Geek Speak — HabitableZone

Geek Speak » in reply to re: Meat

Awwww....
Robert — (archived)

Well, that doesn't sound like a bad way to lose one's innocence about where meat comes from. I remember it was something like that for me too, and reinforced on a couple of occasions by experiences like living next door to somebody who raised rabbits for meat. I was totally grossed-out when my little brother came back from next door and proudly displayed a real rabbit's foot. Not one of those sanitized dimestore kid's toys, but the actual stump, salted and cured and threaded onto a rabbithide thong...ewwwww.

Fair number of fishermen among my relatives, now that I think about it, and I experienced fish guts and all that often. Clearly we're mammalian chauvinists--the death of a fish or an insect bothers me a whole lot less than the death of a warm cuddly mammal. Even warm cuddly mammals with teeth--part of the enjoyment for a cat lover, I think, is the subliminal recognition of those sharp teeth and claws as danger signals, juxtaposed with the soothing purr and soft fur. No doubt it's a similar pleasure for a dog lover to have the affection of and dominion over the wolf that haunts our species nightmares. I think in some sense our domestic pets are living and breathing trophies of our victories over sabre tooth tigers and wolves. And they seem so grateful on top of it all. Ah, victory is sweet for homo sapiens.

To sort of try and get back to the main topic...er subtopic, geez, this thread started out about computer discs, and my gawd this is GeekSpeak...I think that our victory over all other animals has been so thorough that it's sort of beneath our dignity to take pleasure in the further killing of our vanguished foes. Respecting life just means being gracious in victory.

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