The Song is Life

The beliefs of omnivores have been so carefully constructed that despite how obvious its flaws, we do not question them. In elementary school, you learn about the four required food groups. You learn that protein comes from the muscle tissue of animals, but for one reason or another, they don't mention broccoli, or bananas, or beans. We are taught not to inflict pain on other living creatures, and so we don't. We let anyone else do it for us. And so there is a disassociation between the product and the cruelty. A child that tortures a dog is sent to therapy, as would be a child that tortures a cow. But if we move that cow into a factory it becomes a product, and despite there being no difference in suffering, we do not question that this conflict arises. If we did, we might wonder why we value certain living animals more than others. We might see the extent of our selective compassion for life.

We are guided to believe that because we think, we are entitled to the planet and everything on it. We are not. Because we think, we experience more of the world around us, but it is not ours. We did not come to this world, we came from it.

All matter in existence is made up of the same atoms arranged differently. Some of those atoms form cells, and some cells form living creatures, and within those creatures, some cells form a complex system of nerves that feel a sensation known as pain. Human beings are not the only ones with this system. The pain we feel is exactly the same as the pain any living creature feels. It has been guided into our mentality that we do not acknowledge this, or that if we do, we are not affected by it. When a person consumes an animal, they know that it has died. They know this, but they do not understand it because they are detached from the physical act of killing. They do not hear the animal crying out as its life is taken for reasons beyond its comprehension. For reasons beyond our needs.

We claim ourselves civil but that does not explain the horror that we either perform or ignore when we consume animals. We claim ourselves rational, but that does not explain why we maintain a system that we cannot justify; not ethically, not economically, and not nutritionally. Man is the only animal on the planet that must cook muscle tissue in order to safely consume it, yet it is engrained into us to overlook this and insist that it is natural. It is not. The natural consumption of animals leaves our bodies weakened and sick. Early man did not hunt and cook animals because it wanted to. Preference was not the objective; it was to survive. And we are not early man. We have communities, and gardens, and technology. We have changed our habits but our objective is still the same. To survive.

To believe that animal consumption is necessary is to ignore all reasoning proving otherwise. To believe that our personal tastes justify the inconceivable pain inflicted on living animals is barbaric. To believe that animals give us their lives without resistance, without fighting with every last bit of strength they have, is naive. And to know all of this and not be affected by it is a tragedy.

Our detachment from the action of taking a life gives us complete ambivalence towards it. Animals that we consume were once breathing, just like us; they were feeling, just like us; and they bled, just like us. What separates us is the extent of our choices and to feel the sensation of joy or guilt that comes from those consequences.

The longer a person remains of a belief - no matter how questionable - the harder it is for them to analyze this belief objectively. I have found that nearly all omnivores are resistant to the information that I present in my arguments towards vegetarianism. It is important to understand where that resistance comes from. Carl Jung said that people will do anything but examine their self. If your mind is closed, then no matter how compelling the evidence is, you cannot evaluate it without bias. All communication is wasted. I do not blame anyone for their consumption of animals, but I do blame them if they have not questioned it. Anyone can question anything at any time; we are all entitled that freedom of thought. And if you have questioned it but not changed your mind, you have not considered it enough. You have heard a section of the orchestra but not the entire song. And the song is beautiful, the song is life.

The Trivial and the Banal

An excerpt from the third chapter of I Don't Believe in Atheists by Chris Hedges.

James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, spoke of the "old triumvirate of tyrants in the human soul, the libido sciendi, the libido sentiendi, and the libido dominandi" [The lust of the mind, the lust of the flesh and the lust for power]. Adams, who worked with the anti-Nazi church leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1935 and 1936 in Germany, warned us that these lusts are universal and intractable. They lurk beneath the surface of the most refined cultures and civilizations. "We may call these tendencies by any name we wish," he said, "but we do not escape their destructive influence by a conspiracy of silence concerning them."

The belief that science or religion can eradicate these lusts leads to the worship of human potential and human power. These lusts are woven into our genetic map. We can ameliorate them, but they are always with us; we will never ultimately defeat them. The attempt to deny the lusts within us empowers this triumvirate. They surface, unexamined and unheeded, to commit evil in the name of good. We are not saved by reason. We are not saved by religion. We are saved by turning away from projects that tempt us to become God, and by accepting our own contamination and the limitations of being human.

The belief in moral advancement implicitly calls on us to ignore the common good and place our faith in the empowerment of the state. It teaches that everything should be dedicated to private gain. The corporate state – the engine, we are assured, of our great moral progress - instructs us on how to view the world. Corporatism is about placing our faith in unchecked corporate advancement, as well as in the neutral disciplines of science and technology. The effect on the individual in the emergent corporate state is a kind of numbing acceptance of our political, economic and social disempowerment. We give over our rights as citizens because we are taught to believe these forces will lead us to utopia. There is, as John Ralston Saul wrote, a passivity and conformity "in those areas which matter and nonconformism in those which don't." We view the status quo as an unadulterated good. We are assured it is leading us to a wonderful and glorious future. We do not question. We are left to seek our individuality and our identity in the trivial and the banal.

Q: Worst President?

A friend of mine had the following thing on his profile:
Who do you think is the worst president of the past 3 decades?

Of the possible answers of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, he chose George W.

That's the stock answer that people give that makes them feel better. Bad things really happened under his lead, it's the most recent major tragedy so it sticks with us. So yes, he did a lot of bad things, but these were superficial and obvious.

I replied to his Posted Thing:

Michael Lagace at 12:44am July 5
Sure, but let's be real about it. Clinton set up the possibility for Bush Jr to fail. George went extreme, but as far as Democrats go, Billy wasn't a good one. He was just a little better than the Republicans. He started the insurance de-regulations. He was fiscally conservative, which is the problem that the U.S. faces now. So yeah, I'd give George W. Bush a failing grade, but Clinton would barely pass too. And what would I give Obama? Maybe a C, probably a C-. It's relatively early, but he hasn't executed at all since he took throne. Dude just talks tough. So did Dubya. A two-party system isn't a choice when they're both supported by the same corporate interests.