Page 13 - DoggieRescue E-Magazine November 2015_Neat

NOVEMBER 2015 DOGGIERESCUE.COM MAGAZINE
in human history, child abuse was considered to be
discipline and that racism, sexism, domestic violence and
The White Australia Policy were all considered to be a
bloody good idea. Therefore, we should not kid ourselves
that we are not equally blind to our current
misapprehensions surrounding animal welfare.
Yet, in spite of our treatment of other sentient beings on
this planet and the possibility that history might just judge consider ourselves to be thinking, caring, supportive
us negatively, Sam de Brito points out that: “one does not
have to venture too far into humanity to find an immensity
of suffering, let alone consider the vast, historically
unprecedented misery caused by our brutalisation of the
animal kingdom. Fifty billion animals die every year to
feed us, the majority suffering in alien conditions to which
we are completely indifferent”.
Still, one need not be a refugee or a factory-farmed pig to
suffer. The multitudes of self-helpers, drunks, drug addicts
and faithful attest to this. Few are the chanters of mantras
and affirmations who do not suffer deeply in their search
for "meaning".
Meaning is all for humans, yet the oldest meaning,
the question at the heart of it all – "Why are we here?" –
has been demanded of nature for millennia and nature's
response has always been the same: silence. Nature
"performed a miracle with man", Zapffe writes, giving us
the consciousness to ask a question it refuses to answer.
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To survive, however, to deal with the absurdity of
being just a slowly putrefying mass of meat atop a
skeleton, on an atom of clay in an empty universe,
most of us do the opposite of what makes us uniquely
human; we think less.
How else do we explain the inherent refusal to deal
with the following issues in a world where we all
and enlightened?
• Factory farming;
• Live animal exports;
• The killing of baby calves as
“waste products”;
• Puppy factories;
• Live baiting of greyhounds;
• Battery hen, sheep and pig farming;
• Approved game hunting for alleged
conservation purposes where in order to
save an endangered species you allow it
to be killed.
Perhaps the answer lies in what Zapffe the
philosopher has suggested: "People learn to save
themselves by artificially limiting the content of
consciousness". So we deny the "cosmic panic" we
felt as kids when we looked up at the infinity of the
night sky or down at the troubling demise of our dead
pet. We ignore the suffering in our midst, in Nauruan
refugee camps or outback indigenous settlements or
the unyielding horror story of how our food is
produced.
We distract ourselves with family, with friends,
careers, newspapers, politics, pool parties, iPhones,
tablets and other ingenious technology. We put on a
brave face, put on the television or stream Netflix or
Stan. We practise optimism which is increasingly
bloviated and unconscionable.
It is through this optimism that somehow we seem to
be certain that we will not be judged, like we now do
our forebears for their ignorance and callousness. For
me, I think it is merely humanity just having its eyes
wide shut on animal welfare.