Violence – Are you Getting Enough?
March 21, 2012
How Much Violence Do We Need to Stay Healthy?
Society looks down on those who openly love violence, labeling them as bullies, thugs, or even serial killers, but let’s be honest with ourselves: 9 out of 10 of us believe that we need a daily dose of violence just to stay alive.
Whether it’s killing a cow, a chicken, a goat, a pig, or a human, violence is crucial to our everyday functioning, or at least we’re pretty sure it is. I mean, to eat those beings, they must be killed. So violence must not be all that bad, if it feeds us. It’s the juice that keeps us alive. Well, most of us.
Usually we try to side-step the violence that kills the beings we eat and focus on the nutrition provided from their dead carcasses (because it’s the lifeless final product and not the process that truly provides nourishment). But what if the nutritious value is not in the bodies of these tortured beings but in the killing?
Perhaps we are feeding off the violence and not the aftermath of the violence—the process of killing one being to fuel another.
Let’s come out of the closet and admit that violence is not such a bad thing. Raping, mutilating, confining, and slaughtering animals is something we should be proud of. Let’s get in touch with the essence of our violent diets and start being more violent ourselves.
No more keeping the violence behind closed doors in factory farms and hiring new immigrants to do our dirty work—why let them have all the fun? Let’s get our own hands bloody! Since we’re convinced that nourishment can only come from killing, then having more violence will make us all healthier.
Wait. What’s that you say? You regret that eating animal products means that animals have to suffer? You don’t want to hurt animals? Hmm… conundrum.
But… something has to suffer for you to be nourished. Someone.
Doesn’t it?
Can we live off NO violence? Eat a nutritious diet without killing any creatures who experience affectionate, nurturing relationships with their young?
This idea is so extreme. So hardcore. So jarring.
So… violent.
Disclaimer: Obviously this post needs a disclaimer.
Don’t hurt people. Or animals.
Veganarchy.
Interesting post. I think we need this feeling of achieving something that not anybody could do. Well, when i think of hunting a wild animal with a bow or spear, for me theres a good feeling of killing it and eat it. Not because i like the killing. More everything that comes with it. Build the weapons, stalk after it. Then the running, the rush, adrenalin in my venes. I would threat it with respect, be thankfull that i can eat it. But you know rice, bread, pasta all that stuff out of grain, has no nutritional value except calories…
We should go back to what we really are. Back to nature.
We are Animals, like every species on this planet.
Wild & free, like Thoreau said.
Think about that.
btw: really cool blog, i read a few posts here already…
Well this blog is about evolution and moving forward, not going back to the past.
I think it’s valid that you enjoy the thrill of the hunt. Do you enjoy as much the idea of someone building a weapon, stalking you, and then running towards you, attacking you, and violently killing you? I mean, this is the back-to-nature way.
Or, if we make a comparison of the meat you are eating today… do you enjoy the idea of your mother being raped, you being torn away from her at birth… then being placed in a dark box and chained at the neck until you are auctioned off, too weak to stand nearly, then shipped in filthy confined conditions to slaughter where you smell the blood of your young peers until you are stunned between the eyes and hung upside down still alive to have your body sliced vertically until your innards spill onto the floor? If you embrace this and are willing to go through with it yourself, then you can be at peace with the meat you are eating today.
Sure, the meat from factory farming is ethical inedible.
Dont you think life is boring without hunting and being hunted?
Firstly, I don’t think many people actually engage in the archaic sport of hunting anymore. And most people are getting along just fine without it.
Secondly, the concept of hunting and being hunted does not need to be violent and it doesn’t need to have anything to do with our food process. We hunt every day. For money, people, opportunities. This pursuit of acquiring what we want does not need to involve another’s suffering.