deepen your involvement by asking a question. Could be, that you open the flood gates, and as the answer broadens into un-asked-for information, so it becomes more difficult to continue conversing. You feel yourself descending into a conversation-trap, where you’re either going to end up looking like a fool or an unfeeling bastard.

So, here are the obvious two questions which we may or may not put: Are humans more entitled to be free than animals?

Are animals (including human animals) more entitled to consideration than inanimate objects?

We could spend a lot of time (fascinatingly) considering this, but right now I’m looking at what’s happening in a conversation between you and me. Facts are one thing, your feelings about me talking to you about Animal Rights is another.

The Vegan Diet – A Hideous Thought

1936:

By being inconsistent about what is and what isn’t important we fog up the situation for ourselves. But life isn’t just about clarity. It’s about improvements, made by testing ideals to see if they work, to see if they’re worth following.

Now, to be fair, ideals fog things up too. We get trapped between the unreality of perfection and the absurdity of decadence. It seems logical that we start in the middle, and do something simple and achievable.

The practical, common sense way of doing things must be efficient, otherwise we drop it. For vegans, we think it best if there’s one a simple revolutionary principle at stake. Then anyone can prod and poke it and question it, before deciding to ‘go with it’. Or not. Most vegans would suggest food is the start of such a revolution. But this is sedition for the meat-eater. Even if veganism were just about food, it makes carnivores feel uncomfortable.

I quote a 99 year old friend named Mary who says she admires our vegan principles but the idea of our diet is a “hideous thought”. And it’s true, that people do try to imagine what it could be like. And shudder. Younger people are more familiar with new food regimes. And yet they also shudder, not liking this trend. Well-informed youths know all the stories they hear about farm animals. They know it’s all likely to be true. But they still eat animals, so they don’t want information, because it serves to confirm what they’re trying to forget.

Inconsistency 2

1935:

I know how inconsistent I can be when I disregard the ‘homeless man’ on the streets at night - I see him and ask myself why should I care about him? I don’t want to take on another ‘responsibility’, so I pretend not to notice him. And by doing that, I pretend NOT to notice what I know I have noticed.

It’s the same with the way most people choose NOT to see the animals behind the food they’re eating. They know that chickens and pigs are just like dogs and cats, yet they treat one as unlovable and the other as loveable. The homeless man is just as deserving of love as my closest friend, more so, and yet I ignore him completely. Afraid of catching his eye. He’s not our concern, as animals are not our concern. We don’t regard all sensitive and sentient creatures as of equal importance.

Inconsistency 1

1934:

I want to defend animals, because they so badly need defending. If you are vegan it will involve you in a long to-do list. I’m perpetually overwhelmed by the length of this list. If you are too, is it possible you might, in an attempt to shorten it, prioritise. You would be doing it to keep your goals achievable. But if you make a mistake and non-prioritise something you later find to be important, you might have been a bit parsimonious with yourself.

 

If we try to ration-out our reserves of ‘care’, I end up being partial. Guilty of incompleteness. But by examining our own partiality and incompleteness and inconsistencies (all of which were well-intentioned) there still remains a long ‘to-do’ list. It’s still overwhelming. When you become vegan, something stops you becoming drained, since you’ve lifted the biggest weight of guilt from your shoulders. Simply by being vegan, what needs most care is cared about.

 

Humans are naturals. We know we are caring beings. We don’t mind how much inconvenience we are put to, to help someone in distress. We will do wonderful things, on condition you can dodge a few issues. We know that facing issues takes a lot of energy. We get frightened that we’ll spread ourselves too thinly, and succeed in pleasing nobody, least of all ourselves. Then there’s the danger of putting issues onto the ‘back burner’ and hope your well-earned ‘brownie points’ will excuse your inability/unwillingness to address those issues.

And this speaks to a common fear, of being inconsistent.

At Ease with Equality

1933:

I think the finding of truth isn’t about attempting perfection or seeking enlightenment or taking a ‘spiritual path in life’, it’s about getting used to change when circumstances demand it, and being at ease with the need-to-change. Change keeps alive a questioning of those things others aren’t bothered about.

         

For vegans, the most bothering thing I can think of is the routine abuse of sensitive and sentient beings. The reason it’s so bothering is that all are innocent and all badly abused. As a vegan, I want to expand my sense of responsibility over all this, firstly to penetrate deeply the reason why our fellow humans are hard.

This translates to an ability of humans to be careless and cruel to their animal slaves. And it’s confusing to see nice people being hard. We all know how to treat our nearest and dearest, with love and affection, etc. But why stop there? Why stop anywhere, with humans, animals, environment? Is there anything that doesn’t deserve our affection? When it just happens to pass us by?

Doing Without

1932:

What a great idea veganism is, with its empathy-driven approach to day-to-day life. It checks my more violent and selfish instincts by the food it guides me towards, or rather the food it makes me want to boycott. You can’t argue with the logic of veganism.

Apart from avoiding the ‘cruelty-products’, it inspires a greater non-violence in other ways. Since I’m no longer quite so reckless in what I eat, I’m less so in the way I think. And taking this to its glorious conclusion, it suggests logically there’s little difference between the sentient and the non-sentient, it’s all consciousness after all. It affects the way I drive a car or deal with the kids or handle the cat or respect the cow. When I considered becoming a vegan it was always going to be for reasons bigger than just avoiding animal food (life is more than food and clothes!!).

         

We are all consumers. We’re all users of resources and all adults should tread more lightly. Like many others, we surely want to value and better appreciate the power of things. Food, for example. And to do that, I have to first know how to transform myself from clod-hopping brute to sensitive, gentle adult.

I can either grab whatever I crave or be more discerning. It’s my choice. I can exercise some self control or be profligate. And once I’m less attached to ‘my stuff’ I can reduce the stress and dissatisfaction associated with it.

Life is stressful and the cause of this stress may be craving, or thirst. Many of the things I would crave are simply no longer available to anyone who is vegan, so I have to learn to do without. And once I get used to that, a vegan lifestyle is very stressless and satisfying, and fulfils my wish to be gentler with things without having to compromise principles.

Good Maintenance for the Inanimate

1931:

Many of my most treasured objects today are complex structures. Machines. And something special is involved in ‘owning’ one. Owning something suggests ‘caring’ for it – I’m automatically involved with its well-being as soon as I start to make use of it. I ‘care’ for my cat, care for my car. Car maintenance, aircraft maintenance, teeth maintenance, each highlight the risk of not attending to them - like the failure to maintain an aircraft, and it all ending in catastrophe. But all this caring, maintaining, cleaning, etc. takes time and effort. Each application of care costs us something. The insurance industry encourages us to be parsimonious and indecisive. It profits accordingly (from our wobbling between ‘just-in-case’ & ‘it may never happen’). It offers us two choices: either we spend money and feel safe or we neglect safety and save money. That’s a nice dichotomy. Fear wins, scaring us into parting with our ‘hard-earned’ cash.

I get up each day, worrying and frowning, carrying a list of things to do, things to be maintained, and I feel ‘overwhelmed’ – all I hear is a warning about my inability to prioritise - a little care here, an insurance policy there, safety, safety, safety, and it’s never ending. I spend my life searching for the best insurance. Which eventually leads us to veganism.

At first, my first thought was that this is my best insurance policy (even though later on it became so much more). The food almost guarantees bodily health and a clear conscience. It’s cheaper to eat this way too and obviously, I soon enough realised that it’s less environmentally damaging. Over the years, I realised it was building a more disciplined character in me and, most importantly, it made me feel safe.

That’s what makes me care so much for it. Like a well maintained bike or aircraft, I feel safe enough using it, using this diet. Coincidentally it opens up my compassion for the tortured animals. It lets me into this empathy-centred, vegan-principled-philosophy, on whose tracks I can run safely.

Blog on holiday till 10^th, unless there are connections.

Multi-purpose energy

1930:

That we believe animals (i.e. food animals) are low on our priority list, and that we think their treatment is not very important, reflects a rather alarming attitude. And yet it’s probably coming from a very basic survival instinct, connected with saving energy. We are brought up to think that animal food is the best source of energy, and that in turn is linked to an attitude about energy itself, and where it comes from and how profligate we should be in its use.

Energy is a mystery. The part played by some energy in affecting another type of energy cannot be proved. We can’t define attitude in terms of energy and yet we know that positivity can boost motivation in almost magical ways. So, I don’t believe that all energy is simply a finite resource like the finite quantity of fuel in the car’s petrol tank. There are surely other sources and qualities of energy, other than the physical, other that that which we draw from, say, food. Eat crap food and we experience energy drain. Another food does the opposite.

It’s precious stuff this energy. It’s not a good feeling to run out of it. Just on the level of physical energy, everyone knows the feeling of it not being there. And we can’t do what we want to do. We conserve it like saving money in a bank. We resist the begging-bowl pressures of life, for fear of draining this valuable stuff.

I’m led to believe that if I spend energy too frivolously I’ll have nothing left in reserve. If I use it up on taking initiatives I risk my energy supply and interfere with my already-long list of nagging responsibilities. Low energy leads to things going horribly wrong. Better not to risk or waste it. But there again, this very energy might be drained by guilt about doing nothing.

So, I weigh up my options. I think about my responsibilities, and about looking after things I own, things given to me, ‘things’ I’m in charge of, like table, bike, food, kids, house and friends, knowing that each will take a portion of my energy. And then, after that, will I really have very much energy left for things lower on my priority list, like protecting animals’ rights? Working for Animal Rights sounds particularly energy- consuming.

But the food, the food vegans eat, how could it be so simple? Energy from plants. Way to go.

To go - to act for them, promote their rights, work like a ‘guardian’ for them. What will that involve? Energy, certainly, but energy comes from various sources. Like love. That’s getting energy from love rather than from exploitation. We are so used to these crude energy sources that we barely notice they come from the harsh world, where animals are made to work for us. Energy which is drained from an animal’s life is, almost certainly, karmically-useless energy.

We’re told that the farmer loves his animals, but in truth any care shown to them is given to protect human interests, not the animal’s interest - attending to their welfare means the animals will respond better and grow faster and, in theory, more (energy) will be gotten out of them, the less we are abusive towards them. Is that cynical or what?

Priorities

1929:

I ride a bike. And I love my bike. We have a good time together. But to be truthful, I have an abusive relationship with it. I don’t look after it. I don’t clean it. I don’t even oil it when it squeaks! But I rely on it every day to get me around. I occasionally pump up the tyres and curse it when I get a puncture. My bike serves me well but I don’t really have feelings for it. It’s just metal and rubber. It isn’t sentient and I’ll probably run it into the ground, and when it’s no longer rideable I’ll dump it and get another one. It wasn’t an expensive bike and therefore not worthy of much respect!!

The things I own, and how I look after them, reflects my attitude to them. Sure, I care about the look of them and the operation of them (if it suits me) but bikes don’t pose any moral question for me. I’m not scared of my bike, although I am scared on one level. I’m scared of abusing something because it might ‘bite back’. Neglect the brakes on my bike and it will fail to stop when I want it to.

Whether it’s a child, a car, a dog or a planet, it’s the same fear we have about them, that if we don’t do the right thing by them, somehow we’ll be made to suffer. Our attitude is either one of respect or abuse, and it applies most obviously to our respect or abuse of other humans. But what about animals? Why should there be any difference in our feelings about them? And taking it a step further, why can’t we apply similar feelings to objects? Is this going too far? Do I think this ‘attitude’ would take too much effort if applied too liberally? And is this the reason why we adopt the easiest-possible attitude? Our energy is mortgaged, and we obligated to fulfil duties and contracts. Most people - their time is not their own. So, to add a concern for farmed animals to all our other responsibilities seems unrealistic. Something has to go. We try not to feel too strongly about animals. We may not be prepared to contribute our energy that way since, after ‘work’ and home duties, there’s not so much energy left over to splash about on ‘fighting for the animals’.

So, in our society, animals generally are not given much consideration. Realising this, the Animal Industries know they can get away with almost anything, knowing they’ll not be criticised by their loyal and over-extended customers.

Abuse of Animals

1928:

Farmers don’t recognise that animals have a life of their own, where human interests play no part at all. To any animal farmer, the very thought of animals being anything other than a resource for human convenience is anathema. To build a relationship with an animal is not such a good idea, when you intend to have it murdered.

So, animals are there for profiting-from. That they’re abused is incidental. For we humans, any docile animal, any useful thing, is up for grabs - it’s a business opportunity, that’s all. To keep up with competition and to keep shareholders happy, a few principles must be compromised. And at that point the abuse starts.

Objects

1927:

An animal should never be just a dispensable, replaceable property. The difference between various consciousnesses - my table, the living tree, the sentient creature, the human being, may be obvious, but each level of consciousness deserves respect.

There’s a lot of difference between an abusive relationship and a loving one, between the parasitic and the symbiotic. It seems that we humans haven’t yet learnt how to maintain a symbiotic relationship with those animals which happen to be useful to us. And as for having consideration for other levels of consciousness, forget it.

Valuable resources and useful animals we take for ourselves. We think they are ‘there for the taking’. It’s all part of the rich bounty to which we believe we’re entitled. And with a mixture of minimal respect, lack of appreciation for what we already have, and greed for more, it leads us to be never-satisfied. Anything we want, we take. We use it up and keep wanting more. So, we graduate towards indifference, then abuse, and then alienation.

The deadliest disease amongst humans is dissatisfaction. We open a big gift box on Christmas Day, containing a puppy dog, and a year later, you’re off on holidays and taking the puppy (now-dog) to the vets to be put down. You thought it would be for the best. It’s-only-an-animal syndrome! This is, admittedly, an extreme case.

If we tire of something, we develop a contempt for it so that we can distance ourselves from it - in this case the no-longer-so-cute dog. Any similarity between human and victim is downgraded, so that we can dispose of it, or abuse it, and all with a good conscience and justification. Companion animals have no rights, but farmed animals have zero-zero rights.

The so called ‘food animals’. We see no similarity at all between ourselves and them. They are so downgraded in our minds that we don’t have any need to consider them as beings at all. In fact, they are merely alive in order to make them useful to us, dead.

As addicts of animal products, like anyone addicted to anything, we must make double sure of supply, so the chain of animal to farmer to animal-industry to shop keeper is a line of service, set up to maintain a lifestyle. One faulty link, and it’s a catastrophe! Imagine, for instance, a shop being out of ice cream.

It’s unthinkable!

Self Deception

1925:

Even if we don’t actually take part in the grisly act of murdering animals ourselves, we give tacit support to those who do. We do it all the same, 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 of us ‘kind-hearted people’ are able to stand-by and watch-yet-not-watch. It’s like seeing the school bully beat up a small kid in the playground and pretending we’re not looking in that direction. I see an ugly news item on TV and see it as a fiction. I can’t afford to empathise too closely or I’ll be depressed for the rest of the day just thinking about it. Is it disturbing because of the pain of my empathy or the feeling of guilt in my being passive about it?

I can easily imagine the pig as victim of bullying - the pig at the slaughter house being pushed into a chute, for its life to be terminated. And, I feel the nastiest prick of conscience if I try to look away. When I decide to do nothing, my mind is telling me “Stop, don’t go there”. Just as with the school bully - I weigh up the advantages of doing nothing against the disadvantages of intervening.

Eating meat - who’d have thought such an ordinary event could be so gross? And now, with a greater consciousness of the immorality of this habit (involving ourselves in animal-cruelty) everything should change. But it doesn’t. The surprise is that we can still eat meat and all the associated products, and justify it. That is what we have learnt to do to lessen the guilt. But once we’re aware, have made ourselves fully conscious of what we’re doing, then it seems pointless to dumb ourselves down, when we know it’s insupportable.

When there’s nowhere to go that is even the slightest bit honourable, we have to retreat into self-deception. I wouldn’t be surprised if some horrible mental condition weren’t lurking in the background, ready and waiting like a monster to leap out and crush our spirit for what we insist on doing. In many cases this might not be so far from the truth, since the monster strikes at our metabolism. As it breaks down, so our immune system fails and we start to suffer all sorts of horrible health conditions. And that can certainly crush our spirit.