People from many nations have proverbs or folk sayings that offer
words of wisdom. Here are two examples:
The first one is of German origin: “One does evil enough when one
does nothing good.” The other one is French: “There is no pillow as soft
as a clear conscience.”
I was thinking about the worldwide out-of -control increase in
factory farms in response to the demand for animal products. Much of
this demand is fueled by the spread of global fast-food operations and
the copying of eating habits of more prosperous countries by those
emerging from poverty. For many people emulating “westernized”
populations by eating more flesh and dairy is a matter of status that
gives them a sense of “having arrived.”
They “arrive” all right! Welcome to increased rates of heart attacks,
strokes, cancers, et cetera, as well as viral diseases!
See:
http://www.all-creatures.org/heart/blog-20070314.html
What has this to do with the two folk sayings I mentioned, you ask?
For the first proverb, “One does evil enough when one does nothing
good”:
There is nothing good either for humans or for other animals in this
“protein frenzy.” In a sense, the evil done to cruelly exploited animals
is avenged by the long-term suffering of humans who refuse to do good
and instead reinforce the “herding (hurting!) culture” mentality.
See:
http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/index.html
For the second proverb: “There is no pillow as soft as a clear
conscience”:
Since eating or using the products of cruelty makes one complicit, I
wonder how long a person can go avoiding the truth and fooling him or
herself in order to have a “clear conscience.” Unless, of course, one
has internalized the culture’s hardness of heart to the extent of
psychopathology!
