Through thoughtful discussion with others and through attempting to put into words those things that I myself see and experience, I have been noticing lately how so many things that people so easily write off are actually, if one does stop to examine them and truly reflect upon them, not so easily dismissable at all; or rather, to put these phrases in the order which ought to be most surprising, how so many truly valuable insights are so easily dismissed.

For example, the eating of meat. Now I do not wish to be offensive to any person reading this who eats meat; nor am I trying to get people to change their ways; rather only to encourage thought. (And the very fact that I do have to include such a disclaimer, that I cannot bring this topic up in this way without fear that my words might seem hostile, says something of my following point, I believe.) I had, until very recently, gone the entirety of my life thus far without ever once questioning meat-eating; certainly I had never felt horrified by the taste and texture of cooked flesh in my mouth. (And that phrase sounds so terrible, now, to my ears. I am not trying to invoke sympathy or disgust with loaded words; it is flesh. One can say no more or less about it.) Even those who appreciate the reasons for vegetarianism in others never seem to truly take them to heart; and I say this speaking as someone who felt this way myself; that is, we hear phrases such as “what poor creature died, so that you could experience this brief sensory pleasure?”, and nod, absently, seemingly understandingly. It seems, on the surface, a fairly reasonable thing to say. But we do not internalise that thought, do not truly dwell on it. We think no more of it than “well, it sounds reasonable”, and move on. We cannot do and continue to act as we do. I did not. And in less tolerant circles, “what once-living thing had to die so you could eat that?” is brushed off as a slogan of the fanatical, the wild-eyed, activists who bomb the homes of the families of cousins of best friends of people who might once have worked for a company whose profits are tied in with animal experimentation.

Even, I believe, a good number of vegetarians themselves do not abstain from eating meat because they are truly emotionally horrified by taking animal life. Rather, they do it because they have been raised to do it, or because certain animals are “cute” (thinking not to the objective value of life but to its subjective appeal to humans; a less cute animal is worth less, to some minds), or because on some level they consider it a good thing to do; but not because it truly bothers them on a deep level.

There are so many of these little phrases in our lives that have become pat, rejected by reflex rather than by thought, because they have become associated with the fringe fanatic, those whose perspective on the situation is unbalanced in entirely the opposite direction. We consider that because the majority live their lives like this, then it must be okay. But if we actually stop to consider these phrases for a moment, might they actually have value? Might they once have been born from a reasonable train of thought, only to have been tainted over time by association until we assume that they can no longer have any real meaning whatsoever?

I very recently saw, in association with an article on a particular restaurant, an image of a whole cooked pig. It was perfectly recognisable as the animal that it had once been; but its skin was turned to a seared, brittle shell. It did not look any different from a human whose skin had been burned, in terms of that, and if we were to accidentally look upon an image of a human all-over burnt, their flesh darkened and charred, we would instantly wince and turn away. We could not stare upon it for long. It would be the same if we saw a dog in such a condition. We would feel sick. Yet this image of a pig is not considered shocking. Why does this not upset us the same way? It horrifies me, now. But for my whole life I have been looking at roasted pig’s heads and similar things and feeling no sorrow, no remorse. It is curious, how the power of collective acceptance can be a total emotional blinder to these things. I was not supposed to think of it as horrible, therefore I did not. It might even have made me hungry. We need to recognise that cultural memes have such power to affect us and condition us, to change our very basic emotions, to alter them completely and totally; not just this one but many, many others.

Once again, this post is not an attack on those who eat meat; not a disdaining of them as callous. I am not raising myself above anyone; we are all susceptible to it. In fact I have arguably done more unpleasant things in my life than most because of cultural acceptance of the things I did; I am not one to preach or judge, and I will not. Indeed that is partly my point; that we as a culture have internalised these ideas such (and my culture is no different) that they have lost their capacity to shock unless analysed very closely. When something has been stripped of any potential to upset by having been a presence in human lives since the dawn of the species (and back then, a necessary one), we are not to be considered unreasonably cruel if we are not moved by it. However, we should at least consider it our duty to contemplate these things, to look beyond layers of cultural conditioning, not just at this one thing but at everything that we take for granted in our lives, to ensure our actions are based on conscious awareness, not acceptance of the status quo. If you do consider this entry offensive to you, please, before being upset by it, ask yourself why. That was the point of my making it, after all; just to provoke thought on a topic that few people are comfortable with provoking thought on, precisely because it is such a sensitive one.