The immorality of consumption and animal abuse
Mahatma Gandhi affirmed that “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which it treats animals”, meaning that the way in which we relate to other species is a reflection of the degree of cultural sophistication. of our societies. And although in principle it is easy to agree with the Indian leader, it is not so easy when it implies a radical change in our life habits, such as food, entertainment or consumption.
Modern industries have been clever at hiding from us the way they make their products: what they make them with, how, how they test them. And we, heavy consumers, play the same game, since deep down we prefer not to know.
We cover our eyes in front of the food industry, whose animals are raised in cruel and unsanitary conditions, and then loaded with antibiotics to fight the infections that their own lifestyle generates. We cover our eyes in front of the make-up testing laboratories, where animals are forced to undergo product after product so that you or I can use a shampoo with a rinse without running the risk of an allergic reaction, since a hundred animals have already had them. in our place.
We cover our eyes, because deep down we don’t care, or because we feel that there is nothing to do, that this implacable industry is the same one that gives us work, brings us ready-made chicken to the supermarket, or allows us to believe that we look the same. hairstyle than that movie star who advertises the shampoo.
What does this say about us, in Gandhi’s terms? What does he say about our morality, our empathy, our vision of life beyond our species?
our animal victims
I do not propose a return to the caves, nor the strictest vegetarianism, nor a life that is an enemy of hygiene and the social customs of the time. These are arguments with which any attempt to think in moral terms is often ridiculed of what is clearly a monstrous reality: we treat animals as merchandise.
And that’s something that a couple of centuries ago we barely did with human beings as well: we reduce them to slavery. Only in the case of animals it is much worse: we push them from birth to disability, to a place of inferiority and suffering, because they don’t even have a voice to express to us, in terms that we want to understand, that their suffering is identical to ours. . The slave at least had the word, with which he could curse the master and swear revenge. Our animal victims do not even have the consolation of rage.
That human beings must feed on plants and animals is a reality that for some is inescapable. A practice, moreover, that modernity did not invent but has been with us since we emerged on the face of the planet and that we even share with the animals themselves. We cannot at the same time consider ourselves superior, occupy the place of command on the planet, and treat them in a way that we do not reserve even for the most infamous of the members of our species.
If there are human rights, if we truly consider them the foundation of a moral existence in front of our fellow men, how is it that we have not done the same with the universal rights of animals, the vast majority of which suffer like us, feel like us and die like us?
That is something for which the modern world has no answer.
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