How Is This Disconnect Possible?

 Jodi Rives Meier

  • I had a student give a speech today about “humane” pig farming. He was trying to persuade the class that the animals should be kept in better conditions because “pigs are actually smarter than you think” because “not a day goes by that one doesn’t come up to me and nuzzle me ’cause he remembered me scratching his head yesterday.” And yet he sees no problem in slaughtering that same animal when it is marketable enough. How is this disconnect possible? He showed a video of pigs mugging for the camera and romping around in mud puddles and snuggling with each other in the hay and declared these “happy pigs,” but has no compunction in killing them for pleasure. I find this ghastly. Utter ghastly.Erika Anne and Aydin Kennedy, I thought of you and how you would react to the speech.
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    • Sara Kallio likes this.
    • Amy Goingtothemoon Havens Better than someone that’s mean.. I couldn’t do it
    • Mercedes Macías Marín Jodi – Are you aware that the burning of fossil fuel adds harmful chemicals and elements to the air that all living things depend on breathing?

      If so, since learning this information, have you still chosen to start your car and drive it around again? If so, a huge amount of rationalization and disconnect is necessary in order for you to consciously choose to do that. It requires a huge amount of emotional and intellectual disconnect to “fit in” or “function” in a pre-conceived society that is overwhelmingly generalized, standardized, and flawed.

      ((I don’t want to be condescending OR presumptuous here, so if you are NOT aware of the harmful effects of consumption and harvesting of fossil fuels (including plastic-production and disposal), you can educate yourself on this topic and many others concerning climate alteration and pollution/contamination of our earth-environment via the internet or workshops offered in the local community.))
    • Jodi Rives Meier @Mercedes–What is your point? Because it appears you have missed mine.
    • Mercedes Macías Marín My point, if it has not been made clear, is that only if One can dissect and analyze the core aspects of the blanket-disconnections (whether these be emotional, intellectual, or spiritual) that we ourselves may have put, or are now putting, into place in order to maintain some state of perceived “balance” or “comfort” within the routine of our daily lives, only then can we begin to be truly understanding and respectful of all the actions (spoken and written language/expressions included), whether sub-consciously or consciously chosen, that may become the decisions of others.

      “When people get immersed in a culture with strong new memes, it tends to be a sink-or-swim proposition. Either you change your mind, succumbing to peer pressure and adopting the new memes as your own, or you struggle with the extremely uncomfortable feeling of being surrounded by people who think you’re crazy or inadequate. The fact that you probably think the same about them is little consolation.” -RICHARD BRODIE, Virus of the Mind

      It could be that the circumstances in which this person (“your student”) is living is one in which killing animals for sport has been taught, encouraged, and expected by those whom he has both loved and respected. Choosing to deviate from this mindset and lifestyle will then cause him to feel alienated from the culture of those patterns and could, indeed, leave him literally alone; abandoned and ostracized by the group that is his core support system.

      “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” – Albert Einstein

      It takes a great deal of courage to decide to act to change. Perhaps this young man will decide to shift his viewpoints, conscious feelings, and mindset about the intentional killing of living beings. However, if he decides to do so, it will be much better for him to have another group to be accepted graciously into that shares and advocates this new opinion and is willing to provide love, encouragement, and support for him both during and after this transition of being cut off from the old one and adjusting to the transformation of brand-new paradigms.

      Understanding that change is a very personal and conscious choice means that we must also decide to give love and encouragement to those around us who may still be in a place of lesser intellectual, emotional, or spiritual development. Patronizing and chastising others constantly for their under-developed or poorly-developed state-of-awareness/education does little to serve them or to honor yourself and your own acquisition of information; indeed, such choices can only serve to detract those who may have otherwise been open to knowledge, integration, and further dissemination of information with the use of dejection, rejection, and a spattering attack on their very Being instead of on the ideas or actions that must not even truly belong to them.

      I suppose that revulsion is a privilege granted to those with little understanding, and thus undeveloped compassion, for the free-will and significance of others. Gentleness is not a trait best used sparingly.
    • Mercedes Macías Marín Also: new word acquired – “compunction.”  I like this word and I am aware of having never heard nor seen it before you chose to include it in this posting, Jodi.  Good one.
    • Jodi Rives Meier There is a profound difference in experiencing a disconnect between the starting of a car or the using of a plastic spoon and environmental damage (which is inherently disconnected) and the ability to befriend a living being to the extent that it would remember you and seek out your companionship that you then intentionally kill–by your own hand–for the pleasure of some bacon with your eggs. That is some seriously sick shit. Like pork products all you will, just don’t try to say slaughtering them for pleasure isn’t gruesome simply because they had some extra room to run around in before you did. The student even used the term “euthanize” for their slaughter. Talk about twisted semantics. Grotesque.
    • Jodi Rives Meier And this student is my age.
    • Mercedes Macías Marín I do not agree with your claim. I argue there is no difference between the two situations. In fact, if you would claim that there is any kind of “profound difference” between the turning of a key in an ignition and then the prolonged action of operating a motor vehicle for any length of time and the (usually instantaneous, in the case of the pulling of the trigger on a fire-arm) moment of choosing to kill a living being, then your own disconnect from your own personal choices in your life reads to be so large that in fact you are too emotionally defensive of your actions to be ready, at this moment, to make any kind of shift in your own actions or belief systems. I, however, am not attacking you by pointing this out in public. I believe you to be a good, reasonable person and trust that you will choose to make appropriate changes in thinking and doing when ready. I also feel this to be true for everybody else, such as in the case of “your student.”
    • Jodi Rives Meier Mercedes–You may want to look up “condescending,” and “presumptuous.”
    • Jodi Rives Meier You may want to check again–because just SAYING you don’t “want to be condescending OR presumptuous” is not the same thing as not being them. It is extremely patriarchal for you to assume the position that your not agreeing with me (because of some other hardcore agenda you appear to be promoting) means I have just not evolved enough to get what you already know. And I call bullshit on that. I do not give you permission to belittle my experience of the speech. I feel very strongly it is murderously ghastly to make an animal into a pet which trusts and loves you and then slaughter it for pleasure. You may feel differently. Your agreement is absolutely not requested nor needed. And your patronizing is seriously offensive. And you have exhibited derailing behavior on my comments thread–one of my least favorite behaviors. And a very common tactic in sexist communication. I can hardly imagine that is something you would want to embrace. Have issues about the environment? By all means, post your little heart out–on your page. Have something pertinent to say about my speech experience that doesn’t co-opt my message and derail my original direction? Have at it. Feel the need to be dismissive of me on my own comments thread? Not interested.
    • Mercedes Macías Marín Actually, I do agree with you, Jodi, and herein lies the proof of a lack of condescension in either personal belief, attitude, or any posting. I believe that a disconnect is required for the conscious choice to take another life, whether it be human, mammal, reptile, marine, or insect. I believe that any kind of disconnect is likely unhealthy for individuals, families, and thusly society at large, and therefore wrong.

      You wrote in your original post, “How is this disconnect possible?” I took this to a be a question of shock and outrage in response to “your students'” apparent ambivalence when it comes to advocating for “humane” animal-rights, “better” living conditions, and the acknowledgement of non-human creatures exhibiting high-levels of memory and intelligence (which is admirable) and the instigation of using living beings as the victims of sport and leisure in an activity which takes life from these creatures.

      My response to your posting as a comment was not to cause you to feel bad about yourself or your actions to burn fossil-fuel or to “belittle [your] experience of the speech.” Also – I certainly would never claim that you “have just not evolved enough to get what [I] already know.”

      I respect you and admire your brazen bravery when it comes to confrontation of heated philosophic topics and the follow-thru of phsical action connected to that process. I consider you a powerful catalyst for activism and society-change.

      I am not sure if you are aware, but I am quite sure that 100% of those who adhere to the distinctions of what might define either a “male” or a “female” human being would define me as a “female.” I possess an intact and complete female reproductive system in my physical person. This being declared, I find it oddly inaccurate to read, “It is extremely patriarchal for [me] to assume the position that…” in the last comment. Even tho I agree with you that it is “ghastly” to intentionally take the life of another living creature in almost all circumstances, therefore making the entire sentence irrelevant in its assertion, I find it offensive to both myself as a female and, mostly, to those who might identify as males to have some connection insinuated between being a male and some sort of innate feeling of superiority over others, especially others within our own species.

      As for your comments about “exhibiting derailing behavior” I can hardly claim that I know what you are referring to. Also, I am not sure where a linkage between my postings/opinions and “sexist communication” can be found.

      I don’t “have issues about the environment,” in particular. Any “issue” with the “environment” is something that is common to all of us; equally; is important for all; and is something that we all must be willing to own up to, accept and share in our community.

      I believe that everything I have posted, including this comment, is on-track with and, to use a quote and *stay-on-track* here, “pertinent” to the promotion of your original posting.

      In full humility and with no disrespect intended, I’d encourage you to “look up” the word “bigot.”

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