Earthlings

My wife and I recently decided to cut cable from our daily life. When we moved into our new townhouse, we wanted to cut down costs, so we opted to keep the Internet (a necessity for school work) but leave out cable television. We had found that we would waste so much time when we had cable. We would come home from a long day of work, make some food, turn on the TV, and just zone out on the couch together. Having made this realization, we wanted to treat our recent move as a new clean slate. Since we have deleted cable television from our lives, we have found that we talk more, even more than we already did which was quite a bit. We have found alternative things to do with our time like read, go for walks, or even play board games and card games. Another nice perk of no cable is that we have been using that time to watch films and documentaries.

Last night we decided to watch a documentary called Earthlings. I had originally heard about this film from a vegetarian friend of mine while I lived in Grand Forks, ND. When I was considering a pescetarian diet, I had talked to him about my decision to do so and he pointed me in the direction of this documentary. I had watched it and felt the impact of it's powerful message, however, over time I had forgotten just how powerful it was.

Suzanne had never seen it and had been interested in checking it out, especially since our new culinary expedition was beginning. Before we started I said, "You ready for this?" remembering how intense some of the imagery was. In hindsight, I should have asked myself this question. As I stated before, this certainly is NOT an easy film to watch, especially if you are sympathetic to any kind of animal or living creature. Essentially, the film explores the relationship between humans and animals. The theme that is carried throughout is that we are all earthlings, meaning, we are all creatures of earth. We are all evolving, adapting, and growing together in our shared environment. However, over the course of time, humankind developed a sense of superiority, and this sense of superiority led to speciesism: the placing of one species' value and worth above or over another. In other words, we humans began to believe that we were better then animals because we have certain abilities that they do not, for example: cognitive thinking, analysis, free will, etc, and this doesn't only apply to animals. Looking back through history we can see accounts where certain groups of individuals or races thought they were superior to others (slavery, the holocaust, civil right movement...) 

This superiority complex warps the perception of worth or value. When one sees something as having little or no worth/value, one tends to treat it with disrespect or without care. This is made evident in some of the footage in the film: people throwing chickens against walls at full force, jumping or stomping on animals' heads, abandoning pets on the streets, and beating animals into submission. Now, I understand that not all farms and operations are like this. There are indeed farms that treat animals with respect and love. However, a lot of the meat that we consume comes from farms where incidents like this happen. People think that because they are bigger and stronger that they can dominate the creature that they see as insignificant.

You may be wondering, "Is Xavier becoming one of those crazed animal activists?" The answer is no. However, I do believe that all creatures, humans and animals alike, deserve to be treated with respect regardless of size, shape, color, etc. We are all inhabiting the same planet, working everyday, trying to gain a better understanding of who we are, why certain things happen, and how to survive. We should try to help one another achieve these goals rather than hinder the possibility of growth.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of my favorite educators and philosophers, wrote a text entitled A Discourse on Inequality. In it he says, 

"The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said, 'This is mine,' and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

Watching Earthlings was a great reminder of how I feel I should view my surroundings and the people and creatures that exist in it. I really do recommend it to those of you who are interested. It's not some kind of "animal rights propaganda film," but rather, a film that calls one to question their views of their role in society. Have a rad day everyone, and be good to one another.

-Bearded Vegan