To the humans
I know it’s been a long time since the last post, I’ve been bad.
What I want to share today is a different twist on the harms that the meat industry produces in today’s society. Here is a bit from a http://www.goveg.com article on the process by which cows are treated even before they reach slaughterhouses (this means that even animals killed in kosher slaughterhouses undergo this kind of treatment):
“In the U.S., more than 41 million of these sensitive animals suffer and die for the meat and dairy industries every year.1 When they are still very young, cows are burned with hot irons (branding), their testicles are ripped out of their scrotums (castration), and their horns are cut or burned off—all without painkillers. Once they have grown big enough, they are sent to massive, muddy feedlots to be fattened for slaughter or to dairy farms, where they will be repeatedly impregnated and separated from their calves until their bodies give out and they are sent to die.” (http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming_cows.asp)
Now I don’t have to point the tragic nature of these facts as they relate to the millions of cows who are victim to this, but I would like to highlight an angle of this process that is not often recognized. All of the tasks mentioned above– branding, castration, in addition to beatings and other abuses mentioned not in the goveg piece but in various others (stay tuned)– are done by people. In order to commit these atrocious acts, of course, workers must steel themselves against feeling any compassion toward the animals they are paid to harm.
So my question is, what does this do to the humans? How does the act of inflicting pain on anotheer affect one’s psyche?
Animals can awaken the most dormant stores of love and caring in us. Having a pet is a constant crash-course in compassion and giving. It has become almost common knowledge that acts of kindness and giving make us not only better but happier people. In supporting the meat industry, we pay millions of people to espouse absolute and unsolicited cruelty onto innocent, gentle, and feeling creatures. If you think that these workers leave this cruelty at work, buy any basic book on the fundamentals of psychology. Or, if you will, just image a child getting a candy every time he hit, kicked or squeezed, the classroom rabbit. Will he go home and interact gently with his own pet?
A person who spends the majority of every day inflicting significant pain on others will not go home as kind as he started. And you can bet that those around him will feel the effects.
August 18, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Even though I’m vegetarian, I hadn’t really ever thought about what working in a factory farm must do to people’s souls. That’s truly a sobering thought. In today’s economy, I understand taking whatever job you can get, but wouldn’t it be lovely if “whatever job you can get” meant something only as unappealing as cleaning bathrooms and not harming other beings?
August 18, 2009 at 6:01 pm
That’s a great point. Thanks so much for your feedback.
August 18, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Interesting how you bring this right back to the consumers. Why are we supporting this type of thing? I’m not a vegetarian, but you can treat animals well and slaughter them humanely. Its sad that this is rarely the case. I’ve written a bit about the environmental impacts of eating too much meat. http://iaminformed.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/too-much-meat/
August 18, 2009 at 6:11 pm
True- there definitely are huge environmental concerns that come about as a result of all this. I’ll be sure to check out what you have to say on the matter. Thanks!