Chris OConnor wrote:I'm not very confident that humanity is going to read de Waal's book and suddenly see the light and change it's brutish ways. Grandin provides real tangible methods...in my opinion we need to quickly put a stop to the horrific conditions...before we try to tackle the epic task of making humans more loving, kind and compassionate and less selfish, uncaring and anthropocentric...
I think you are right that reading any one book is not going to do anything to change the basic nature of human beings. We aren't really built to learn that way. Our learning comes best through intense emotional experience. So for example, visiting an abattoir as a teen and watching
Soylent Green probably had much more effect on my current vegetarianism than reading
Diet for a Small Planet or any other book. Emotions are deeply embedded in all our "rational" decisions.
But that's the point. Human's are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as a rational species and accustomed to thinking of emotions and reason as separate functions, but they aren't. Nothing is going to change the fact that humans cover emotionally-based decisions with a thin veneer of reasonable explanation. All we can really do is become as aware as we can of the real reason we behave as we do and then try to act based on how that makes us feel about what we do - what we eat. So, using myself as an example, grilling steak still smells really good to me but if I imagine trying to actually put a piece in my mouth - yuch - I get this really nasty emotional feed back. What's true is that the yuch factor probably has much more to do with my "decision" not to eat that piece of meat at that moment than the education I get when I read books about the environmental effect of the livestock industry.
So I don't think humans will quickly put a stop to what you rightfully call the horrific conditions animals suffer - especially ones that are food to us. I mean we won't even put a stop to the really horrible conditions many of our children suffer and we have far more emotional attachment to other humans than we do (typically) to even the closest of our animal compatriots. I mean we are wired to respond to human faces in a way that makes us feel an echo of what they feel. That's why slavers need the rationalizations.
And I doubt most people in the world will ever read de Waal, Grandin or Damasio for that matter.
Most people are quite sure their emotional response to things as they are ("vegetarians are trying to undermine the American way" is something I've heard more than once) is sensible - rational. It would never occur to them to question the links between how they feel, how they reason and how they act in the world. So, no, things aren't going to change any time soon. I mean look at how long it took the US to get it that dark skin doesn't make someone lesser.
Anyway, that's why I read...to question what I think, what I feel and how I act. I can't be anything other than human, but I can at least become aware of the limits of that state.
I've always found it rather exciting to remember that there is a difference between what we experience and what we think it means.