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When this thread was active before I was kind of stewing about the meat issue, so if you're gonna talk about it again I gotta say this...
As far as I'm concerned it's really very very simple. If you eat meat or skin cats you're causing suffering to another being or group of beings. As a sentient being with free will you have the choice over whether or not to do this and you are, as ever, directly responsible for your actions. Yes, society has double standards: you can choose not to. Now, I'll admit that living a life totally free from double standards is a virtual impossibility in this day and age, to save Haus the trouble of proving it: doesn't mean you shouldn't try, dammit.
In the case of meat eating, the argument is complicated by an absent referent: the suffering that our food experiences takes place in absentia, so it is quite possible to remain experientially unaware of it. In other words, we know it hurts, but we can't see it hurting, so we elide the pain from our plates. Meanwhile, this process creates entire industries full of people who kill for a living and become pretty much deadened to it... knife goes in, guts come out, knife goes in, guts come out, repeat ad infinitum. The buddhist in me tells me that the cause of suffering is birth. We can't ever get rid of it entirely. But there's a very big difference between mass social de facto acceptance of animal suffering and wilful torture.
the naked lunch: a frozen moment when everybody sees what is really on the end of every fork. |
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