3 ms·

Regarding the horrible nature of some things in the world - pollution, the pain and suffering our lunch goes through, etc. - I think one of the reasons people d

Regarding the horrible nature of some things in the world - pollution, the pain and suffering our lunch goes through, etc. - I think one of the reasons people don't always tell the truth is their own comfort with the way things are might be upended. I have a 5 year old who naturally is opposed to eating meat and who is shocked by the thought of killing something to eat it. I personally don't think I would eat something if I had to kill it first, yet I enjoy a bacon cheeseburger very much. I find my own rationalizations becoming thinner and thinner the more I live with him and notice his innate repulsion to meat. I can see the influence packaging has on his thinking - chicken nuggets are acceptable to him - as far removed from an actual walking, clucking feathered chicken as you can get and still be chicken - and by reference can see the influence packaging has had on my own ability to quickly dismiss thoughts of desperate cows clambering to avoid the stun bolt as I bite into my bacon cheeseburger. I can do it quite easily, but would never kill a cow. I think another reason we don't tell kids the truth about some of the horrible things in the world is that we ourselves shy away from them. Its as if we are all stepping over the dead horse on our way into our house, and the children point and notice the smell, but we hurry them along, anxious to be past the nastiness. Its part of our sanitized world, but I wonder if staring at the dead horse all day long isn't a kind of trap in itself. Where does it end? Can you spend your life pitying the lives of others? Thoreau makes an interesting observation: “There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go out of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy, but the assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another. . . . The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped.”

mechanical_fish 18y ago
thoughts of desperate cows clambering to avoid the stun bolt I'm certainly not saying that this never happens (How would I know? And from what I hear you don't want to give the meatpacking industry too much slack; they cut every corner they can. Read Fast Food Nation...) but Temple Grandin claims to have built an entire career out of making sure that this sort of thing doesn't happen. She says that panicking the cows is more than just cruel: It lowers the quality of the meat and it threatens to slow your slaughterhouse to a halt. I read a book by Grandin, and she's an unusual writer; perhaps because she's autistic, she's almost supernaturally incapable of mincing words. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable reading her work to a kid. :) Incidentally, as a non-vegetarian married to a vegetarian, I understand your point of view perfectly...
yters 18y ago
I think most of these "lies" are to avoid things that strongly attract our minds but do not cause them to produce. The things we encourage don't attract our minds immediately, but after time they do, and they cause our minds to be productive.

mechanical_fish 18y ago

thoughts of desperate cows clambering to avoid the stun bolt I'm certainly not saying that this never happens (How would I know? And from what I hear you don't want to give the meatpacking industry too much slack; they cut every corner they can. Read Fast Food Nation...) but Temple Grandin claims to have built an entire career out of making sure that this sort of thing doesn't happen. She says that panicking the cows is more than just cruel: It lowers the quality of the meat and it threatens to slow your slaughterhouse to a halt. I read a book by Grandin, and she's an unusual writer; perhaps because she's autistic, she's almost supernaturally incapable of mincing words. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable reading her work to a kid. :) Incidentally, as a non-vegetarian married to a vegetarian, I understand your point of view perfectly...

yters 18y ago

I think most of these "lies" are to avoid things that strongly attract our minds but do not cause them to produce. The things we encourage don't attract our minds immediately, but after time they do, and they cause our minds to be productive.