Humility and Choices

"I had no idea it was as terrible as that! We've got to do something!"

These words were spoken by Harry Truman upon learning about the brutal murder of Isaac Woodard, an African American WWII veteran who had been killed upon returning home to the United States. Truman went on to say: "My very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers were being dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten. Whatever my inclinations as a native of Missouri might have been, as President I know this is bad." He went on to expand the Civil Rights component of the Justice Department and pass anti-lynching legislation.

I love this anecdote so much because Truman did not let fears of alienating his Southern constituents override his desire to do what he know was right. He also admitted to his previously imperfect views.

Humility is one of the best attributes one can possess. Humility is an absence of the ego, it is a relinquishment of one's pride, and in a great many cases it fosters the most beautiful endeavors for justice and the most powerful emissions of love the world has ever known. When deliberating a personal decision, I believe the right answer is always known from the onset; in other words, it is always felt, first, viscerally, before the mind has time to process it or rationalize it or in many cases, ignore it. 

To grasp firmly on to that elucidation of what is right before our ego tries to distort and skew it, before our ego tries to vindicate our previous course of action which we now know to be flawed, is one of the most noble goals.

Human Liberation, Animal Liberation

A great many issues in this country which begin as inherently moral have become so highly politicized that any discussion surrounding them becomes dry and heavily saturated with platitudes. The food industry is not one such area in which only soundbytes and clichés dominate the conversation. When I first became a vegetarian, and then a vegan, my personal reasons for doing so were largely governed by the abysmal treatment of animals in factory farms, with the health benefits as a close second. However, the arenas of vegetarianism, veganism, and the food industry as a whole, are multifaceted, and are as much about human rights as animal rights.

According to the University of Windsor's recent study on the psychological effects on workers in the slaughterhouse profession, profound trauma has emerged in countless individuals whose job it is to kill the animals which we consume. In short, it is not an overstatement to say that the work these men are employed to perform destroys their psyche, sense of inner peace, and overall well-being. In fact, the book Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry, is a great read which not only chronicles the plight of billions of animals, but of the workers who suffer through a significant mental and emotional toll. 

The Texas Observer Article "PTSD in the Slaughterhouse" summarizes this phenomenon perfectly. The fact that these workers are required to take life but forbidden to feel the emotional ramifications of such a task leads to substance abuse, anxiety of many forms, often resulting in domestic violence. Incidentally, the meat packing industry has been the only industry to be singled out by Human Rights Watch for broad workers rights abuses - a testament to the fact that much, much more needs to be done to get society to view the food industry more holistically. The desensitization to which these workers are subjected  adversely affects their ability to adjust into a society where killing is "bad," and a general fondness for animals is "good." 

My personal opinion is that the human spirit is not designed to adapt to such brutality. For the very same reasons why I believe war is unnatural, for the very same reasons I believe that our inclination for compassion innately overrides our propensity for hostility, I wish to see an end to the barbaric practice of slaughtering animals in such a mechanized and inhumane fashion. So, why am I a vegan? I aim to reject cruelty to sentient beings, both non-human and human. I reject the speciesist approach to food consumption, but also view the issue through a human rights paradigm. 

View the Texas Observer article here: http://www.texasobserver.org/eat-your-words/item/18297-ptsd-in-the-slaughterhouse