MetaChat - Awwww.... man! Nature shows really get me right HERE.

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28 July 2007

Awwww.... man! Nature shows really get me right HERE. →[More:]Watching some National Geographic stuff on Joost (invites by request) and it's totally killing me. When the cowlike younglings get away from the predators, I cheer. That is, unless we've been following the predator all along as the protagonist, in which case I cry (but cheer in the rare cases they show the predator winning).

I have so many thoughts...

Having animals brought to life like this, so carefully observed, does a lot to anthropomorphise them and makes me want to be a vegetarian. I think about how we've forced these poor fatherless/bastard species into niches that serve our needs and how we slaughter them by the millions while they never know nature... it makes me ashamed.

I also feel sorry for people in places like Germany where they have no wilderness and very few animals to observe in their natural state. Even if we don't ruin the whole world and bring about ecological disaster, it would seriously suck if we arrived at a condition like the one Germany is in. We've already taken all the rich land in the world, but if it weren't for some of our rich reserves of wilderness, the world would be unsustainable.. and so ugly.

I don't really watch TV. Has everyone already had this epiphany from nature shows???

post by: scarabic at: 22:49 | 2 comments

Yes. Almost that exact same one, actually.

posted by CitrusFreak12 29 July | 00:29

At an IMAX show years ago, I burst out sobbing when one little calfling among dozens, hundreds, didn't make it to the other side of the river during a the rainy season. My companion thought I was quite mad.

No, it's not just you.

I don't think these programs directly contributed to my near-total vegetarianism, as much as the vegetarianism itself makes me aware of the life that sits on a dinner plate. I remember a night maybe a decade ago when I ordered escargot. A rare treat! And when they arrived, I realized with sinking stomach that I was sitting before 1, 2, 3 ... 9 little lives there on my plate.

I'm not even sure that it's wrong to take life. I am sure it's wrong to raise animals cruelly, to treat them brutally and feed them filth, and to assume it's our right to do so.

Gee, that came out preachy, but I'm really only castigating myself. I still drink milk and eat cheese, and that ain't gonna change soon. Heck, a few times a year, I eat meat, when a powerful craving convinces me that I'll enjoy it. Because it's so infrequent, I usually have the luxury of getting free-range meat, not factory farmed. Does that do anything but salve my sense of culpability? I don't know. But I do enjoy the duck or mussels or deer or even cheeseburger, every four or five months.

posted by Elsa 29 July | 14:34

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