I read two Eduardo Affonso Brazilian writer's texts, which led me to write this one. His texts are great! As he says, the criterion of what is cruel or not, ethical or not, has changed, as civilization has evolved. Although he does not condemn those who eat meat, he favors the custom of not eating it, avoiding the cruelty towards sentient beings and the way they die (1,2 – in Portuguese).
He received harsh criticism from non-vegetarians, saying, for example, that mistreating vegetables would be similar. I myself went through the phase of questioning vegetarians or vegans, claiming that vegetables are also living beings and that they must also suffer when we uproot them from the earth - we just are not able to empathize with their suffering, because it is not like ours, already more sophisticated, neurologically speaking.
When I moved to Canada 21 years ago, and I heard the sharp “groans” of the needles of the evergreen trees (boreal forest pines) when they were burned in small backyard campfires, it touched me; I know they were not groans, but the similar sound made me think that vegetables could “feel” some kind of suffering as well.
We still do not have methods to survive without having to slaughter other living beings to feed us, but I think it is already a big step to empathize with other beings in the animal kingdom, classified as sentient; perhaps it will help us understand the suffering even of human beings.
We would have plenty to say about this theme. Remembering religions that advocate fasting and abstinence from meat, for example... Was it a principle of built-in empathy, some “inspired” intuition, some archaic memory? I don't want to enter this field.
Despite knowing that the key point of our living condition is death - it is cruel a priori - the idea of creating beings to kill and eat them is really atrocious, and that goes for vegetables too, of course. Perhaps, this is an empathy we do not yet fully understand its obviousness; we also nourish ourselves to serve as food, one day, to this “pool” of matter and energy that remains in this strange vicious circle of “nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”.
But, certainly, we can and must attenuate the miseries of this life-and-death cycle in which we live. It is the least we can expect from beings who call themselves rational, as the talented writer, Eduardo Affonso, said.
I will not utter more words to explain the solution that crossed my mind. Just go to the link number (3), at the end of this text, to know the technique by which food is synthesized in that television series that I loved - “Star Trek”. It is fascinating! I believe that it is not impossible and humanity will arrive there one day, not without many ethical and economic debates before... We are "sapiens", but slow.
Well, I will stop here; excuse me for the proselytism of ethical-scientific bias. At least, it's more tolerable than if I engaged in religious proselytism... I won't do it today.😇😆
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Related links:
(1) Os prazeres e as dores da carne
(2) Sofrimento, dor e compaixão
(3) Food synthesizer
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