Monday, January 7, 2008

The Carnivore's Dilemma

In a recent documentary the term speciesism was used to illustrate mankind oppression on animals and it concluded by stating that not moderating our attitude towards our fellow earthlings should lead to a disaster. They described five ways of inducing sufferance to animals, but by far the most controversy subject was killing animals for food, that’s why they suggested that is very important that we reconsider our eating habits.

I am not arguing that harming animals is not wrong, but I am also not very sure if it is a bad thing to eat meat, after all it is in our nature. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to try eating just as much we need. I have never been to Asia, so I wouldn’t know it, but I’ve been told by almost every Asian person I met that us, Europeans, eat much more meat than they do; actually, much more food, generally speaking.

So, we are intelligent creatures and we gradually became more tolerant and less ignorant and violent. In the past we did abominable things to our fellow humans, things that today we like to think of as being hateful to do even on animals. Evolution is natural, but I don’t know if the natural way of evolving is by stopping killing or even harming animals just because they suffer. Humans too, suffer because of other humans (or sometimes because of animals). We still go to war for doubtful reasons.

I think harming animals is an issue of each of ours beliefs. We cannot all stop eating animals at once just because we should be more tolerant towards them. It is in the earthling’s nature to eat other creatures. Animals eat other animals; if we care that much about them shouldn’t we convince them not to, anymore?

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Being Eruopean

What is the source of our ignorance? How much is it left where it comes from? These are questions that we may ask ourselves before trying to answer another apparently simple question: “Am I a good person?”

What makes us think that just because we share some beliefs with other persons they are the right ones. Why do we obdurately reject any other paradigm? Obviously, we can’t be sure that we follow the right one since we don’t have arguments for it, since we don't even care about finding them.

Most of us eat meat. In most of the cultures the person that does not eat meat (a vegetarian) is regarded either as an eccentric or afraid of having weight problems (they think that they are more prone to overweight if they eat meat). Part of what we think about them is true, since they claim that they don’t want to harm animals, but most of them eat milk products or eggs, and sometimes even fish. So they are not truly vegetarians since for sure fish can feel pain and most of the milking cows and hens for eggs are harmed in different ways.

But there are many persons that truly do not want to harm animals, and still, they usually receive the same kind of treatment, even those that were raised with such beliefs. I am ashamed at myself that recently I ignorantly disregarded somebody that really believed in it. This person is an Indian. I would say that is the first Indian that I got to know. I knew a bit about the Indian culture, but still I believed that he was doing it to get more attention. But then, after a few days I found out he is in fact a Brahmin, and I was very embarrassed. The Brahmin caste is the highest one and according to the sacred books they are not allowed to harm animals.

It is such a bad thing to judge a person by your culture, by your beliefs; it is the worst form of intolerance. Sometimes I am ashamed that I am European (and I'm talking about the culture, not necessarily the continent)...