Taqui mais um texto que não escrevi.
Há coisa dum ano decidi abrir espaço para excelentes textos de autoria de amigos. O primeiro foi sobre a "História do Brasil", esse que abaixo postarei fala sobre o movimento Zeitgeist em relação aos Direitos Animais.
Muito bom! Ainda que longo, cada segundo investido em sua leitura será super bem gasto.
De acordo com o site da ANDA, Cassio Mosqueira, o autor desse texto, (veja seu feicibúqui e contribuições para a ANDA) "em 2006 deu início, no Brasil, à distribuição gratuita por correio de material educativo pró-veganismo, vídeos e literatura responsáveis por centenas de novos adeptos à causa. Músico, Engenheiro de Softwares e ativista pelos Direitos Animais, Cassio é vegano há 3 anos e um grande apreciador da culinária crudívora." Muita coisa legal, mas a meu ver, seu melhor atributo é já ter namorado comigo :D boa leitura!
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The Zeitgeist Movement and Animal Rights
It was late at night and Peter Joseph voice was playing on my bedside stereo. As I usually have a hard time falling asleep, I like to listen to podcasts that will make my thoughts wander and calm my restless mind.
As Peter was answering questions posted on the Zeitgeist Movement forums, like he usually does on his podcast, I was drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness when the words "animal", "rights" and "vegetarian" restored my awareness.
Since the day I watched Zeitgeist Addendum, I have been a big supporter of the movement, spreading links all over the internet, copying DVDs, educating friends and even getting into heated debates with online strangers. But I had never wondered what the opinion of the movement's leaders was on the Animal Rights issue. Maybe because I assumed it would not be an issue anymore, or maybe because I was afraid of what I could find.
Now, with my full awareness restored, I attentively listened to what Peter was saying. Luckily his words were recorded and posted on Youtube (see below), so I don't have to transcribe them here. Unluckily his answer was disappointing and I lost a great deal of admiration I had for this intelligent man.
Unfortunately, Peter Joseph reacted as most meat eaters do when backed into an intellectual corner: he compared killing animals to killing plants. He even went as far as saying that plants feel more pain than animals, according to a study, for which he provided no source.
I am not a scientist, but I like to read about evolution occasionally. I learned that every trait we possess is here because at some point it was relevant to our survival or reproduction. I also know why we feel pain. Pain is this great feature we acquired that works as an alarm system telling us when our bodies are being damaged, thus enabling us to do something about it. And that's why we feel pain, it's necessary for our survival.
Now, let's think of a head of lettuce (or any other poor vegetable one could slaughter). One of the characteristics of the lettuce is that it spends its entire life attached to the ground. No matter what you do to it, it won't move voluntarily. You can kick it, you can poke it with a hot stick, you can even perversely pluck a few leaves out of its head and the lettuce will stand strong, not giving any sign it is being tortured. Pain has no use for a lettuce, for it has no means to defend itself, thus there is no evolutionary advantage for feeling it.
That, combined with what scientists say about plants not having a nervous system -let alone a central nervous system, let alone sentience- and with some social cues animals give when they are being damaged -like a pig screaming and running when you try to cut off its tail- lead me to the conclusion that animals feel more pain than plants.
But since I am very open minded, I'm going to suppose the study mentioned by Peter Joseph is right, and not sponsored by the increasingly worried meat industry. So let's suppose plants, for some obscure reason, do feel pain as well. That would force me to include them in my group of moral consideration. If I am going to deliberately inflict pain on a sentient being, I should have a moral justification to do so and I should avoid doing it as much as I can.
Given the fact that it takes a few pounds of plant -and several plant lives- to produce one pound of meat, I will be killing less if I eat plants directly, instead of cycling them through animals so I can later eat their flesh. It seems really weird to me that such a logical and intelligent person would miss this incredibly obvious fact.
I do believe Peter cares about suffering, after all, the Zeitgeist Movement goal, as I see it, is to diminish social injustice. So I'm going to assume he cares about humans at least. I would guess that there are some attributes humans have that make him give them moral consideration. I would also guess that these attributes include the ability to feel pain and distress, the autonomy to seek food and comfort, the inherent interest in being free and alive. Because these attributes are shared between human and nonhuman animals, I fail to see why, in Peter Joseph's mind, humans should be granted those rights and animals should not.
Fortunately, this schizophrenic way in which humans behave toward animals has been identified and named. It is called Speciesism and it's based on the principle of equal consideration of interests.
Even though I'm not a huge fan of the renowned animal advocate Peter Singer, I like his definition of speciesism the best: "to give moral preference to the interests of members of one's own species, over identical interests of members of a different species, solely because it is a member of your species."
After giving it some thought I arrived at the conclusion that there are 3 possible explanations for Peter Joseph's moral schizophrenia:
1 - Peter Joseph has never heard or read any meaningful information about animal rights.
I don't know if this is realistic, since a considerable slice of the Zeitgeist Movement supporters are vegetarians. So it's very likely that some animal rights material has been presented to him.
2 - Peter Joseph is aware of the unnecessary exploitation of animals and is, in fact, a vegan. He, however, made a conscious decision not to associate veganism, which is a radical concept for today's society, to the even more radical concept of a resource based economy.
If that was the case, I would agree with it. In an advanced society, respecting animals -by not killing them for our own trivial needs- would be a given. So there's no need to link the movement to animals rights at this stage. I don't think that's the case though, given Peter Joseph's pro-meat position instead of a neutral one.
3 - Peter Joseph fell victim to what he criticizes in other people: the fear of change.
Our deep emotional attachment to food is well documented in numerous psychology studies and quite easy to observe in our daily lives, specially after you have grown out of this attachment. The emotional response shuts the logical part of the brain and comical arguments are frequently expressed.
I wasn't expecting an emotional response from Peter Joseph. But apparently this was the case. His answer was so short of his intelligence, that this is the most likely explanation.
The good thing about the Zeitgeist Movement though, is that, theoretically, it's a leaderless movement. Even though the founder Peter Joseph is, by far, the loudest voice we hear, independent groups and ideas are coming out all the time. Nevertheless, I think Mr. Joseph should be more responsible, given the impact of his words, and educate himself before speaking about topics out of his expertise. Well, at least it would help me sleep better :)
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