More endeavoring to not use animals...

I recently wrote about a childhood incident that resonated strongly with me. Krissa, one of my most prized readers, commented on that piece in such a way that led me to believe I hadn't expressed myself very clearly or fully regarding how I felt about human animal interaction with beings that don't happen to be human.

What I was trying to get to is the notion that no being should be interfering with another being. That if you have strengths someone else lacks, then no fair using them when interacting with them. If I am physically stronger than you, no fair using that strength to my advantage. I can use it to help you, or even to help me (as long as it doesn't interfere with you). The notion is, for want of a better way to express it, to live and let live. To behave fairly.

Now, one of the things I notice (or so it seems to me) is that most human animal problems are caused by human animals. I am excluding problems that all living beings face as a function of living on the planet that we do...e.g., weather, earthquakes, disease, aging, etc. All living beings face these sorts of problems or situations.

No, I am referencing problems like war, poverty, crime, traffic accidents, suicide and on and on. If you take a newspaper and read each "news" item on each and every page, the likelihood is high that most problems you see written about are about problems that humans inflict (either on purpose or accidentally) upon themselves.

Which is really sort of weird when you think about it. Walt Kelly once had his cartoon character, Pogo, voice a thought that sort of sums it up to me. Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo was talking about environmental problems, but I think his observation goes much further than that.

I know it seems as if I am digressing, but where I am heading is here. If humans want to cause themselves problems, well, ok. We cause the problem, we can choose to not cause the problem (at least I hope we can). In other words, we have the power, it is in our control and causing ourselves problems hurts us. We cause pain, we feel the pain we cause. Fine, that's our choice.

But, when we cause pain or problems or whatever negative thing we're talking about, when we do things that inflict harm or hurt onto some being that isn't a human being...then we are (to me) into a whole different magnitude and/or order of stuff.  I am also including harm to the environment we share with other beings.

This is an order of wrongness that exceeds astronomically any sort of suffering we inflict upon ourselves or some other being that is human.

This is my logic, if I choose to take a pin and stick it in my knee...I did the sticking, I received the results of the sticking. I did something that causes pain, I felt the pain. That's my look out...no harm or discomfort (unless I yell or something) to anyone else. But, if I take a pin and stick someone else in the knee, different thing...I have drug someone else into the situation. However, if that someone else is a human, and relatively equal in terms of age, size, physical ability, etc then that other being has the power to do something about my sticking them...if they choose. They can, all else being equal, reciprocate or retaliate or or negotiate or bitch and moan or whatever...effectively. They can, if you will, look out for themselves. If they are a child, not so much, but, depending on their age they can maybe report me to someone else who will stand up for them. And, there are rules, I could be punished for causing pain to someone who is not myself. (I know these processes don't work lots of times, and lots of unfairness is virtually perpetual but that is too much to get into here, ok?...anyway that is human animal to human animal stuff...a different thing than what I am writing about right now)

But if I do something that causes pain to a hamster, or a rat, or a dog, or a cat or any other being that is not a human being. Then I am cheating, I am in a position to cause pain with no consequences to me. Now I am assuming that I have confined or somehow else rendered that rat or dog or whomever powerless toward me...they can't retaliate or do anything else to defend themselves. They are simply mine to do toward however I want and no bad things happen to me as a result. No comebacks...I am free and clear to visit mayhem upon them. If I choose.

This is the ultimate "badness". I wrote earlier about bullying, about exploiting, about using force on others. To me, it is much much much much (think of the word much lined up to infinity) worse to hurt, harm, scare, kill a being that is not a human type being than it is to hurt, harm, scare, kill a human being because that other...that being that is not human is in the ultimate powerless position...therefore the difference in power (because of what we humans have done) is virtually infinite. That sort of power imbalance doesn't exist (generally speaking) from one human to another. Even in the example I wrote about, the boy that was bullied could have, if he had chosen to, done something to retaliate against his tormentor. (Complained to the teacher, ambushed his bully, spit in the food of the bully, something...point being he could have sometime or another gotten his licks in if he wanted).

Those beings that share the planet with us have no such recourse, not practically speaking. We confine them, we exploit them, we abuse them, we torture them, we cause them pain and suffering, we steal and kill their babies, we steal the milk meant for their babies, we kill them, we devour them. And they have no power to defend themselves, to retaliate, to run away, to help themselves. None (for all intents and purposes). They do not speak human language so we ignore their complaints, they can't hire lawyers...so they can't sue us. The few "rules" we human animals have set up to "protect" them are a joke and worse than meaningless.

They are the ultimate victims, the ultimate innocents, the ultimate powerless ones...and those that take advantage of them...are the ultimate bullies. We have met the bully, and he is us. And, I don't want to be one of those bullies, not any more (and I have much to pay penance for) ever, ever, ever.

And that is why I am endeavoring to live as an ethical vegan. Not because I am a "good" person, but because I don't want to be that kind of a bully.  Doing something bad to a human animal is lousy, but at least the human animal has recourse against me, doing something bad to a being that can (practically speaking) do nothing back at me...well that just sucks and I do not want to participate in that kind of crap any longer...ever. And piss on me for ever having done so.

There, I think that is what I wanted to say. Let me know if I got the point across, thanks.

Endeavoring to not "use" animals...

In response to one readers comment to a post (Sunday Cuteness) I made the statement that I am not a vegan because I am a good person. I am a vegan because the other animal people are terrific and fun and interesting and wonderful and I don't want bad things to happen to them...the cuteness helps remind me of what treasures each and everyone of them are...what hubris is involved in thinking we have any right to interfere with their lives. How awful this planet would be if we were the only animals on it.

Another reader remarked on how much she liked the comment...actually she liked the comment more than the post...which got me to thinking about all sorts of stuff (Thanks Krissa, I think).

I remember being in the 2nd or 3rd grade and two boys in my class got into a fight at recess. It wasn't a fist fight...more shoving and wrestling around. One boy was considerably larger than anyone else in the class and the "fight" really was no contest...he ended up sitting on top of the other boy and "winning", the bell rang and we all headed back toward the schoolhouse. The boy who lost was crying and all snotty in the face and such and I so powerfully remember feeling awful for him...feeling like it wasn't fair...the other guy was so much bigger and the fight wasn't about self-defense or retaliation or anything it was more the big guy wanted something to go his way (hell if I remember what) and the smaller guy didn't want to so....big guy imposes his will on the littler guy. Bam, that's it...way of the world right?

Now such stuff would be called bullying...which is what it was and maybe much would be made of it...or maybe not. I don't even know how to describe very well what that incident did to me or impacted me, I do know it made me never ever want to be in a situation where I "imposed" my will on someone else just because I could simply to get something I wanted with no consideration of the other person or what they wanted or whether it was good or bad for them or if whatever.

I hated the whole thing, the whole situation...it all just felt awful to me and has stayed with me all of my life. In a strange way I am still sorting out and comprehending all the feelings I had as a result of witnessing that small slice of fairly typical behavior on the part of young male children in the culture I was born into.

Now don't get the idea the big guy was a perpetual jerk and the little guy was the angel. Actually as the 12 years of public school played out I ended up liking the big guy more than the little guy. The one never devolved into full blown bully (probably partially because, over time, the size differential shrunk between the rest of the boys in the class and him) and the other guy, the smaller one, turned out to have a personality I will describe as a smirky, jerky putz type person...hell if I know why.

I do know this, part of the foundation of me, of my weltanschauing, of my feeling repertoire, of my personality has to do with being repulsed and disgusted by a more powerful being imposing their will on a less powerful being...just because they can....or even beings of equal power imposing their will and forcing the other to do something they want.

I am excluding situations where a parent restrains a child from danger or forces them to do something that is necessary (for the child's health or whatnot). Or if a human animal forces another animal to receive a medical treatment or confines them to their house because being outside unsupervised would be dangerous. I'm not talking about stuff like that, I am talking about using or controlling someone else with force simply because you can and because you want to.

I hate that crap, I think it is one of the biggest wrongs that there is, don't push others around or take advantage of them...just don't do it. I don't feel that way because I am a "good" person, I feel that way because I feel that way.

Look, another term for what I am so ineffectually trying to describe is exploitation. The free dictionary gives one definition for exploitation as being: "Utilization of another person or group for selfish purposes".

It is not ok to use others, whether you use them because you apply force or whether you apply guile or manipulation. It is ok to engage in interactions with others where there is a mutual benefit (i.e., you "use" each other) and the benefits from one to the other are approximately equal...that's fine. As long as everybody knows what is going on and agrees (and has the capacity to agree). But no force and no using unfairly...everything should be aboveboard, out in the open and agreed upon. No profiting at someone else's expense.

I don't think that way because it is "good", I think that way because I don't like that exploitation crap and I also believe the whole world and every being in it would be a hell of a lot better off if we all tried as hard as we could to operate that way. Wouldn't it and wouldn't we? Life would likely be so much more pleasant and fun and satisfying if we all tried our utmost to operate that way...at least I think it would.

If that is an important thing to me...and it is...whether I have lived up to it all the time or not (or most of the time or not)...then veganism is a given. Because that way of operating applies across the board...to everyone...cats, rabbits, next door neighbors, chickens, Canadians, Texans, muskrats....you name em.

Ethical veganism is a given for me because any other way of interacting with any kind of animal (by that I mean human animals too) would include exploitation...and I hate that stuff. And hell if I know why it took me so long to figure it out. There are other reason for my operating as a vegan, but the exploitation thingee is a big one for me. And I knew it a long long time ago...