What you kill makes you stronger
It used to be that if you wanted some meat, you’d have to kill an animal. You saw the animal struggle to avoid the blade of the knife. You heard the screams of pain. You saw the blood gush out from the throat. Now, meat comes shrink-wrapped and labeled. All of the bad, the gruesome, the difficulty has been tucked away from sight.
Moral strength is the ability to live with regrettable consequences. I have to constantly remind myself that everything contains good and bad. You cannot have good without bad. One of the main functions of modernity has been to separate out the bad–to contain and hide it–so that people can enjoy the good without remorse.
For instance, our garbage is whisked away to landfills before it even begins to smell. You hardly have to think about it. The good you enjoy–all of the products you purchase–is separated from the bad–the putrescent waste the products are packed in.
Modernity has brought the convenience of separation to the masses. There are many examples in modern life. Take anything that has been touched by modernity, figure out the good and the bad, and look at what happens to the bad. It is usually hidden away or confined to some other group such as garbage men or butchers.
I believe that having to make the difficult decision of killing an animal for your own good, and any number of other good/bad tradeoffs, strengthened us morally. It is a principle of the universe, a conservation law, that what benefits one must hurt the other. We become soft by not having to make the decision to hurt others ourselves.
The modern abattoire, while giving us a convenience, also does us a disservice: we no longer feel the grit of life nor the struggle for survival that remind us of the tradeoff. We are morally weakened. For moral strength is the ability to make difficult decisions. The ability to do harm in order to gain. To kill in order to live. To live with the guilt of affluence while others go poor. To play god, you might say.
4 Comments
by Bill Gerlach
On July 3, 2010 at 7:10 am
You’ve hit the nail on the head. The First World (should we even use that nomenclature?)– in particular, Americans — have been thoroughly desensitized to what it takes to make their cushy life possible. I think it’s akin to a numbing of our intellect; a step back in our collective resourcefulness. It’s the new birthright — to have it all handed to us on a platter while raising the hand of ignorance and turning the blindest of eyes to the real world before us.
These last few posts have been absolutely great. It’s so refreshing to read intellectually stimulating content that pushes boundaries (and buttons!). Be well.
by Eric Normand
On July 5, 2010 at 10:42 am
Thanks for the kind words.
It’s one of my pet peeves, I guess, that we are not educated to know what it takes to live as we do. Honesty is the best policy. Why not just be honest that we have to bomb other countries to have cheap gas? Maybe we’d think twice. Maybe we wouldn’t. As long as we are ignorant of it, we remain blameless.
by Nadine Fawell
On July 10, 2010 at 5:25 am
Hi Eric
I found your blog from the link Havi had on her Shiva Nata site. I’m so glad I did! I was a vegetarian for 16 years, because when I was a teenager I had a boyfriend whose family owned a farm and I saw a pig being slaughtered.
I couldn’t cope with the life/death/life link it made in my head.
About a year ago, I started eating meat again because (a) I was dreaming about steak (steak!) (b) Nothing I did – and I know all the nutrition stuff – was keeping the anaemia under control. Which was probably why I was dreaming about steak.
I’m a mindful kind of omnivore though. My process is still about doing least harm within what is possible and sustainable to me. But when I think about the least harm thing too much, the circles get wider and wider and then my head hurts.
So, you know. The best I can do.
Oh and? I’m not sure ignorant = blameless. Maybe it just passes the guilt down to the next generation. That’s what I think happened with Apartheid. I have carried the genetic, and until recently, unspoken, guilt of being a white South African all my life.
by Eric Normand
On July 10, 2010 at 10:08 am
I was a vegan for over two years. I tried to minimize my impact as much as I could. But my life just got smaller and smaller as I found more and more things I had reason to not eat. I believed that I should not make active decisions–karma would backlash against me.
I remember very clearly the day I realized that I had to act. I had to use my will to survive. It was during a meditation session, and I immediately felt the power I held and the responsibility that came with it. We direct the future evolution of the universe with our every action. Wow.
Thanks for sharing, Nadine! Maybe our paths will cross some day. Your yoga classes look like something I’d like.
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