Of pain and other things
Pain is over hyped. Plain and Simple. Now I can almost visualize a set of people, which we shall henceforth refer to as the set of reader's of this blog, (whose cardinality, it is suspected, is zero) but anyhow, let us for a moment assume that the cardinality of this set is not zero, then I can understand that there'll be quite a few hands raised from within that set, and I have a feeling those hands will have been raised to know what I mean by that statement.
Right. So what DO I mean by that statement? You see, in the past week alone, I have seen a talkshow hosting a man who has written about "Those ugly facts meat companies dont want you to know", read an article about another man who has written about "Humane slaughtering of poultry", and finally, the real kicker, seen a flier about an auction of "Meat from Humanely slaughtered cows" or something of that sort.
Now before I snigger out very loudly, or kick my foot extremely hard against the wall, or do both at the same time, I want to make it clear that I DO understand what makes people try to be "Humane" to animals they are about to eat. You see, people (ahem) believe that there is nothing worse than inflicting pain unto another living organism, and conversely, the worse that a living organism could feel is when it is experiencing pain. Here pain is defined (for the most part) as physical pain. ie, to a specific set of things that could happen to your physical person, your brain reacts in a certain way (which is precisely what this feeling of pain is), and the biological imperative for this is that it is supposed to warn you of some sort of danger that your physical person is facing, or to draw your attention to some part of your body that needs immediate attention.
Now people who advocate humane (painless) slaughtering of edible(I can see some people having a heartattack at this point) animals do it based on the premise that "since the animal has to die, why subject it to pain". Translated to language we can understand, it reads as "Why let the organism know that it is facing mortal danger when it isnt the kind of danger it can protect itself from"?
Right. Now let me portray another situation here. The way we defined pain, as something that lets you know if you are in physical danger, we can define "Emotional Duress", or Emotional pain as the knowledge that you are about to experience physical pain. So an example of a state of emotional duress is when you know that you are about to be shot in the next 10 minutes. And let us assume for the sake of argument that your death is essential for the human population (let us say that you are a known terrorist, or a mass murderer), just as the death of farm animals is essential for the human population (as a source of protein). Then someone comes along and says, "right, just shoot him, but dont tell him that he is about to be shot, because this is not the kind of danger he can protect himself from" (let us assume that there are a 100 AK-47's trained on you, so the chance you have of saving yourself in this situation is as small as the chance the chicken has of suddenly flying away before being cut) .
I dont see any justification (of the moral kind) of a statement like that. Since you have to die, what difference does it make if you know that you are about to die? This situation is ridiculous, and i think the staunchest supporters of Humane slaughtering of (edible) animals will agree with me. And I think the analysis holds for the other system as well. Its just an arbitrary line drawn in the sand. Tomorrow somebody could come up and say "Look, animals have equal rights. So since they cant eat you, you shouldnt be able to eat them". So I find people clamouring for humane-ity pretty gay (in the Southpark sense).
Bring me my meat squealing.thats the way its supposed to be. yargh
Right. So what DO I mean by that statement? You see, in the past week alone, I have seen a talkshow hosting a man who has written about "Those ugly facts meat companies dont want you to know", read an article about another man who has written about "Humane slaughtering of poultry", and finally, the real kicker, seen a flier about an auction of "Meat from Humanely slaughtered cows" or something of that sort.
Now before I snigger out very loudly, or kick my foot extremely hard against the wall, or do both at the same time, I want to make it clear that I DO understand what makes people try to be "Humane" to animals they are about to eat. You see, people (ahem) believe that there is nothing worse than inflicting pain unto another living organism, and conversely, the worse that a living organism could feel is when it is experiencing pain. Here pain is defined (for the most part) as physical pain. ie, to a specific set of things that could happen to your physical person, your brain reacts in a certain way (which is precisely what this feeling of pain is), and the biological imperative for this is that it is supposed to warn you of some sort of danger that your physical person is facing, or to draw your attention to some part of your body that needs immediate attention.
Now people who advocate humane (painless) slaughtering of edible(I can see some people having a heartattack at this point) animals do it based on the premise that "since the animal has to die, why subject it to pain". Translated to language we can understand, it reads as "Why let the organism know that it is facing mortal danger when it isnt the kind of danger it can protect itself from"?
Right. Now let me portray another situation here. The way we defined pain, as something that lets you know if you are in physical danger, we can define "Emotional Duress", or Emotional pain as the knowledge that you are about to experience physical pain. So an example of a state of emotional duress is when you know that you are about to be shot in the next 10 minutes. And let us assume for the sake of argument that your death is essential for the human population (let us say that you are a known terrorist, or a mass murderer), just as the death of farm animals is essential for the human population (as a source of protein). Then someone comes along and says, "right, just shoot him, but dont tell him that he is about to be shot, because this is not the kind of danger he can protect himself from" (let us assume that there are a 100 AK-47's trained on you, so the chance you have of saving yourself in this situation is as small as the chance the chicken has of suddenly flying away before being cut) .
I dont see any justification (of the moral kind) of a statement like that. Since you have to die, what difference does it make if you know that you are about to die? This situation is ridiculous, and i think the staunchest supporters of Humane slaughtering of (edible) animals will agree with me. And I think the analysis holds for the other system as well. Its just an arbitrary line drawn in the sand. Tomorrow somebody could come up and say "Look, animals have equal rights. So since they cant eat you, you shouldnt be able to eat them". So I find people clamouring for humane-ity pretty gay (in the Southpark sense).
Bring me my meat squealing.thats the way its supposed to be. yargh
posted by '~-)Sandman(-~' at 3:58 PM
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