832
Mom is having a moment (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/funny@lemmy.world
121 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 64 points 3 months ago* (4 children)

An overdue existential crisis, or moment of clarity, caused by a lifetime of routine alienation between the consumer, the product, the store, the factory pen and butchery.

Mom should read Marx, and The Jungle.

Maybe pick up hunting, if she wants to see what it takes from her own pov.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I was pressured into going hunting a few times with my dad growing up, and I ended up killing a few deer. It's something I'm not proud of, one among many things I came to regret later in life.

    I used to think "If you can't or won't kill it personally, then you shouldn't eat it" was an argument in support of hunting. Now I think of it as an argument in support of vegetarianism. Funny how perspective changes everything...

    What's also funny is how as a society we say things like "kids who kill bugs grow up to be psychopaths," yet we totally normalize hunting as a sport. Why is that? For that matter, why don't we say "anyone who eats animal flesh is a psychopath?"

    As if being five steps removed from the suffering and death somehow abstracts the cruelty so that one can indulge in the pleasure of what is produced by it without bearing any moral culpability in the processes by which that meat arrived on one's plate?

    Why is it only the forms of cruelty that society doesn't accept as cultural pastimes that are considered taboo? I should rephrase. Why does society accept some forms of cruelty and not others?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    As if being five steps removed from the suffering and death somehow abstracts the cruelty so that one can indulge in the pleasure of what is produced by it without bearing any moral culpability in the processes by which that meat arrived on one’s plate?

    This, and as a vegan it infuriates/despairs me when people whom I otherwise like and respect just never turn a thought towards this dissonance in their lives. They may care deeply about social injustices and oppression, but see no problem with continuing to participate in the mass torture and murder of non-human sentient creatures. So by now when someone says they "love animals", my first (internal) reaction is a bitter snort, because it's extremely rare that such people are even vegetarian, let alone vegan.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    The principal difference ia that you see the death of a non-sapient animal as murder and I ascribe it the same ethical weight whether a person or a lion does it. It's not "dissonance" it's a foundational disagreement on inherent morality, our place in nature, and the "value of life".

    There's lots to complain about regarding the factory farming industry (environmental impact foremost in my mind, and the needlessly inhumane conditions they're raised in) but eating meat is not imo itself a cruel act.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    Definitely, my comment was made within the practical reality of what "eating meat" involves for the vast majority of people living in Western societies. If animals would just be painlessly and "stresslessly" euthanised, I would have almost zero issues with the concept. (And yes, I'm setting higher standards for humans than for predators re: painlessly/stresslessly, because we do have both the means and a sense of right and wrong, unlike lions.)

    I don't see life itself as valuable - a life filled with suffering imho is not necessarily better than nonexistence, though of course this is up to each entity to decide about themselves. (And for this reason I'm also pro-euthanasia / assisted dying.)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [+] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)
    [deleted]
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago

    +1 to the existential exploration.

    A little more lot and she'll eventually stumble in to "Where did this existence come from? Why is there matter to have a universe, why is there any existence at all? If God exists, how was he created?"

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] -2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Or she is on a few different neurospectra, and gets species dysphoria as a regular thing and finds it funny as well.

    But yeah after stopping being a vegetarian I went and killed a lot of animals for other people to balance the scales. Now I prefer if my terrestrial meat had a name, not number.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •