Wednesday, April 18, 2007

How humanely raised do you feel now?

This is a little "guided meditation" on the subject of humanely raised animals. I would like to write a longer one in the future and this is the rough draft of a first attempt. I would like to know what people think, what works for you, what doesn't.

What if I was to confine you for a year? You are well treated, you have food, water and a few things to do. All in all your treated pretty well. Then one day I come in scoop you up, bring you outside and throw you into a truck with a bunch of other people. You are scared now, somehow the past year of being pampered still doesn't make up for even this little bit of torment. The truck stops and you are roughly tossed onto the ground were you are told to form a line and follow the others in front of you. As you walk into this building single file people are waiting their turn to enter a door you can see up ahead. When it's your turn you walk in and are quickly strung up by your legs upside down. To add to the immense terror you already feel at this point, a man with blood stained clothes turns around and begins approaching you with a knife in his right hand. With an emotionless expression on his face he proceeds to sever your windpipe and the arteries of your neck despite your screams of protest. It’s like he didn’t even hear you. As your drown in your own blood, gasping for breath, I think we can both agree that right now it makes no difference how you were treated before you were cut open. You will still be dead in a moment, and you will die terrified and tortured.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

(From Lillyian)
Wonderful meditation!

AG said...

I like it. The only thing that I might point out is that animals are not given things to do, so why should we give humans something to do in the hypothetical situation? It might be interesting to provide two lines of thought: the "happy meat" version where you get to go outside to play or the caged but well treated version, where life is a monotonous succession of the same thing day after day after day ...

But, I really like it and I wish that I could convince my omni friends to really think about such things.

Veganramblings said...

Hi Anne, The only reason I gave the reader something to do was because this was originally written in response to someone who thought that because animals were treated well it was ok to kill them. I added this part to show that even if the animal in question is treated unrealistically well it makes no difference. In any case thank you for your feedback.