JANUARY 14, 2010
This week in Suffering we had a vibrant conversation centered around expressing pain through language. The class is evidently divided about what it truly means to suffer, and if animal suffering is as valid as human suffering. I used to think that it wasn't, but I was ignorant and I didn't really know what the concept of a slaughterhouse really meant. I think it is important to have these varying opinions in class, but it does make me angry sometimes. To me it seems so obvious that an animal is conscious and present in her existence, how can anyone doubt that? Just because an animal cannot use English to express words describing pain, how can one say that the howls of an animal being slaughtered are not verbal expressions of pain?
As I said, it seems so obvious to me now, but it took me nearly 30 years to evolve my consciousness enough to consider all animals to be my non-human equals (except for maybe mosquitoes). I am still learning how to adjust my lifestyle to accommodate this new state of awareness, and it is a slow and resistant process. I am just glad I am not deaf to the language of animal suffering any longer.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
First week of Suffering: Why do you eat meat?
JANUARY 7, 2010
My first week of Suffering already has me experiencing uninvited epiphanies, but it is necessary to see how everything is connected through our moral understanding of animals and food. As a vegetarian, I have not had a very good relationship with food over the past year. I don't cook very much/well, so I often feel my choices are limited. I have had to give up my favorite foods, but I still yearn for them even though I don't really want to eat them. I have had to explain to countless people from all over the world why I became a vegetarian, and I think the following paragraph captures my sentiments perfectly:
"In our culture, it’s difficult to attain adequate perceptions of our circumstances. Since many forms of suffering are hidden, and we are not trained to look for clues to hidden problems, we harbor misunderstandings of common practices. We fail to perceive facts that are directly relevant to values of humaneness, seeing (for example) a counter full of packaged meat or a display of inexpensive clothing as morally neutral, when a more informed observer might see them as symbols of cruel mistreatment. Or we may understand that production of these products entails harm and exploitation, but only dimly, with no grasp of the varieties and extremes of suffering involved. We harbor inadequate and erroneous perceptions of our surroundings" (Kathie Jennie, The Power of the Visual, 3).
In response to the question "Why are you a vegetarian?", in the future I will ask "Why do you eat meat?" I think my rationale has evolved from simply not wanting that animals suffer to feed humans to the idea that eating animals is morally wrong when I have the privilege of living in a culture where I can sustain a healthy lifestyle without eating meat. I have learned this past year that it takes a lot of effort for me to be a vegetarian, but at least I'm following my own moral compass.
My first week of Suffering already has me experiencing uninvited epiphanies, but it is necessary to see how everything is connected through our moral understanding of animals and food. As a vegetarian, I have not had a very good relationship with food over the past year. I don't cook very much/well, so I often feel my choices are limited. I have had to give up my favorite foods, but I still yearn for them even though I don't really want to eat them. I have had to explain to countless people from all over the world why I became a vegetarian, and I think the following paragraph captures my sentiments perfectly:
"In our culture, it’s difficult to attain adequate perceptions of our circumstances. Since many forms of suffering are hidden, and we are not trained to look for clues to hidden problems, we harbor misunderstandings of common practices. We fail to perceive facts that are directly relevant to values of humaneness, seeing (for example) a counter full of packaged meat or a display of inexpensive clothing as morally neutral, when a more informed observer might see them as symbols of cruel mistreatment. Or we may understand that production of these products entails harm and exploitation, but only dimly, with no grasp of the varieties and extremes of suffering involved. We harbor inadequate and erroneous perceptions of our surroundings" (Kathie Jennie, The Power of the Visual, 3).
In response to the question "Why are you a vegetarian?", in the future I will ask "Why do you eat meat?" I think my rationale has evolved from simply not wanting that animals suffer to feed humans to the idea that eating animals is morally wrong when I have the privilege of living in a culture where I can sustain a healthy lifestyle without eating meat. I have learned this past year that it takes a lot of effort for me to be a vegetarian, but at least I'm following my own moral compass.
Introduction to Animal Thoughts: A Blog Assignment
This blog has been created for my comparative history of ideas class called Suffering: Animals, Violence, and the Consequences of Silence taught by Professor María Elena García at the University of Washington. I am taking this class as an elective for my Master of Arts in Cultural Studies program in which I am focusing on various aspects of Latino culture in the United States. One element of my research is studying the effects of the border wall that divides the desert throughout the borderlands region. Why then, you may ask, am I taking a course called Suffering?
The history of the border wall is directly linked to the implementation of NAFTA policies in 1994, which is the same year that the Clinton Administration began Operation Gatekeeper. The Patriot Act came along eight years later under the Bush Administration and that's when security really began to heighten and long stretches of fortified border wall were planned and constructed in an effort to prevent undocumented human migration into the U.S. under the guise of the "war on terror". This effort has been a colossal waste of billions of tax dollars, as research has proven that the wall only serves to slow down the average migrant group by about five minutes. With the increase in border patrol and security monitoring, many groups led by coyotes and other individuals choose to go around the wall, forcing them to cross through hostile mountainous desert terrain.
Thousands of people die every year in an attempt to exercise their human right to work after having their livelihoods disappear in order to accommodate the economic whims of the U.S., but the death toll on animals in the region is rarely even mentioned as a factor of the crisis. While my capstone research will likely explore one or more of the dynamics of the human element of this ongoing international predicament, the environmental impact of the wall has been devastating to wildlife and fragile ecosystems throughout this vast desert region. Endangered species are further challenged by catastrophic damage to the ecosystem, and I believe the animal suffering in this region must also be highlighted. The wall that was constructed in order to keep humans out fails in that effort, yet serves to cut off animals from food and water sources and their natural migratory patterns.
I hope you enjoy Suffering with me.
The history of the border wall is directly linked to the implementation of NAFTA policies in 1994, which is the same year that the Clinton Administration began Operation Gatekeeper. The Patriot Act came along eight years later under the Bush Administration and that's when security really began to heighten and long stretches of fortified border wall were planned and constructed in an effort to prevent undocumented human migration into the U.S. under the guise of the "war on terror". This effort has been a colossal waste of billions of tax dollars, as research has proven that the wall only serves to slow down the average migrant group by about five minutes. With the increase in border patrol and security monitoring, many groups led by coyotes and other individuals choose to go around the wall, forcing them to cross through hostile mountainous desert terrain.
Thousands of people die every year in an attempt to exercise their human right to work after having their livelihoods disappear in order to accommodate the economic whims of the U.S., but the death toll on animals in the region is rarely even mentioned as a factor of the crisis. While my capstone research will likely explore one or more of the dynamics of the human element of this ongoing international predicament, the environmental impact of the wall has been devastating to wildlife and fragile ecosystems throughout this vast desert region. Endangered species are further challenged by catastrophic damage to the ecosystem, and I believe the animal suffering in this region must also be highlighted. The wall that was constructed in order to keep humans out fails in that effort, yet serves to cut off animals from food and water sources and their natural migratory patterns.
I hope you enjoy Suffering with me.
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