Earthlings

Ahojte !Môj blog bol doteraz iba o fotkách  a nejakom texte, ktorý nemal nijakú hlbšiu pointu, ale mám taký pocit, že musím zdieľať, čo ma trápi. Nedávno som si pozrela dokumentárny film Earthlings / Pozemšťané. A tu je moja odpoveď na otázku, prečo som sa rozhodla byť vegetariánkou. Okrem toho, že tento rok ukončím Ing. stupeň na Food Science a viem toho možno viac( ako napríklad moji rodičia) z ohľadu chorôb zo živočíšnych produktov a tiež z ohľadu bezpečnosti potravín, ide mi aj on niečo viac. Byť vegetariánkou kvôli sebe by bolo príliš sebecké. Ide o morálku. O etiku. O utrpenie zvierat. Ide o to, že už nechcem míňať peniaze na tieto ohavné činy. Že už ďalej nechcem byť súčasťou tohto systému. Nejde len o jedlo. Ale aj o cirkusy, ZOO. O podujatia, na ktorých sa zabávame na utrpení iných bytostí. Na utrpení pozemšťanov. A o tomto je tento dokumentárny film. Tu je jeho začiatok:

,,Pretože všetci obývame planétu Zem, všetci sme považovaní za pozemšťanov. V tomto označení nie je žiadny sexismus, rasizmus alebo speciesizmus (druhová nadradenosť). 

Vzťahuje sa na každého z nás: teplo alebo studenokrvné cicavce, stavovce či bezstavovce. Vtáky, plazy, obojživelníky a ryby, rovnako ako na ľudí. Pretože ľudia nie sú jediným druhom na planéte. Zdieľajú ho spolu s miliónmi ďalších žijúcich bytostí, rovnako ako oni sa s nimi spoločne vyvíjame. Avšak sú to ľudskí pozemšťania, čo sa snažia ovládať Zem. 

Často zachádzajú so svojimi spoločníkmi a živými bytosťami ako s obyčajnými vecami. 

To vyjadruje označenie „druhová nadradenosť". 

Rovnako ako sexismus či rasizmus je speciesizmus predsudok alebo zaujatý prístup. 

V tomto prípade sa uprednostňujú záujmy vlastného druhu pred záujmami iného druhu.

 Ale pokiaľ nejaké živé stvorenie trpí, neexistuje žiadne morálne ospravedlnenie, ak odmietame vziať toto utrpenie na vedomie. Nezáleží na tom kto trpí.

 Podľa zákona sa musí utrpenie jednej bytosti považovať za zrovnateľné 

s utrpením akejkoľvek inej bytosti.

Samozrejme existujú tu určité rozdiely, pretože ľudia a zvieratá si nie sú podobní vo všetkých aspektoch. Otázka nakoľko sme rovnakí, má ale inú podobu.

 Uznajme, že zvieratá nemajú všetky túžby rovnaké ako ľudia. Uznajme, že nechápu všetko rovnako ako chápeme my. Ale aj tak niektoré túžby máme spoločné a spoločne aj chápeme niektoré veci. Máme potrebu potravy, vody, prístrešia, spoločenstva, slobodu pohybu a vyhýbaniu sa bolesti.

 Tieto túžby sú nám aj zvieratám spoločné. Rovnako ako ľudia aj zvieratá rozumejú svetu, v ktorom žijú a pohybujú sa. Inak by nemohli prežiť. 

Tak ako ľudia aj zvieratá v sebe skrývajú ten magický zázrak vedomia.

 Rovnako ako my, len vo svete nežijú, ale si ho aj uvedomujú. 

Ako my sú psychologickým centrom života, ktorý je unikátny a ich vlastný."

„Potrebujeme iné, múdrejšie a snáď mystickejšie poňatie zvierat. Človek v civilizácii, ktorý sa vymanil z radu prírody a žije v komplikovaných, umelých podmienkach, pozerá na ostatné bytosti cez sklo svojich znalostí a preto ich vidí skreslene a zdeformovane. Chováme sa k ním povýšene pre ich „nedokonalosť", pre ich tragický osud, lebo sú oveľa nižšie ako sme my ostatní ľudia. A v tom sa práve žalostne mýlime. Zvieratá by nemali byť súdené človekom. Pretože vo svete staršom a úplnejšom ako je naša spoločnosť, sú dokonalé a kompletné, obdarené vnímavejšími zmyslami, ktoré sme my stratili alebo ani nikdy nemali. Žijú vo svete hlasu, ktorý mi nikdy neporozumieme. Nie sú to sluhovia, nie sú to poddaní, sú to iné národy, podliehajúce ako my behu života a času, spolupútnici po cestách krásnym i krutým svetom." Henry Beston

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Hi everyone !

My blog has been so long time only about photos and some text that has no deeper point, but I feel like I have to share what's worrying me.I recently watched the documentary film Earthlings .

And here is my answer to the question why I decided to be a vegetarian. Event this that I study the last year on the University programme Food Science and I know more (than my parents, for example) from the point of view of animal diseases and also food safety, I am even more. Being a vegetarian for myself would be too selfish. It's morality. Ethics. The suffering of animals. This is because I do not want to spend money on these abominable acts. That I don´t want be part of this system anymore. It's not just about food. But also about the circuses, Zoo. The events where we are laughing  for the suffering of other beings. To the suffering of Earthlings. And about this is this documentary film. Here's small part of this film:

Since we all inhabit the earth, all of us are considered earthlings. There is no sexism, no racism or speciesism in the term earthling. It encompasses each and every one of us: warm or cold blooded, mammal, vertebrate or invertebrate, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, and human alike.

Humans, therefore, being not the only species on the planet, share this world with millions of other living creatures, as we all evolve here together. However, it is the human earthling who tends to dominate the earth, often times treating other fellow earthlings and living beings as mere objects. This is what is meant by speciesism.

By analogy with racism and sexism, the term “speciesism” is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.

If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that one’s suffering can be counted equally with the like suffering of any other being.

Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater right to the interests of members of their own race when their is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race.Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex.

Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater 

interests of members of other species.

In each case, the pattern is identical. Though among the members of the human family we recognize the moral imperative of respect (every human is a somebody, not a something), morally disrespectful treatment occurs when those who stand at the power end of a power relationship treat the less powerful as if they were mere objects.

The rapist does this to the victim of rape.The child molester to the child molested.The master to the slave. In each and all such cases, humans who have power exploit those who lack it. 

Might the same be true of how humans treat other animals, or other earthlings?

Undoubtedly there are differences, since humans and animals are not the same in all respects. But the question of sameness wears another face. Granted, these animals do not have all the desires we humans have; granted, they do not comprehend everything we humans comprehend; nevertheless,

 we and they do have some of the same desires and do comprehend some of the same things.

The desires for food and water, shelter and companionship, freedom of movement and avoidance of pain? These desires are shared by nonhuman animals and human beings. As for comprehension: like humans, many nonhuman animals understand the world in which they live and move. 

Otherwise, they could not survive.So beneath the many differences, there is sameness.

Like us, these animals embody the mystery and wonder of consciousness. Like us, they are not only in the world, they are aware of it. Like us they are the psychological centers of a life that is uniquely their own. In these fundamental respects humans stand “on all fours”,

 so to speak, with hogs and cows, chickens and turkeys. 

What these animals are due from us, how we morally ought to treat them, are questions whose answer begins with the recognition of our psychological kinship with them.

Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote in his bestselling novel Enemies, A Love Story’ the following: “As often has Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. 

The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right”.

The comparison here to the holocaust is both intentional and obvious: one group of living beings anguishes beneath the hands of another. Though some will argue the suffering of animals cannot possibly compare with that of former Jews or slaves, there is, in fact, a parallel. And for the prisoners and victims of this mass murder, their holocaust is far from over.

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth”. Henry Beston

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