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.