[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/108602660933816...
From my viewpoint, our current views on the killing of animals are as much a reflection of our cultural fear of death as anything.
Death used to be an ever-present part of life. Killing an animal was viewed as taking the life of something else to prolong your own. And all to often, people would die in horrific ways anyway.
Now, death is a thing we try to hide away and not talk about. So we also hide away the killing of animals for meat. Death is a taboo in our society in some ways.
This is clearly not the case, else nobody would be willing to work for a factory farm.
The opposite appears to be true. People become desensitized - at least the ones who can handle the initial shock. Also, in some regions of the world (and in developed countries), generations have grown up with a company mentality and seem incapable of considering things from any other perspective.
As someone who has recently joined that club, I agree. I have been hunting for years but this year I killed my first deer. The whole process changed something inside of me.
Because of my actions, this gentle creature went from breathing, living and doing whatever it wanted to being food.
While I was aiming my shot, she turned her head towards me and looked at me. I can clearly remember seeing her blink.
I put the arrow through her heart and lungs. I dragged her out of the woods. I gutted her and hung her up. I packed her body in ice.
These were things that I had seen done before but never did myself.
As I was field dressing the body, I looked at her and apologized, then I thanked her for providing healthy meat to feed my family.
In my mind, it changed venison from butcher paper wrapped meat that was leaner than beef into the flesh of an animal that was killed.
I don't know what she thought but I think she was, on some level, self aware.
Not sure exactly what that implies, but it would seem to suggest that it's hard to wrap these sorts things up with a bow.
There is also the simple, brutal reality of the food chain.
Being most aware and capable, also means seeing all of that, where the lesser beings are, and treating the world with respect.
Should anyway. Our nature easily demonstrates otherwise.
Animals are a lot like us. Simpler mostly.
Animals are a lot like us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
But please, continue dismissing millions of people's beliefs as "paranoia".
OTOH, large numbers of people can absolutely exhibit collective paranoia. How many subscribe to Alex Jones?
It frankly seems no more or less odd to me than any other form of religious asceticism. From a purely practical perspective, sweeping the ground in front of you is probably not any more of a nuisance than the vow of silence that some Christian monks and nuns take. I'd personally find it to be less of one.
Interesting.
But I'm not budging on the paranoia statement. If your beliefs make you worry about killing random things you can't even see, say "bye" to any semblance of good mental health.
Even when we're extremely selfish and petty, if we take too much effort to take care of ourselves, that's generally fine, as long as it's legal and not too annoying -- but when others worry "too much" about yet others, and change their own behaviour accordingly, they can't possibly have "any semblance of good mental health"? Come on..
The insects at least actually exist, what of caring about random people that don't even exist yet, wouldn't that be even crazier?
> Well, suppose that we believe what we are taught. It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational, because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy. If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.
-- Noam Chomsky
In fact looks like my browser scrolled right past 3-4 paragraphs.
Now that I look, there was a stupid advert that pushed the content up and out of the way. Way to make a site, guys.
I wouldn't put a spear into a boar, but from a detached and clinical perspective I don't see why its sentience would make a difference. Advanced societies like China, the Europeans and the United States don't generally have any problem fielding an aggressive expeditionary army of people nominally willing to kill sentient humans, so I suspect the blocks are more economic and cultural norms than innate.
It also seems plausible that time and breeding has equipped a large number of people with limited emotions precisely so they can stab things without worrying too much about the philosophical aspects.
Furthermore, the soldiers who serve in the armies of the nations you mention who actually have to do any killing often end up with PTSD and sky-high suicide rates.
Humans may be more naturally hesitant to kill their fellow human beings than you think.
It's known as motivated reasoning. Specimens of our species are not known for disinterested rationality. We have deep interests in doing things to animals that animal cognition could make more unpleasant or expensive. An ancestor without this talent would have been less likely to become an ancestor. Think of how much tougher it would be to put a spear into a boar if you thought it was as sentient as your mother. You'd still do it if you were hungry enough but would pay a greater price.