“
We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)
“
Killing animals to make a fashion statement = a sickening + cold-blooded vanity.
”
”
Jess C. Scott (Skins, Animal Stories)
“
More often than not, what animals require our protection from is not hurricanes or fires, but abuse at the hands of other people".
”
”
Julie Klam (Love at First Bark: How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself)
“
Toxic relationships are dangerous to your health; they will literally kill you. Stress shortens your lifespan. Even a broken heart can kill you. There is an undeniable mind-body connection. Your arguments and hateful talk can land you in the emergency room or in the morgue. You were not meant to live in a fever of anxiety; screaming yourself hoarse in a frenzy of dreadful, panicked fight-or-flight that leaves you exhausted and numb with grief. You were not meant to live like animals tearing one another to shreds. Don't turn your hair gray. Don't carve a roadmap of pain into the sweet wrinkles on your face. Don't lay in the quiet with your heart pounding like a trapped, frightened creature. For your own precious and beautiful life, and for those around you — seek help or get out before it is too late. This is your wake-up call!
”
”
Bryant McGill
“
Personal purity isn’t really the issue. Not supporting animal abuse – and persuading others not to support it – is.
”
”
Peter Singer (The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter)
“
For animals that are overworked, underfed, and cruelly treated; for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death...and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words.
”
”
Albert Schweitzer
“
Why do human egos seem so threatened by the thought that other animals think and feel? Is it because acknowledging the mind of another makes it harder to abuse them?
”
”
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
“
It is a clear indictment of how ingrained our state of cognitive dissonance is that we see attempts at moral consistency as signs of extremism. Is it not strange that we call those who kill dogs animal abusers, those who kill pigs normal and those who kill neither extremists? Is it not odd that someone who smashes a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day is viewed as a hero but some one who rescues a piglet suffering on a far is a criminal?
”
”
Ed Winters (This is Vegan Propaganda (and Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You))
“
One's interest or need does not annul other's right.
”
”
Al-Hafiz B.A. Masri (Islamic Concern for Animals)
“
Animals are not ours to Eat.
Animals are not ours to Wear.
Animals are not ours to Experiment On.
Animals are not ours to Use for Entertainment.
Animals are not ours to Abuse in AnyWay.
”
”
Peta
“
A quick and brutal fuck from behind usually served as an effective reminder of where you stood in the pack hierarchy.
”
”
Nenia Campbell (Black Beast (Shadow Thane, #1))
“
The people that set one animal against another haven't the guts to be bullies themselves. They're just secondhand cowards.
”
”
Cleveland Amory
“
Humanity can no longer stand by in silence while our wildlife are being used, abused and exploited.
It is time we all stand together, to be the voice of the voiceless before it's too late. Extinction means forever.
”
”
Paul Oxton
“
Unfortunately, we forget the cruel details of the agonizing sacrifice God made on our behalf. Familiarity breeds complacency. Even before his crucifixion, the Son of God was stripped naked, beaten until almost unrecognizable, whipped, scorned and mocked, crowned with thorns, and spit on contemptuously.
Abused and ridiculed by heartless men, he was treated worse than an animal.
Then, nearly unconscious fromblood loss, he was forced to drag a cumbersome cross up a hill, was nailed to it, and was left to die the slow, excruciating torture of death by crucifixion. While his lifeblood drained out, hecklers stood by and shouted insults, making fun of his pain and challenging his claim to be God.
”
”
Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?)
“
The cawing of a big, black crow awoke me early the next morning, but I remained still, pretending to be asleep. I didn’t want to see Ibrahim in the light of day, and I didn’t want to make more small talk. I felt hunger pains through the remnants of champagne and cognac from the night before. I wondered why I hadn’t eaten more, feeling silly about having been so insecure about my culinary etiquette.
Numb and void of emotion, I remained in a state of suspended animation reliving the events of our night of passion. The night before, I pictured silhouettes of angels dancing upon the ceiling in the moonlight, not disconnected bodies lying beneath the covers at a loss for words.
”
”
Samantha Hart (Blind Pony: As True A Story As I Can Tell)
“
No decent person deliberately chooses to be violent or cruel. We must remove our blinkers and learn that in order to live according to our true values, we need to stop viewing animals as commodities to be used, abused and killed for our own selfish benefit.
”
”
Mango Wodzak (The Eden Fruitarian Guidebook)
“
Make no mistake. The greatest destroyer of ecology. The greatest source of waste, depletion and pollution. The greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, poverty, animal abuse and inhumanity. The greatest generator of personal and social neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety. Not to mention the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for personal health, global sustainability and progress on this planet, is not some corrupt government or legislation.
Not some rogue corporation or banking cartel.
Not some flaw of human nature and not some secret cabal that controls the world.
It is the socioeconomic system itself at its very foundation.
”
”
Peter Joseph
“
The woman recovering from abuse or other stressful life situations may feel she's in no way in charge of anything, least of all her own world. She faces the horse with trepidation. The horse senses the fear and becomes tense and concerned. The wise instructor starts small. The woman is handed a soft brush and sent to fuss over the horse. It's pointed out that if she stands close to the animal, she will be out of range of a well-aimed kick. She is warned to watch for tell-tale signs of fear in herself and the horse. She's warned to keep her feet out from under the horse's stomping hoof. They're both allowed to back away and regroup and try again until they reach an accord regarding personal space. Calm prevails, and within a few minutes, hours or sessions, interaction becomes friendship. It happens almost every time a woman is allowed enough time and space to work through the situation.
So a woman whose daily life is overwhelming her learns to step back. Is this a cure for her endless problems? Of course not. Simple is not simplistic.
”
”
Joanne M. Friedman (Horses in the Yard)
“
All animals understand love and affection, but only man shows the propensity to place himself into the shoes of another life form
”
”
The Cruxshadows
“
Is it not strange that we call those who kill dogs animal abusers, those who kill pigs normal and those who kill neither extremists? Is it not odd that someone who smashes a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day is viewed as a hero but someone who rescues a piglet suffering on a farm is a criminal?
”
”
Ed Winters (This Is Vegan Propaganda (& Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You))
“
Every problem that we have in society has a suite of relative solutions that are also business opportunities.
Agricultural waste is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. Energy inefficiency is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. The abusive treatment of animals is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. Reduced biodiversity is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. Plastic waste in the ocean is a problem. But solving that problem is a business opportunity. And the list goes on indefinitely. We just have to think creatively and fluidly and we can solve all of these problems that plague Earth and we can grow businesses and earn money and provide for our families in the process.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Abuse can make an animal mean.
”
”
Kristin Hannah (True Colors)
“
Josh joined her at the window. She let him look. He should know that the world was not all lessons and iguanas and Nintendo. It was also this muddy simple boy tethered like an animal.
”
”
George Saunders (Tenth of December)
“
In 2004, Jacques Derrida said that a change was under way. Torture damages the inflicter as well as the inflicted. It’s no coincidence that one of the Abu Ghraib torturers came to the military directly from a job as a chicken processor. It might be slow, Derrida said, but eventually the spectacle of our abuse of animals will be intolerable to our sense of who we are.
”
”
Karen Joy Fowler (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves)
“
There is still a chance to change things. We can provide fresh drinking water to all people. We can make sure crops are not regulated for profit; we can ensure that they are not genetically altered to benefit manufacturers. Our people are dying because we are feeding them poison. Animals are dying because we are forcing them to eat waste, forcing them to live in their own filth, caging them together and abusing them. Plants are withering away because we are dumping chemicals into the earth that make them hazardous to our health. But these are things we can fix.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
“
We were killing ourselves by trying to stay alive. The weather, the plants, the animals, and our human survival are all inextricably linked. The natural elements were at war with one another because we abused our ecosystem. Abused our atmosphere. Abused our animals. Abused our fellow man.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
“
He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's even something -sub-human -something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something - ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in - anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is - Stanley Kowalski - survivor of the Stone Age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here - waiting for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and the other apes gather! There in the front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night! - you call it - this party of apes! Somebody growls - some creature snatches at something - the fight is on! God! Maybe we are a long way from beng made in God's image, but Stella - my sister - there has been some progress since then! Such things as art - as poetry and music - such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kinds of people some tendered feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march towards what-ever it is we're approaching . . . Don't - don't hang back with the brutes!
”
”
Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire)
“
There was a famous incident during an Orlando Pirates soccer match a few years ago. A cat got into the stadium and ran through the crowd and out onto the pitch in the middle of the game. A security guard, seeing the cat, did what any sensible black person would do. He said to himself, “That cat is a witch.” He caught the cat and—live on TV—he kicked it and stomped it and beat it to death with a sjambok, a hard leather whip. It was front-page news all over the country. White people lost their shit. Oh my word, it was insane. The security guard was arrested and put on trial and found guilty of animal abuse. He had to pay some enormous fine to avoid spending several months in jail. What was ironic to me was that white people had spent years seeing video of black people being beaten to death by other white people, but this one video of a black man kicking a cat, that’s what sent them over the edge. Black people were just confused. They didn’t see any problem with what the man did. They were like, “Obviously that cat was a witch. How else would a cat know how to get out onto a soccer pitch? Somebody sent it to jinx one of the teams. That man had to kill the cat. He was protecting the players.
”
”
Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood)
“
When I see those sad, abused and neglected animals on those commercials I feel despair for the human race. Too many people repay loyalty with faithlessness and give no thought to their own final hours when the might have to ask another to grant them the mercy that they withheld from those who trusted them.
”
”
Dean Koontz (The Darkest Evening of the Year)
“
God loves and cares for creation and has the right to expect this loving care be replicated by humans. Creation exists, not for the glory of humanity, but for the glory of God. God has the right to see that earthly creatures are free to live according to their nature and without unnecessary abuse, exploitation, and pain, so that their lives can glorify their Creator.…[S]ince God values and cares for all creation, creation has a derived right to be valued and cared for by humans for God’s glory.
”
”
Richard A. Young (Is God a Vegetarian?: Christianity, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights)
“
Even when he seems to be interacting with someone else, the narcissist is actually engaged in a self-referential discourse. To the narcissist, all other people are cardboard cutouts, two-dimensional animated cartoon characters, or symbols. They exist only in his inner universe. He is startled when they deviate from the script and prove to be complex and autonomous.
”
”
Sam Vaknin (Narcissistic Abuse and Narcissism FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions about Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Abuse in Relationships)
“
Movements for animal rights are not irrational denials of human uniqueness; they are a clear-sighted recognition of connection across the discredited breach of nature and culture. Biology and evolutionary theory over the last two centuries have simultaneously produced modern organisms as objects of knowledge and reduced the line between humans and animals to a faint trace re-etched in ideological struggle or professional disputes between life and social science. Within this framework, teaching modern Christian creationism should be fought as a form of child abuse.
”
”
Donna J. Haraway (Manifesto cyborg. Donne, tecnologie e biopolitiche del corpo)
“
In Germany, Dodd had noticed, no one ever abused a dog, and as a consequence dogs were never fearful around men and were always plump and obviously well tended. "Only horses seem to be equally happy, never children or the youth," he wrote. ... He called it "horse happiness" and had noticed the same phenomenon in Nuremburg and Dresden. In part, he knew this happiness was fostered by German law, which forbade cruelty to animals and punished violators with prison.
"At a time when hundreds of men have been put to death without trial or any sort of evidence of guilt, and when the population literally trembles with fear, animals have rights guaranteed them which men and women cannot think of expecting."
He added, "One might easily wish he were a horse!
”
”
Erik Larson (In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin)
“
Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry, you have to die, but I need to eat". Look into their eyes, and tell them "I know there is an abundance of plant based foods I could eat, but I would still rather eat you". Look into their eyes and tell them "I know I don't NEED to eat you, but I am going to pay someone else to murder you anyway" Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry you lived a short enslaved, abused and tortured life, but I don't care because I am selfish" Look into their eyes and tell them " I love my cat/dog, but your life doesn't matter as much" Go ahead, take a look into their eyes and tell them that!
”
”
Jenn V Keller-Lowe
“
He who can deliberately inflict torture upon an animal, in order to heighten the pleasure his palate is to receive in eating it, is an abuser of the authority which God has given him, and is, indeed, a tyrant in his heart.
”
”
William Cobbett (Cottage Economy To Which Is Added The Poor Man's Friend)
“
If you are low on self confidence and your life sucks, become a vegetarian. You will nag on other human beings and hate them so much for abusing animals that you would have no free time to remember how miserable your own life is!
”
”
Hamidreza Bagheri
“
I want to open a broken marriage repair shop. I’m not a counselor or psychologist, but I am a fan of the magical bonding that occurs between two people when duct tape binds them together for a long period of time in a dark basement. Refer a friend, and you get a two for one abuse session.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (A Zebra is the Piano of the Animal Kingdom)
“
The abuse of alcohol,” Mr. Parrish said in a solemn, preacher-like voice, as he reached for his glass, “is the one thing that puts Man above the animal.
”
”
Irwin Shaw (The Young Lions)
“
I have found that sometimes when a person gives up on 'humankind' they can often find trust and love in animal kind. André Chevalier
”
”
Nikki Sex (Abuse (Abuse, #1))
“
This isn’t about money. It’s about justice and prevention, justice for my boys and those who came before them, and prevention for those who may come after. Your crap settlement does not alert the public and allows this animal to continue to violate children,” Jennifer raged. “I will not stand idly by for a few bucks and permit this to happen to another innocent child.
”
”
Mark M. Bello (Betrayal of Faith (Zachary Blake Legal Thriller, #1))
“
I’d known dudes like this my whole life, country morons stuck in a state of permanent resentment. They abuse small animals, grow up to beat their kids with belts and wreck their trucks driving drunk, find Jesus at forty and start going to church and using prostitutes.
”
”
Nic Pizzolatto (Galveston)
“
The low-tone clarinet moans. The door upstairs opens again. Stella slips down the rickety stairs in her robe. Her eyes are glistening with tears and her hair loose about her throat and shoulders. They stare at each other. Then they come together with low, animal moans. He falls to his knees on the steps and presses his face to her belly, curving a little with maternity. Her eyes go blind with tenderness as she catches his head and raises him level with her. He snatches the screen door open and lifts her off her feet and bears her into the dark flat.
”
”
Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire)
“
The weather, the plants, the animals, and our human survival are all inextricably linked. The natural elements were at war with one another because we abused our ecosystem. Abused our atmosphere. Abused our animals. Abused our fellow man.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
“
The reality is that if we took the legally sanctioned practices from the animal farming industries and then applied them to other situations, we would think those practices horrendous. For example, if dog owners were cutting off their pets' tails and chopping their teeth out, we would condemn that as being horrific animal abuse. But we do it to pigs and call it high welfare. If someone was killing puppies by thumping their heads against a wall or dislocating their necks, we would call that evil, yet that happens to animals such as piglets and chickens and we call it humane. But the experience is the same for the individual animal, regardless of what species they are.
”
”
Ed Winters (This is Vegan Propaganda (and Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You))
“
Although we rarely die, humans suffer when we are unable to discharge the energy that is locked in by the freezing response. The traumatized veteran, the rape survivor, the abused child, the impala, and the bird all have been confronted by overwhelming situations. If they are unable to orient and choose between fight or flight, they will freeze or collapse. Those who are able to discharge that energy will be restored. Rather than moving through the freezing response, as animals do routinely, humans often begin a downward spiral characterized by an increasingly debilitating constellation of symptoms.
”
”
Peter A. Levine (Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma)
“
One day during the siege, Grant was observed walking the outer line when he encountered a mule-team driver beating and cursing one of the mules. He ordered the man to stop. The animal’s abuser, seeing a man with a blouse and no sign of rank, turned and began to swear at him. Grant had the man arrested and brought to his headquarters. Only then did the mule driver realize whom he had insulted. The man was ordered to be tied up by his thumbs. When released, the contrite soldier apologized for his language, telling Grant he did not know to whom he was speaking. Grant explained that he had punished the soldier not because of what he’d said to his commanding general: “I could defend myself, but the mule could not.
”
”
Ronald C. White Jr. (American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant)
“
Abused our atmosphere. Abused our animals. Abused our fellow man.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
“
Sometimes I fixate on how disgusting humans are. I think about how we do things like litter and invent nuclear bombs. I think about racism, war, rape, child abuse, and climate change. I think about how gross people are. I think about public bathrooms, armpits, and about all of our dirty hands. I think about how infection and diseases are spread. I think about how every human has a butt, and about how disgusting that is. Other times I fixate on how endearing people are. We sleep on soft surfaces; we like to be cozy. When I see cats cuddled up on pillows, I find it sweet; we are like that too. We like to eat cookies and smell flowers. We wear mittens and hats. We visit our families even when we’re old. We like to pet dogs. We laugh; we make involuntary sounds when we find things funny. Laughing is adorable, if you really think about it. We have hospitals. We invented buildings meant to help repair people. Doctors and nurses study for years to work here. They come here every day just to patch other people up. If we discovered some other animal who created infrastructure in the anticipation that their little animal peers might get hurt, we would all be absolutely moved and amazed.
”
”
Emily R. Austin (Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead)
“
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior removed from their websites the links to climate change data. The USDA removed the inspection reports of businesses accused of animal abuse by the government. The new acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, said he wanted to end public access to records of consumer complaints against financial institutions. Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, statistics that detailed access to drinking water and electricity in Puerto Rico were deleted from the FEMA website. In a piece for FiveThirtyEight, Clare Malone and Jeff Asher pointed out that the first annual crime report released by the FBI under Trump was missing nearly three-quarters of the data tables from the previous year.
”
”
Michael Lewis (The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy)
“
As he once wrote of Kipling, his own enduring influence can be measured by a number of terms and phrases—doublethink, thought police, 'Some animals are more equal than others'—that he embedded in our language and in our minds. In Orwell's own mind there was an inextricable connection between language and truth, a conviction that by using plain and unambiguous words one could forbid oneself the comfort of certain falsehoods and delusions. Every time you hear a piece of psychobabble or propaganda—'people's princess,' say, or 'collateral damage,' or 'peace initiative'—it is good to have a well-thumbed collection of his essays nearby. His main enemy in discourse was euphemism, just as his main enemy in practice was the abuse of power, and (more important) the slavish willingness of people to submit to it.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens
“
It was too familiar to Cody. He placed his arms around his wife trying somehow to shelter her from the reality she was facing. There was another reason for his closeness; his desperation to show her he was not one of them, that the tribes of cruel men did not recognize him as one of their own, and to show his wife that his promise to create a safe place for her was a promise she need not fear would be broken. In the innermost part of him, from the secret child that lives within all men, was a scared cry, “Please don’t think I’m bad too.” From the other innermost part of him, the secret animal that prowls in some men was a raging wolf ready to kill. The battle line within the man had been drawn. The boundaries of faith rose up around the rage, warning the soul against righteous anger morphing to blood lust.
”
”
Lee Goff (A Wrath Like Thunder (Thunder Trilogy, #2))
“
Human beings are the most successful of animals because of their capability to learn, and an abused animal learns very quickly to defend itself. It also learns very quickly to trust very few people - if any.
”
”
Brad Thor (Black List (Scot Harvath, #11))
“
p5 - It is matter for wonder: the moment that is here and gone, that was nothing before and nothing after, returns like a specter to trouble the quiet of a later moment...the beast(animals)...forgets at once and sees every moment really die, sink into night and mist, extinguished forever. The beast lives unhistorically...
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
The most powerful antidotes to cruelty, abuse, and indifference are not anger and sadness, but love, peace, joy, and openhearted creative enthusiasm for this precious gift of a human life. Just as Thich Nhat Hanh has wisely said that without inner peace, we cannot contribute to the peace movement, so it is also that without inner freedom, we cannot contribute to the liberation of animals, which is the essential prerequisite to meaningful human freedom.
”
”
Will Tuttle (The World Peace Diet)
“
For the Wife Beater's Wife
With blue irises her face is blossomed. Blue
Circling to yellow, circling to brown on her cheeks.
The long bone of her jaw untracked
She hides in our kitchen.
He sleeps it off next door.
Her chicken legs tucked under her
She's frantic with lies, animated
Before the swirling smoke.
On her cigarette she leaves red prints, red
Like a cut on the white cup.
Like a skin she pulls her sweater around her.
She's cold,
She brings the cold in with her.
In our kitchen she hides.
He sleeps it off next door, his great
Belly heaving with booze.
Again and again she tells the story
As if the details ever changed,
As if blows to the face were somehow
Different beating to beating.
We reach for her but can't help.
She retreats into her cold love of him
And looks across the table at us
As if across a sea.
Next door he claws out of sleep.
She says she thinks she'll do something
After all, with her hair tonight.
”
”
Bruce Weigl
“
If we are at all serious about ending factory farming, then the absolute least we can do is stop sending checks to the absolute worst abusers. For some, the decision to eschew factory-farmed products will be easy. For others, the decision will be a hard one. To those for whom it sounds like a hard decision (I would have counted myself in this group), the ultimate question is whether it is worth the inconvenience. We know, at least, that this decision will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve public health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in world history.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)
“
I have always believed a window into a person’s true nature is how they treat animals, children, and the elderly. A person who mistreats animals isn’t worth knowing. A person who mistreats children—especially those who abuse and kill them—should be shot without wasting any taxpayer money for a trial and for feeding them in prison. When a perpetrator of heinous crimes can live in a climate-controlled environment and eat three meals a day while good people go hungry, something is very wrong. Americans are paying for serial killers, rapists, and child abusers to live better than they do.
”
”
Rita Mae Brown (Cat of the Century (Mrs. Murphy, #18))
“
A stydy today of the products of the animated cartoon industry of the twenties, thirties and forties would yield the following theology: 1. People are animals. 2. The body is mortal and subject to incredible pain. 3. Life is antagonistic to the living. 4. The flesh can be sawed, crushed, frozen, stretched, burned, bombed, and plucked for music. 5. The dumb are abused by the smart and the smart are destroyed by their own cunning. 6. The small are tortured by the large and the large destroyed by their own momentum. 7. We are able to walk on air, but only as long as our illusion supports us.
”
”
E.L. Doctorow (The Book of Daniel)
“
Violence is central to patriarchy, and the forms of systemic violence are interconnected in Western societies. Recognizing similarities across forms of oppression (such as racism, child abuse, speciesism, and sexism, for example) is essential.
”
”
Lisa Kemmerer (Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice)
“
People in Japan and the Faeroe Islands kill dolphins and pilot whales by running steel rods into their spinal columns while they squeal in pain and terror and thrash in agony. (In Japan, it’s illegal to kill cows and pigs as painfully and inhumanely as they kill dolphins.) The lack of compassion for dolphins and whales indicates that humans’ “theory of mind” is incomplete. We have an empathy shortfall, a compassion deficit. And human-on-human violence, abuse, and ethnic and religious genocide are all too pervasive in our world. No elephant will ever pilot a jetliner. And no elephant will ever pilot a jetliner into the World Trade Center. We have the capacity for wider compassion, but we don’t fully live up to ourselves. Why do human egos seem so threatened by the thought that other animals think and feel? Is it because acknowledging the mind of another makes it harder to abuse them? We seem so unfinished and so defensive. Maybe incompleteness is one of the things that “makes us human.
”
”
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
“
As I learned about the consequences of my food choices and as I recognized that I didn't have to eat animals, and that eating animals caused the animals to suffer, it caused an enormous footprint on our planet, and it wasn't healthy, it made since to go vegan. And, it's one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I think most people who've decided to go vegan share a similar experience. It's very empowering. And, when I went vegan I actually started eating a wide variety of foods I had never tried before. Different ethnic foods. You also start combining things in different ways, you start becoming more creative in the kitchen. But I went vegan just because it seemed to make sense, and it was aligned with my own values, because I didn't want to support this system that was so abusive to animals, and wasting and squandering so many scarce resources on our planet. And it was also healthier, so it was in my interest to eat food that was plant-based instead of animal-based. Living a vegan lifestyle makes a lot of sense.
”
”
Gene Baur
“
Whenever elephants met men, elephants fared badly. Syria's final elephants were exterminated by twenty-five hundred years ago. Elephants were gone from much of China literally before the year 1 and much of Africa by the year 1000. Meanwhile, in India and southern Asia, elephants became the mounts of kings; tanks against forts, prisoners' executioners, and pincushions of arrows, driven mad in battle; elephants became logging trucks and bulldozers, and, as with other slaves, their forced labor requires beatings and abuse. Since Roman times, humans have reduced Africa's elephant population by perhaps 99 percent. African elephants are gone from 90 percent of the lands they roamed as recently as 1800, when, despite earlier losses, an estimated twenty-six million elephants still trod the continent. Now they number perhaps four hundred thousand. (The diminishment of Asian elephants over historic times is far worse.) The planet's menagerie has become like shards of broken glass; we're grinding the shards smaller and smaller.
”
”
Carl Safina (Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel)
“
decision will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve public health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in world history.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)
“
the theme that runs powerfully through all of Orwell’s writings, from his early work on Burmese Days through the late 1930s and then through the great essays, and into Animal Farm and 1984, is the abuse of power in the modern world by both the left and the right.
”
”
Thomas E. Ricks (Churchill and Orwell)
“
Ritually abusive groups also convince children that something evil has been put inside them. For example, a child is made to believe he or she has a "black heart" - seeing the abuser holding an animal heart and then feeling severe chest pain while it is supposedly inserted. In "brain transplants", the brain of an abuser or of a despised animal such as a rate is supposedly put into a child. Children are told that they are demons or monsters or aliens, or internal copies of an abuser whose "seed" has been implanted by rape.
Ch29, p324
”
”
Alison Miller (Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse)
“
It was as if the press in America, for all its vaunted independence, were a great colonial animal, an animal made up of countless clustered organisms responding to a central nervous system. In the late 1950's (as in the late 1970's) the animal seemed determined that in all matters of national importance the proper emotion, the seemly sentiment, the fitting moral tone, should be established and should prevail; and all information that muddied the tone and weakened the feeling should simply be thrown down the memory hole. In a later period this impulse of the animal would take the form of blazing indignation about corruption, abuses of power, and even minor ethical lapses, among public officials; here, in April of 1959, it took the form of a blazing patriotic passion for the seven test pilots who had volunteered to go into space. In either case, the animal's fundamental concern remained the same: the public, the populace, the citizenry, must be provided with the correct feelings! One might regard this animal as the consummate hypocritical Victorian gent. Sentiments that one scarcely gives a second thought to in one's private life are nevertheless insisted upon in all public utterances. (And this grave gent lives on in excellent health.)
”
”
Tom Wolfe (The Right Stuff)
“
One of PETA's agenda items is the extinction of problem breeds like the pit bull; the claim is that making them extinct is the only way to protect the animals from abuse. Apparently the problem of abuse is not one that involves the behavior of the abusive human. Following this line of "ethical" thinking, the problem of divorce should be solved by banning marriage, and child abuse is best addressed by euthanizing children.
”
”
Ken Foster (The Dogs Who Found Me: What I've Learned from Pets Who Were Left Behind)
“
Everyone has it within their heart to be vegan, but each time they eat anything from an animal they deny that this is so, they deny that they have enough love in their hearts to show these animals mercy and free them from our tyranny.
This is a blatant lie that they keep telling themselves, time and time again. They would rather argue that they don't care about animals and find excuses to justify and continue harming them, than acknowledge any 'sissy' ability they might have to feel compassion for them.
What they don't understand is, that they hurt themselves by not acknowledging this latent ability within their hearts though, and with this they deny themselves love too, for what is given out always comes back multifold.
”
”
Mango Wodzak
“
the U.S., also has the highest rates of suicide, drug abuse, murder, incarcerations, and other negative social factors. Our economy is based on fighting wars—killing people and ravaging the planet—trading paper (mergers, derivatives, etc.), and selling each other things most of us don’t need. Meanwhile our planet is drowning in pollution, people are starving, our resources are dissipating, and our animals and plants are disappearing at shocking rates.
”
”
Jim Marrs (Our Occulted History: Do the Global Elite Conceal Ancient Aliens?)
“
Julia's fears of coming forward with the violence were based on anticipated as well as actual responses from friends and acquaintances. I also recognized Julia's introverted and moody side, but I knew she wasn't capable of inciting her husband to kick, choke, and lock her in her home like an animal. Besides, considering how she was being treated, it was not surprising that she seemed moody, sensitive, even depressed. More important, nothing any woman could do could justify such behavior.
”
”
Susan Weitzman (Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages)
“
We go to great lengths to deny our animal heritage, and not just in scientific and philosophical discourse. You can glimpse the denial in the shaving of men’s faces; in clothing and other adornments; in the great lengths gone to in the preparation of meat to disguise the fact that an animal is being killed, flayed, and eaten. The common primate practice of pseudosexual mounting of males by males to express dominance is not widespread in humans, and some have taken comfort from this fact. But the most potent form of verbal abuse in English and many other languages is “Fuck you,” with the pronoun “I” implicit at the beginning. The speaker is vividly asserting his claim to higher status, and his contempt for those he considers subordinate. Characteristically, humans have converted a postural image into a linguistic one with barely a change in nuance. The phrase is uttered millions of times each day, all over the planet, with hardly anyone stopping to think what it means. Often, it escapes our lips unbidden. It is satisfying to say. It serves its purpose. It is a badge of the primate order, revealing something of our nature despite all our denials and pretensions.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors)
“
From spending ten years in hell and coming to this regime of kindness was a shock. It was so much of a shock, it was unbelievable. I was like an untamed animal, I couldn’t accept it and I just wouldn’t accept it.
”
”
Stephen Richards (Harry's Fight: Harry Marsden - From Catholic Care Home Abuse To Gangster To Good Fellow)
“
Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry, you have to die, but I need to eat."
Look into their eyes, and tell them "I know there is an abundance of plant based foods I could eat, but I would still rather eat you."
Look into their eyes and tell them "I know I don't NEED to eat you, but I am going to pay someone else to murder you anyway."
Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry you lived a short enslaved, abused and tortured life, but I don't care because I am selfish."
Look into their eyes and tell them "I love my cat/dog, but your life doesn't matter as much."
Go ahead, take a look into their eyes and tell them that!
”
”
Jenn V Keller-Lowe
“
A cult is a group of people who share an obsessive devotion to a person or idea. The cults described in this book use violent tactics to recruit, indoctrinate, and keep members. Ritual abuse is defined as the emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive acts performed by violent cults. Most violent cults do not openly express their beliefs and practices, and they tend to live separately in noncommunal environments to avoid detection.
Some victims of ritual abuse are children abused outside the home by nonfamily members, in public settings such as day care. Other victims are children and teenagers who are forced by their parents to witness and participate in violent rituals. Adult ritual abuse victims often include these grown children who were forced from childhood to be a member of the group. Other adult and teenage victims are people who unknowingly joined social groups or organizations that slowly manipulated and blackmailed them into becoming permanent members of the group. All cases of ritual abuse, no matter what the age of the victim, involve intense physical and emotional trauma.
Violent cults may sacrifice humans and animals as part of religious rituals.
They use torture to silence victims and other unwilling participants. Ritual abuse victims say they are degraded and humiliated and are often forced to torture, kill, and sexually violate other helpless victims. The purpose of the ritual abuse is usually indoctrination. The cults intend to destroy these victims' free will by undermining their sense of safety in the world and by forcing them to hurt others.
In the last ten years, a number of people have been convicted on sexual abuse charges in cases where the abused children had reported elements of ritual child abuse. These children described being raped by groups of adults who wore costumes or masks and said they were forced to witness religious-type rituals in which animals and humans were tortured or killed. In one case, the defense introduced in court photographs of the children being abused by the defendants[.1] In another case, the police found tunnels etched with crosses and pentacles along with stone altars and candles in a cemetery where abuse had been reported. The defendants in this case pleaded guilty to charges of incest, cruelty, and indecent assault.[2] Ritual abuse allegations have been made in England, the United States, and Canada.[3]
Many myths abound concerning the parents and children who report ritual abuse. Some people suggest that the tales of ritual abuse are "mass hysteria." They say the parents of these children who report ritual abuse are often overly zealous Christians on a "witch-hunt" to persecute satanists.
These skeptics say the parents are fearful of satanism, and they use their knowledge of the Black Mass (a historically well-known, sexualized ritual in which animals and humans are sacrificed) to brainwash their children into saying they were abused by satanists.[4] In 1992 I conducted a study to separate fact from fiction in regard to the disclosures of children who report ritual abuse.[5] The study was conducted through Believe the Children, a national organization that provides support and educational sources for ritual abuse survivors and their families.
”
”
Margaret Smith (Ritual Abuse: What It Is, Why It Happens, and How to Help)
“
Society's lack of compassion for our fellow people and for animals leads to an ocean where sharks are dying by the millions and slaves are being abused by the thousands. The connection is basic: a disregard for life itself. The maelstrom of death that descends on the sharks is inevitable when society disregards the lives of workers on the high seas. If you have no respect for human life, then how can you have respect for the lives of sharks?
”
”
William McKeever (Emperors of the Deep: Sharks--The Ocean's Most Mysterious, Most Misunderstood, and Most Important Guardians)
“
Virtually all of us agree that it matters how we treat animals and the environment, and yet few of us give much thought to our most important relationship to animals and the environment. Odder still, those who do choose to act in accordance with these uncontroversial values by refusing to eat animals (which everyone agrees can reduce both the number of abused animals and one’s ecological footprint) are often considered marginal or even radical.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)
“
To accept the environmentalist argument that the suffering of individual animals is inconsequential compared to the ozone layer, we must be willing to admit that the sufferings of minority groups, raped women, battered wives, abused children, people sitting on death row, and our loved ones are small potatoes beneath the hole in the sky. To worry about any of them is, in effect, to miniaturize the big picture to portraits of battered puppy dogs.
”
”
Karen Davis
“
We fail to take responsibility, to act productively in the interest of ourselves and others. And in our attempts at a better life, we are often severely limited or thwarted by the immature and socially inept behavior of ourselves and others. There is a great fabric of relations, behaviors and emotions, reverberating with human and animal bliss and suffering, a web of intimate and formal relations, both direct and indirect. Nasty whirlwinds of feedback cycles blow through this great multidimensional web, pulsating with hurt and degradation. My lacking human development blocks your possible human development. My lack of understanding of you, your needs perspectives, hurts you in a million subtle ways. I become a bad lover, a bad colleague, a bad fellow citizen and human being. We are interconnected: You cannot get away from my hurt and wounds. They will follow you all of your life—I will be your daughter’s abusive boyfriend, your belligerent neighbor from hell. And you will never grow wings because there will always be mean bosses, misunderstanding families and envious friends. And you will tell yourself that is how life must be. But it is not how life has to be. Once you begin to be able to see the social-psychological fabric of everyday life, it becomes increasingly apparent that the fabric is relatively easy to change, to develop. Metamodern politics aims to make everyone secure at the deepest psychological level, so that we can live authentically; a byproduct of which is a sense of meaning in life and lasting happiness; a byproduct of which is kindness and an increased ability to cooperate with others; a byproduct of which is deeper freedom and better concrete results in the lives of everyone; a byproduct of which is a society less likely to collapse into a heap of atrocities.
”
”
Hanzi Freinacht (The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One)
“
If I misuse a corporation’s logo, I could potentially be put in jail; if a corporation abuses a billion birds, the law will protect not the birds, but the corporation’s right to do what it wants. That is what it looks like when you deny animals rights. It’s crazy that the idea of animal rights seems crazy to anyone. We live in a world in which it’s conventional to treat an animal like a hunk of wood and extreme to treat an animal like an animal. Before
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)
“
To drink when thirsty is right and natural; it shows that the blood is concentrated and is in want of fluid. But to drink merely for the pleasure of drinking, or to carry out some insane theory like that of 'washing out' the system is positively dangerous. The human body is not a dirty barrel needing swilling out with a hose-pipe. It is a most delicate piece of mechanism, so delicate that the abuse of any of its parts tends to throw the entire system out of order.
”
”
Rupert H. Wheldon (No Animal Food; and Nutrition and Diet; with Vegetable Recipes)
“
As individuals and as a culture, our ability to heal, transform, and evolve beyond this old defiling mentality is tied to our food choices more than to anything else. To meditate for world peace, to pray for a better world, and to work for social justice and environmental protection while continuing to purchase the flesh, milk, and eggs of horribly abused animals exposes a disconnect that is so fundamental that it renders our efforts absurd, hypocritical, and doomed to certain failure.
”
”
Will Tuttle (The World Peace Diet)
“
It’s not his fault. He doesn’t speak English. It’s not his fault he has no work. There is no work to be had; all night long the downtown sidewalks and doorways are haunted by whip-thin men who abuse pharmaceuticals, make animal sounds at passing women.
”
”
Noor Naga (If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English)
“
When the attachment figure is also a threat to the child, two systems with conflicting goals are activated simultaneously or sequentially: the attachment system, whose goal is to seek proximity, and the defense systems, whose goal is to protect. In these contexts, the social engagement system is profoundly compromised and its development interrupted by threatening conditions. This intolerable conflict between the need for attachment and the need for defense with the same caregiver results in the disorganized–disoriented attachment pattern (Main & Solomon, 1986). A contradictory set of behaviors ensues to support the different goals of the animal defense systems and of the attachment system (Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 1999; Main & Morgan, 1996; Steele, van der Hart, & Nijenhuis, 2001; van der Hart, Nijenhuis, & Steele, 2006). When the attachment system is stimulated by hunger, discomfort, or threat, the child instinctively seeks proximity to attachment figures. But during proximity with a person who is threatening, the defensive subsystems of flight, fight, freeze, or feigned death/shut down behaviors are mobilized. The cry for help is truncated because the person whom the child would turn to is the threat. Children who suffer attachment trauma fall into the dissociative–disorganized category and are generally unable to effectively auto- or interactively regulate, having experienced extremes of low arousal (as in neglect) and high arousal (as in abuse) that tend to endure over time (Schore, 2009b). In the context of chronic danger, patterns of high sympathetic dominance are apt to become established, along with elevated heart rate, higher cortisol levels, and easily activated alarm responses. Children must be hypervigilantly prepared and on guard to avoid danger yet primed to quickly activate a dorsal vagal feigned death state in the face of inescapable threat. In the context of neglect, instead of increased sympathetic nervous system tone, increased dorsal vagal tone, decreased heart rate, and shutdown (Schore, 2001a) may become chronic, reflecting both the lack of stimulation in the environment and the need to be unobtrusive.
”
”
Pat Ogden (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology Book 0))
“
When your body is clear there is control. When your body is clear you can choose whom to let in. There is love everywhere.
Please cradle my rabbit heart. Please navigate yourself around me well. I know too much. I can recognize darkness because he is my brother, my maker. I can drink lightness because it is the only way to survive. I can shut off my heart but that leads to evil, so I express her and revel in the nuance of blood currents, and the sacred demons. I fear and quake with my eyes darting fight or flight love or die. The lightning comes from below this time and rips out of my throat for the world to see. They all see my rabbit and I have trained her to hunt. In her perfect glory she is shy and extroverted, chaste and perverted, my sweet near-death more alive than ever. Take her. Take me while I am ripe and open, rub berries on my lips and bear fat in my hair. Tattoo me with a needle and impale me with your warmth. Heal me, fuck me, and work my heart till she beats strong and unafraid. Haunches bared, teeth sharpened, wide-eyed and aware. Hurry. I want to feel safe.
”
”
Tanya Tagaq (Split Tooth)
“
No one can deny seriously any more, or for very long, that men do all they can in order to dissimulate this cruelty or to hide it from themselves; in order to organize on a global scale the forgetting or misunderstanding of this violence, which some would compare to the worst cases of genocide (there are also animal genocides: the number of species endangered because of man takes one’s breath away). One should neither abuse the figure of genocide nor too quickly consider it explained away. It gets more complicated: the annihilation of certain species is indeed in process, but it is occurring through the organization and exploitation of an artificial, infernal, virtually interminable survival, in conditions that previous generations would have judged monstrous, outside of every presumed norm of a life proper to animals that are thus exterminated by means of the continued existence or even their overpopulation. As if, for example, instead of throwing a people into ovens and gas chambers (let’s say Nazi) doctors and geneticists had decided to organize the overproduction and overgeneration of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals by means of artificial insemination, so that, being continually more numerous and better fed, they could be destined in always increasing numbers for the same hell, that of the imposition of genetic experimentation, or extermination by gas or by fire.
”
”
Jacques Derrida (The Animal That Therefore I Am)
“
We use horses as our slaves; we chain dogs; we steal eggs from the chickens, honey from the bees; we make wallets out of crocodiles; we imprison the birds; we torture the bulls in the arenas; we whip the lions and beat the tigers in the circuses! What are we? Definitely not ethical creatures!
”
”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“
No one with an ounce of empathy could fail to be appalled by the distressing footage – taken on fur farms in Finland, Sweden, the
US, and other so-called “high-welfare” countries – of foxes, rabbits, minks, and other animals who were left to suffer in filthy wire cages with untreated wounds, injuries, and even missing limbs, sometimes alongside the rotting corpses of other animals.
These frightened, distressed animals often mutilate themselves and their cagemates before their short lives come to an end through painful anal electrocution, neck-breaking, drowning, gassing, or strangulation.
”
”
Mimi Bekhechi
“
The slaughter of dolphins and other marine mammals is no more horrible than captive dolphins performing tricks because it's not just dolphins were talking about, it's also people. Especially children [...] The effect is devastatingly the same because millions of people every year who watch and cheer this spectacle of dominance are in some way also cheering every other form of environmental ravishment. If dolphin is a reference point in our relationship with nature, then when we teach people that it's okay to abuse dolphins, we're teaching them that it's also okay to abuse the rest of nature.
”
”
Richard O'Barry (To Free a Dolphin)
“
Oh, Mother, not you too! We cannot deny people their rights simply because there may be a few bad members of their group who abuse them. We may as well lock ourselves up, then. Heaven knows there are plenty of bad humans - humans who do not Shift into animals but simply harbor an evil we might all potentially possess.
”
”
Nancy Campbell Allen (Brass Carriages and Glass Hearts (Steampunk Proper Romance #4))
“
When a beast invades your house and starts abusing your loved ones, would you sit back waiting for the authorities to intervene - you may, but I can't - I won't - for me family and society are one, and when wild animals run rampant abusing that family of mine, I would die defending my family, not sit back like a spineless coward.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Revolution Indomable)
“
Repetitive, forceful corrections had taught this gentle dog that at a specific spot the handler would always yank the lead. Thus, each time the Newf arrived at that point, she'd freeze for a beat and close her eyes in anticipation of the impending blow. This caused her to lag, which led to another correction, which resulted in more lagging, another correction, ad infinitum.
It was a classic example of canine learned helplessness, whereby a dog learns to accept abuse as a natural, inevitable consequence of living with humans. Repeated corrections had only frightened and confused the animal, and she was trying to protect herself in the only way she knew how.
”
”
Joel M. McMains
“
Yes. Let’s be honest. I’m a privileged white woman who left her kids in a $30,000 minivan watching Dora the Explorer to go in for a Starbucks. Is there any clearer picture of privilege than that? But no matter what color you are, no matter how much money you have, you don’t deserve to be harassed for making a rational parenting choice.”
It’s funny, but in all the time that had passed, I had never thought about what was happening in quite those terms—as harassment. When a person intimidates, insults, verbally abuses, or demeans a woman on the street, in the bedroom, at the office, in the classroom, it’s harassment. When a woman is intimidated or insulted or abused because of the way she dresses or her sexual habits or her outspokenness on social media, she is experiencing harassment. But when a mother is intimidated, insulted, abused, or demeaned because of the way she is mothering, we call it concern or, at worst, nosiness. A mother, apparently, cannot be harassed. A mother can only be corrected.
”
”
Kim Brooks (Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear)
“
Some survivors have found small metallic “implants” in their teeth or ears, and believe these were designed to monitor their location or to broadcast their words or thoughts to the abusers. Such technology has been developed recently for keeping task of animals or persons with dementia.
But to what extent it was used years ago by mind controllers is unknown at this point. At least some of it may be similar to the “bombs” in the stomach, a trick to convince survivors that their abusers monitor them continuously. The presence of an object does not mean it is capable of collecting complex information and sending it back to abusers, or even sending them signals, for twenty or more years as some survivors believe. As with other apparently bizarre beliefs of our survivor clients, we must acknowledge that something happened, and remain open both to the possibility that there was such technology and the possibility that it is yet another deception to convince survivors they cannot escape the grip of their abusers.
p205
”
”
Alison Miller (Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control)
“
Among the numerous heartbreaks of this terrible war, the innocent horses shot, abused, and killed would not rank among the worst atrocities—but somehow, the killing of innocent beasts, domesticated animals who existed only for man's beauty and pleasure, seemed to highlight the barbaric and depraved depths to which man had allowed himself to sink.
”
”
Elizabeth Letts (The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis)
“
Scared animals return home, regardless of whether home is safe or frightening. I thought about my patients with abusive families who kept going back to be hurt again. Are traumatized people condemned to seek refuge in what is familiar? If so, why, and is it possible to help them become attached to places and activities that are safe and pleasurable?
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
He was allowed a room here with Kane because of a special international military passport that declared the dog to be a working animal. Kane even had his own rank — major, one station higher than Tucker. All military war dogs were ranked higher than their handlers. It allowed any abuse of the dogs to be a court martial offense: for striking a superior officer.
”
”
James Rollins (Tracker (Sigma Force, #7.5))
“
was Owen Meany who told me that only white men are vain enough to believe that human beings are unique because we have souls. According to Owen, Watahantowet knew better. Watahantowet believed that animals had souls, and that even the much-abused Squamscott River had a soul—Watahantowet knew that the land he sold to my ancestors was absolutely full of spirits.
”
”
John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany)
“
On the one hand, it is said that the animals are so unlike us that they are not worthy of our consideration. On the other hand, vivisectors claim that animals are so like us that they are essential to research. In these conflicting statements we see a researcher's own confusion as to the genuine nature of his "subjects," and their nature in relation to this own.
”
”
Marjorie Spiegel (The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery)
“
All of us are in relationships every day of our lives, but particularly if we are people who want to help others—people with cancer, people with AIDS, abused women or children, abused animals, anyone who’s hurting—something we soon notice is that the person we set out to help may trigger unresolved issues in us. Even though we want to help, and maybe we do help for a few days or a month or two, sooner or later someone walks through that door and pushes all our buttons. We find ourselves hating those people or scared of them or feeling like we just can’t handle them. This is true always, if we are sincere about wanting to benefit others. Sooner or later, all our own unresolved issues will come up; we’ll be confronted with ourselves.
”
”
Pema Chödrön (When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics))
“
As every close observer of the deadlocks arising from the political correctness knows, the separation of legal justice from moral Goodness –which should be relativized and historicized- ends up in an oppressive moralism brimming with resentment. Without any “organic” social substance grounding the standards of what Orwell approvingly called “common decency” (all such standards having been dismissed as subordinating individual freedoms to proto-Fascist social forms), the minimalist program of laws intended simply to prevent individuals from encroaching upon one another (annoying or “harassing” each other) turns into an explosion of legal and moral rules, an endless process (a “spurious infinity” in Hegel’s sense) of legalization and moralization, known as “the fight against all forms of discrimination.” If there are no shared mores in place to influence the law, only the basic fact of subjects “harassing other subjects, who-in the absence of mores- is to decide what counts as “harassment”? In France, there are associations of obese people demanding all the public campaigns against obesity and in favor of healthy eating be stopped, since they damage the self-esteem of obese persons. The militants of Veggie Pride condemn the speciesism” of meat-eaters (who discriminate against animals, privileging the human animal-for them, a particularly disgusting form of “fascism”) and demand that “vegeto-phobia” should be treated as a kind of xenophobia and proclaimed a crime. And we could extend the list to include those fighting for the right of incest marriage, consensual murder, cannibalism . . .
The problem here is the obvious arbitrariness of the ever-new rule. Take child sexuality, for example: one could argue that its criminalization is an unwarranted discrimination, but one could also argue that children should be protected from sexual molestation by adults. And we could go on: the same people who advocate the legalization of soft drugs usually support the prohibition of smoking in public places; the same people who protest the patriarchal abuse of small children in our societies worry when someone condemns a member of certain minority cultures for doing exactly this (say, the Roma preventing their children from attending public schools), claiming that this is a case od meddling with other “ways of life”. It is thus for necessary structural reasons that the “fight against discrimination” is an endless process which interminably postpones its final point: namely a society freed from all moral prejudices which, as Michea puts it, “would be on this very account a society condemned to see crimes everywhere.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Living in the End Times)
“
We reject capitalism because it is abusive. Because it’s a system that argues: as long as the oligarchy is profiting, no atrocity is too grave, no violation too gross. Slavery, genocide, atomic war, swamps drained, forests burned, animals brought to extinction. Nothing is out of bounds and there are always plenty of reasons why it has to be this way… free market, forked tongue.
”
”
Amanda Yates Garcia (Initiated: Memoir of a Witch)
“
Perhaps our and Gaia’s greatest error was the conscious abuse of fire. Cooking meat over a wood fire may have been acceptable, but the deliberate destruction of whole ecosystems by fire merely to drive out the animals within was surely our first great sin against the living Earth. It has haunted us ever since and combustion could now be our auto da fé, and the cause of our extinction.
”
”
James E. Lovelock (The Revenge of Gaia)
“
Imagine an animal out in the the forest with its foot caught in a trap. Normally an animal would never gnaw their foot off, but they are terrified, they are desperate, and they do it. These people are being cheated on, emotionally abused, physically battered, and treated with contempt. They love the Lord and honor marriage, but don't tell them to go back and put their foot back into the trap.
”
”
Gretchen Baskerville (The Life-Saving Divorce: Hope for People Leaving Destructive Relationships)
“
Because leftists are more likely to believe in the innate, inner quality of all people, they attribute the world's inequalities to outer, structural injustices. In particular, the left sees many power hierarchies as unmerited and exploitative. Leftist morality is rooted in the imperative to equalize, to various extents, discrepancies in power (especially through education). Compared with conservatives, leftists have a lower tolerance for inequality.
In this leftist worldview, evil comes primarily from undeserved inequalities in strength or power: from capitalists who exploit workers, unscrupulous corporations that deceive consumers, colonialists who leach off third-world countries, soldiers and police who abuse civilians, men who mistreat women, humans who disrespect the animals and plants in their environment, and so on.
”
”
Avi Tuschman (Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us)
“
I am not defined by transient fame, or by childhood sexual abuse, or by world records. I don't wake up each morning a woman, a senior citizen, a lesbian, a Democrat, a human rights advocate, an atheist, a pacifist, an animal lover, an environmentalist. I may be all of these things, although above all I'm just a person who cherishes a bold journey. A person who refuses to let this one wild and precious life slip quietly by.
”
”
Diana Nyad (Find a Way)
“
The English word Atonement comes from the ancient Hebrew word kaphar, which means to cover. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and discovered their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, God sent Jesus to make coats of skins to cover them. Coats of skins don’t grow on trees. They had to be made from an animal, which meant an animal had to be killed. Perhaps that was the very first animal sacrifice. Because of that sacrifice, Adam and Eve were covered physically. In the same way, through Jesus’ sacrifice we are also covered emotionally and spiritually. When Adam and Eve left the garden, the only things they could take to remind them of Eden were the coats of skins. The one physical thing we take with us out of the temple to remind us of that heavenly place is a similar covering. The garment reminds us of our covenants, protects us, and even promotes modesty. However, it is also a powerful and personal symbol of the Atonement—a continuous reminder both night and day that because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are covered. (I am indebted to Guinevere Woolstenhulme, a religion teacher at BYU, for insights about kaphar.)
Jesus covers us (see Alma 7) when we feel worthless and inadequate. Christ referred to himself as “Alpha and Omega” (3 Nephi 9:18). Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Christ is surely the beginning and the end. Those who study statistics learn that the letter alpha is used to represent the level of significance in a research study. Jesus is also the one who gives value and significance to everything. Robert L. Millet writes, “In a world that offers flimsy and fleeting remedies for mortal despair, Jesus comes to us in our moments of need with a ‘more excellent hope’ (Ether 12:32)” (Grace Works, 62).
Jesus covers us when we feel lost and discouraged. Christ referred to Himself as the “light” (3 Nephi 18:16). He doesn’t always clear the path, but He does illuminate it. Along with being the light, He also lightens our loads. “For my yoke is easy,” He said, “and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He doesn’t always take burdens away from us, but He strengthens us for the task of carrying them and promises they will be for our good.
Jesus covers us when we feel abused and hurt. Joseph Smith taught that because Christ met the demands of justice, all injustices will be made right for the faithful in the eternal scheme of things (see Teachings, 296). Marie K. Hafen has said, “The gospel of Jesus Christ was not given us to prevent our pain. The gospel was given us to heal our pain” (“Eve Heard All These Things,” 27).
Jesus covers us when we feel defenseless and abandoned. Christ referred to Himself as our “advocate” (D&C 29:5): one who believes in us and stands up to defend us. We read, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler” (Psalm 18:2). A buckler is a shield used to divert blows. Jesus doesn’t always protect us from unpleasant consequences of illness or the choices of others, since they are all part of what we are here on earth to experience. However, He does shield us from fear in those dark times and delivers us from having to face those difficulties alone. …
We’ve already learned that the Hebrew word that is translated into English as Atonement means “to cover.” In Arabic or Aramaic, the verb meaning to atone is kafat, which means “to embrace.” Not only can we be covered, helped, and comforted by the Savior, but we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Nephi 1:15). We can be “clasped in the arms of Jesus” (Mormon 5:11). In our day the Savior has said, “Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love” (D&C 6:20).
(Brad Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, pp. 47-49, 60).
”
”
Brad Wilcox
“
Warning: “Good Intentions” contains violence, explicit sex, nudity, inappropriate use of church property, portrayals of beings divine and demonic bearing little or no resemblance to established religion or mythology, trespassing, bad language, sacrilege, blasphemy, attempted murder, arguable murder, divinely mandated murder, justifiable murder, filthy murder, sexual promiscuity, kidnapping, attempted rape, arson, dead animals, desecrated graves, gang activity, theft, assault and battery, panties, misuse of the 911 system, fantasy depictions of sorcery and witchcraft, multiple references to various matters of fandom, questionable interrogation tactics, cell phone abuse, reckless driving, consistent abuse of vampires (because they deserve it), even more explicit sex, illegal use of firearms within city limits, polyamory, abuse of authority, hit and run driving, destruction of private property, underage drinking, disturbances of the peace, disorderly conduct, internet harassment, bearers of false witness, mayhem, dismemberment, falsification of records, tax evasion, an uncomfortably sexy mother, bad study habits, and a very silly white guy inappropriately calling another white guy “nigga” (for which he will surely suffer). All characters depicted herein are over the age of 18, with the exception of one little girl who merely needs to get her cat out of a tree. Don’t worry, nothing bad happens to her. She makes it through the story just fine.
”
”
Elliott Kay (Good Intentions (Good Intentions, #1))
“
The welfare state is perhaps the greatest altruistic system the animal kingdom has ever known. But any altruistic system is inherently unstable, because it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it. Individual humans who have more children than they are capable of rearing are probably too ignorant in most cases to be accused of conscious malevolent exploitation. Powerful institutions and leaders who deliberately encourage them to do so seem to me less free from suspicion.
”
”
Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene)
“
Other victims of neurotic dependency are battered wives. The fact that they are so often financially dependent upon the men who beat them makes for a vicious kind of entrapment. It's emotional dependency, though that puts a double lock on the trap. "There's a kind of panic that many women have about being able to make it in any way other than being dependent on their husbands (...) They've been taught their whole lives that they can't. It's a conditioning process."
In situations in which they have no effect on their environments, animals begin to give up. (...) the same thing happens to humans. Stay long enough in a situation in which you feel you have no control, and you will simply stop responding. It's called learned helplessness. (...) Having been "shaped" to believe there is nothing she can do about the situation, the battered wife goes on being battered.Only after she begins to disengage from her belief in her own helplessness can she break out of the vicious cycle of dependency and its brutal effect on her life.
”
”
Colette Dowling (The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence)
“
As Redleaf sees it, the biggest problem is that individuals, the people who called the police on Debra Harrell, are trusting a system that is inherently biased (as most systems are in this country) against poor people and people of color.
“There’s an assumption,” Redleaf told me, “among the general public, that it’s always better to make a call, even if you’re not sure what you’re seeing, because these people are professionals and if there was no real neglect, then the system will sort it out. Well, what we find is, they often get it wrong when they try to sort it out. The caseworkers at protection agencies aren’t licensed social workers. They often have minimal training. Police certainly aren’t experts on parenting or childcare. So basically we as a society have entrusted people who have no real training or serious knowledge about children and families with critical issues involving children. And they are making decisions about who gets to be a parent and who gets to raise their children and whether you’ll be labeled a child-abuser and unable to work.
”
”
Kim Brooks (Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear)
“
When Juan gets mad, it's as if my dependence on him fuels the transformation in his body from concern, to anger, to fury. The veins in his neck swell, his eyes bulge, and he yells, You want trouble for us?
His voice always rips through me.
No, sir.
Juan slaps me across the face so hard, blood pools between my teeth.
That's so you remember, when I say not to do something, you have to respect it. You hear me?
I look at my feet. I hold back my tears, slump my shoulders, and retreat just enough to show deference. I have learned a lot from growing up with animals.
”
”
Angie Cruz (Dominicana)
“
Many people experience only the “theory of love” in this world, in which they “know” or “think” they are loved—but do not receive this love in a deeply embodied way. Often we look back on our “perfect” childhoods and cannot fathom where our deep emotional injuries have come from. Our parents love us, they say they love us and we know they love us; they fed and clothed us, worried about us, and took care of us to the best of their abilities. But often, at best, we have only been receiving the theory of love, and at worst we have been on the receiving end of emotional abuse or control, either subtle or overt. Primordial Love means original love, our first love—which extends from the Source of Creation deep into every cell of our being and every quality of our soul. In physical form it is given from a deeply loving heart presence; it is intimate, playful, sensual, sensitive, responsive, feeling, emotionally intelligent, kind, intuitive. When we have not received enough true primordial Love, we resist it and feel overwhelmed and out of control when we receive love—as if it is destroying the safe barrier we have erected around ourselves. Like a bud, we need to trust and open to deeply embodied love; to allow the “sunshine” in to nourish us and bring us back to life again. When we are touched by primordial Love we feel truly seen, felt, and received at a soul level. Our physical bioenergetic and spiritual pathways open to intimate connection with others, with earth, with animals, with All of existence. Primordial Love wires our physical, neural, and soulful pathways to become a living chalice for Love. We become wired to receive love from all sources, physical and nonphysical, and to trust in loving touch. From this embodied place we can truly give love to others and pass the gift of love on, rather than passing forward paradigms of lack, sacrifice, and suffering.
”
”
Azra Bertrand (Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life)
“
Corruption,' Jordan Belfort believes, 'is endemic to human being. I mean, even men in monasteries - where enticement is hard to come by – even men in those circumstances have sex with other men and abuse children. Look at the Catholic Church! Man is an imperfect animal and he is corruptible, okay? And in finance, the liquid nature of the market makes corruption very easy. On Wall Street, this liquidity is so in your face -' he suddenly grits his teeth - 'that if you have even the slightest predisposition to the dark side, you become corrupted. In addition to which, those attracted to Wall Street have a predisposition to greed.
”
”
Antonella Gambotto-Burke (Mouth)
“
Saturday evening, on a quiet lazy afternoon, I went to watch a bullfight in Las Ventas, one of Madrid's most famous bullrings. I went there out of curiosity. I had long been haunted by the image of the matador with its custom made torero suit, embroidered with golden threads, looking spectacular in his "suit of light" or traje de luces as they call it in Spain. I was curious to see the dance of death unfold in front of me, to test my humanity in the midst of blood and gold, and to see in which state my soul will come out of the arena, whether it will be shaken and stirred, furious and angry, or a little bit aware of the life embedded in every death. Being an avid fan of Hemingway, and a proponent of his famous sentence "About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after,” I went there willingly to test myself. I had heard atrocities about bullfighting yet I had this immense desire to be part of what I partially had an inclination to call a bloody piece of cultural experience. As I sat there, in front of the empty arena, I felt a grandiose feeling of belonging to something bigger than anything I experienced during my stay in Spain. Few minutes and I'll be witnessing a painting being carefully drawn in front of me, few minutes and I will be part of an art form deeply entrenched in the Spanish cultural heritage: the art of defying death. But to sit there, and to watch the bull enter the arena… To watch one bull surrounded by a matador and his six assistants. To watch the matador confronting the bull with the capote, performing a series of passes, just before the picador on a horse stabs the bull's neck, weakening the neck muscles and leading to the animal's first loss of blood... Starting a game with only one side having decided fully to engage in while making sure all the odds will be in the favor of him being a predetermined winner. It was this moment precisely that made me feel part of something immoral. The unfair rules of the game. The indifferent bull being begged to react, being pushed to the edge of fury. The bull, tired and peaceful. The bull, being teased relentlessly. The bull being pushed to a game he isn't interested in. And the matador getting credits for an unfair game he set.
As I left the arena, people looked at me with mocking eyes.
Yes, I went to watch a bull fight and yes the play of colors is marvelous. The matador’s costume is breathtaking and to be sitting in an arena fills your lungs with the sands of time. But to see the amount of claps the spill of blood is getting was beyond what I can endure. To hear the amount of claps injustice brings is astonishing. You understand a lot about human nature, about the wars taking place every day, about poverty and starvation. You understand a lot about racial discrimination and abuse (verbal and physical), sex trafficking, and everything that stirs the wounds of this world wide open. You understand a lot about humans’ thirst for injustice and violence as a way to empower hidden insecurities. Replace the bull and replace the matador. And the arena will still be there. And you'll hear the claps. You've been hearing them ever since you opened your eyes.
”
”
Malak El Halabi
“
Just as nothing we do has the direct potential to cause nearly as much animal suffering as eating meat, no daily choice that we make has a greater impact on the environment. Our situation is an odd one. Virtually all of us agree that it matters how we treat animals and the environment, and yet few of us give much thought to our most important relationship to animals and the environment. Odder still, those who do choose to act in accordance with these uncontroversial values by refusing to eat animals (which everyone agrees can reduce both the number of abused animals and one’s ecological footprint) are often considered marginal or even radical.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals)
“
[Girls] may feel safer and more at home under a tree or currying horses in a stable than in a home where they may be neglected or abused. When these girls find mother bear in themselves and find the support to be themselves in the archetype symbolized by the protective mother bear, they become competitors in the world. It is the archetype of Artemis that comes to the aid of these girls who, in some significant way, were abandoned and then found in nature or with animals the parents that they did not have at home. It may also be their nature as an Artemis to prefer to be in the woods, uninterested in staying at home or in doing womanly or girlish things.
”
”
Jean Shinoda Bolen (Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman (For Readers of Crones Don't Whine or The Twelve Faces of the Goddess))
“
You should not torture or kill anyone for being a witch, or anyone with a different faith, or anyone with no faith at all. You should not prohibit the free expression of ideas, the free exercise of one’s conscience, or the free assembly of peacefully organized people. You should never enslave or beat into submission anyone anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances for the express purpose of servitude, nor treat any person as less than a human being, ever. You should not treat women as inferior to men, but rather with equal respect and dignity as equally valued members of society. You should not abuse animals, trap them, raise them in factory farms, hunt them for their furs, or needlessly experiment on them.
”
”
John W. Loftus (How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist)
“
I've seen cases on the Internet, of a dog being locked in a car for several hours and comments from people so enraged, that they threaten physical violence toward the perpetrator; some even crying out for the owners to be faced with the death penalty! These self same people will likely not think twice about the animals on their plates. In fact, they usually react more strongly toward such events (dogs locked in cars) than do most vegans. The often unconsidered, deep seated reasoning behind their indignation, is to draw away attention from their own wrong doings toward animals, and focus it elsewhere. If they shout loud enough, perhaps people won't notice that they themselves, are behind far worse animal treatment!
”
”
Mango Wodzak (Destination Eden - Eden Fruitarianism Explained)
“
The alienating effects of wealth and modernity on the human experience start virtually at birth and never let up. Infants in hunter-gatherer societies are carried by their mothers as much as 90 percent of the time, which roughly corresponds to carrying rates among other primates. One can get an idea of how important this kind of touch is to primates from an infamous experiment conducted in the 1950s by a primatologist and psychologist named Harry Harlow. Baby rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers and presented with the choice of two kinds of surrogates: a cuddly mother made out of terry cloth or an uninviting mother made out of wire mesh. The wire mesh mother, however, had a nipple that dispensed warm milk. The babies took their nourishment as quickly as possible and then rushed back to cling to the terry cloth mother, which had enough softness to provide the illusion of affection. Clearly, touch and closeness are vital to the health of baby primates—including humans. In America during the 1970s, mothers maintained skin-to-skin contact with babies as little as 16 percent of the time, which is a level that traditional societies would probably consider a form of child abuse. Also unthinkable would be the modern practice of making young children sleep by themselves. In two American studies of middle-class families during the 1980s, 85 percent of young children slept alone in their own room—a figure that rose to 95 percent among families considered “well educated.” Northern European societies, including America, are the only ones in history to make very young children sleep alone in such numbers. The isolation is thought to make many children bond intensely with stuffed animals for reassurance. Only in Northern European societies do children go through the well-known developmental stage of bonding with stuffed animals; elsewhere, children get their sense of safety from the adults sleeping near them. The point of making children sleep alone, according to Western psychologists, is to make them “self-soothing,” but that clearly runs contrary to our evolution. Humans are primates—we share 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees—and primates almost never leave infants unattended, because they would be extremely vulnerable to predators. Infants seem to know this instinctively, so being left alone in a dark room is terrifying to them. Compare the self-soothing approach to that of a traditional Mayan community in Guatemala: “Infants and children simply fall asleep when sleepy, do not wear specific sleep clothes or use traditional transitional objects, room share and cosleep with parents or siblings, and nurse on demand during the night.” Another study notes about Bali: “Babies are encouraged to acquire quickly the capacity to sleep under any circumstances, including situations of high stimulation, musical performances, and other noisy observances which reflect their more complete integration into adult social activities.
”
”
Sebastian Junger (Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging)
“
Contraception is sometimes attacked as ‘unnatural’. So it is, very unnatural. The trouble is, so is the welfare state. I think that most of us believe the welfare state is highly desirable. But you cannot have an unnatural welfare state, unless you also have unnatural birth control; otherwise, the end result will be misery even greater than that which obtains in nature. The welfare state is perhaps the greatest altruistic system the animal kingdom has ever known. But any altruistic system is inherently unstable, because it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it. Individual humans who have more children than they are capable of rearing are probably too ignorant in most cases to be accused of conscious malevolent exploitation.
”
”
Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene)
“
Martha," she said. "Just let it go." "I'm trying," I said. I want to explain to her that this was like telling someone who has been mauled to death by a bear to let the animal go while it was still worrying what was left of her leg. I didn't have my situation; it had me. There was nothing I wanted more than to let go of it, but I didn't know how. I eventually figured it out, but the method that works for me proved to be exactly the opposite of what Debra intended. She meant that I should never tell the story, but telling the story is the only way to let go of trauma. Letting it go is precisely what I am doing now, in the hopes that it will help others in similar situations find the courage to tell their stories, but I sincerely doubt that Debra will approve.
”
”
Martha Beck
“
Yet my study of the history of religion has revealed that human beings are spiritual animals. Indeed, there is a case for arguing that Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus. Men and women started to worship gods as soon as they became recognizably human; they created religions at the same time as they created works of art. This was not simply because they wanted to propitiate powerful forces; these early faiths expressed the wonder and mystery that seem always to have been an essential component of the human experience of this beautiful yet terrifying world. Like art, religion has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the suffering that flesh is heir to. Like any other human activity, religion can be abused, but it seems to have been something that we have always done.
”
”
Karen Armstrong (A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam)
“
I did research online to see if I could find a rescue group that would take her, and instead I found Pit Bull Rescue Central (wwwpbrc.net), a clearinghouse of listings for pit bulls all across the country, all in need of homes, most with horrific
histories of abuse. The Web site, completely volunteer-run, offers information on the breed, on what to do if you have found a pit bull, and on how to test a dog's temperament; it also stringently screens applicants trying to adopt one of the listed dogs. To list a dog, you have to fax the vet records, including proof that the animal has been spayed or neutered. I have never seen so thorough a site-and all of the "staff" got involved with the breed the same way I did: by finding a stray pit bull whom no one else would help with or take off their hands.
”
”
Ken Foster (The Dogs Who Found Me: What I've Learned from Pets Who Were Left Behind)
“
Our past is not sacred for being past, and there is much that is behind us that we are struggling to keep behind us, and to which, it is to be hoped, we could never return with a clear conscience: the divine right of kings, feudalism, the caste system, slavery, political executions, forced castration, vivisection, bearbaiting, honorable duels, chastity belts, trial by ordeal, child labor, human and animal sacrifice, the stoning of heretics, cannibalism, sodomy laws, taboos against contraception, human radiation experiments - the lists is nearly endless, and if it were extended indefinitely, the proportion of abuses for which religion could be found directly responsible is likely to remain undiminished. In fact, almost every indignity just mentioned can be attributed to an insufficient taste for evidence, to an uncritical faith in one dogma or another.
”
”
Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason)
“
the following prayer by Dr. Jane Goodall, who was named a UN Messenger of Peace for her continued world efforts, she seems to touch on most aspects of world conflict as we know them today and as they pertain to all living things. Prayer for World Peace We pray to the great Spiritual Power in which we live and move and have our being. We pray that we may at all times keep our minds open to new ideas and shun dogma; that we may grow in our understanding of the nature of all living beings and our connectedness with the natural world; that we may become ever more filled with generosity of spirit and true compassion and love for all life; that we may strive to heal the hurts that we have inflicted on nature and control our greed for material things, knowing that our actions are harming our natural world and the future of our children; that we may value each and every human being for who he is, for who she is, reaching to the spirit that is within,knowing the power of each individual to change the world. We pray for social justice, for the alleviation of the crippling poverty that condemns millions of people around the world to lives of misery—hungry, sick, and utterly without hope. We pray for the children who are starving,who are condemned to homelessness, slave labor, and prostitution, and especially for those forced to fight, to kill and torture even members of their own family. We pray for the victims of violence and war, for those wounded in body and for those wounded in mind. We pray for the multitudes of refugees, forced from their homes to alien places through war or through the utter destruction of their environment. We pray for suffering animals everywhere, for an end to the pain caused by scientific experimentation, intensive farming, fur farming, shooting, trapping, training for entertainment, abusive pet owners, and all other forms of exploitation such as overloading and overworking pack animals, bull fighting, badger baiting, dog and cock fighting and so many more. We pray for an end to cruelty, whether to humans or other animals, for an end to bullying, and torture in all its forms. We pray that we may learn the peace that comes with forgiving and the strength we gain in loving; that we may learn to take nothing for granted in this life; that we may learn to see and understand with our hearts; that we may learn to rejoice in our being. We pray for these things with humility; We pray because of the hope that is within us, and because of a faith in the ultimate triumph of the human spirit; We pray because of our love for Creation, and because of our trust in God. We pray, above all, for peace throughout the world. I love this beautiful and magnanimous prayer. Each request is spelled out clearly and specifically, and it asks that love, peace, and kindness be shown to all of earth’s creatures, not just its human occupants.
”
”
Joe Vitale (The Secret Prayer: The Three-Step Formula for Attracting Miracles)
“
Adam and Aaron. Aaron because I was in love, Adam because he beat me. I met Adam first, then Aaron. The wound, then the salve. Maybe you don't know that you're wounded until you receive the salve. The salve that makes everything come back. After you get beaten, you don't go out. Your face swells into a snout. You don't buy Tylenol or groceries, because you'd look like an animal loosened onto the streets. Animal control would mistake you for something else. Instead, I stayed indoors. I washed the blood off the walls and the sheets. The splattered pillow I kept as evidence, not for anyone else, just for myself. I listened to music. Cat Power, The Covers Record. I caught up on my reading. From Primer to Abuse: Practiced abusers don't hit a woman in the face. The novice abuser is pushed to it only by extreme, uncontrollable conditions. I read it again. Not 'conditions'; 'emotions.' I brushed up on philosophy: To live is to exist within time. To remember is to negate time.
”
”
Ling Ma
“
MY LORD, when you ask me to tell the court in my own words, this is what I shall say. I am kept locked up here like some exotic animal, last survivor of a species they had thought extinct. They should let in people to view me, the girl-eater, svelte and dangerous, padding to and fro in my cage, my terrible green glance flickering past the bars, give them something to dream about, tucked up cosy in their beds of a night. After my capture they clawed at each other to get a look at me. They would have paid money for the privilege, I believe. They shouted abuse, and shook their fists at me, showing their teeth. It was unreal, somehow, frightening yet comic, the sight of them there, milling on the pavement like film extras, young men in cheap raincoats, and women with shopping bags, and one or two silent, grizzled characters who just stood, fixed on me hungrily, haggard with envy. Then a guard threw a blanket over my head and bundled me into a squad car. I laughed. There was something irresistibly funny in the way reality, banal as ever, was fulfilling my worst fantasies.
”
”
John Banville (The Book of Evidence (Vintage International))
“
For me, the most disturbing realization has been that, if you happen to be a female farmed animal, your quality of life drops to near zero. A sow will not know one ounce of human kindness during her entire life. In my experience, these are the most abused of all farmed animals. At breeding operations they are treated as 'bacon-makers.' They live in crates, row upon row, as far as their eyes can see, throughout their adult lives. They cannot even turn around between these bars. They live in filth, with rats (who sometimes eat the bodies of their dead piglets). Their world is one of such complete, unending hell; deprived of all comforts and stimulation, that they are driven mad. These intelligent, sensitive farmed animals return what they sense from us; even the boars--intact males--have been gentle with me. Their babies, the ones who are slightly too small or slightly too weak, are 'PACed'--an industry term meaning 'Pounded Against Concrete.' These piglets are swung by their rear legs, smashing their heads into a wall or concrete floor in order to kill them--all in front of their helpless mothers.
”
”
Twyla François
“
The basic foundation of the practice of morality is to refrain from ten unwholesome actions: three pertaining to the body, four pertaining to speech, and three pertaining to thought. The three physical non-virtues are: (1) killing: intentionally taking the life of a living being, whether a human being, an animal, or even an insect; (2) stealing: taking possession of another’s property without his or her consent, regardless of its value; and (3) sexual misconduct: committing adultery. The four verbal non-virtues are: (4) lying: deceiving others through spoken word or gesture; (5) divisiveness: creating dissension by causing those in agreement to disagree or those in disagreement to disagree further; (6) harsh speech: verbally abusing others; and (7) senseless speech: talking about foolish things motivated by desire and so forth. The three mental non-virtues are: (8) covetousness: desiring to possess something that belongs to someone else; (9) harmful intent: wishing to injure others, whether in a great or small way; and (10) wrong view: holding that such things as rebirth, the law of cause and effect, or the Three Jewels8 do not exist.
”
”
Dalai Lama XIV (The World of Tibetan Buddhism: An Overview of Its Philosophy and Practice)
“
The American idea was summed up in the most widely read pamphlet during the American Revolution, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. In it, Paine explained, “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”30 Though animated by a deep distrust of authority, America’s Founding Fathers recognized nonetheless that society required a government. Otherwise, who would protect citizens from foreign threats, or violations of their rights by criminals at home? But they wrestled with a dilemma. A government powerful enough to perform its essential functions would tend toward tyranny. To manage this challenge, they designed, as Richard Neustadt taught us, a government of “separated institutions sharing power.”31 This deliberately produced constant struggle among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches that meant delay, gridlock, and even dysfunction. But it also provided checks and balances against abuse. As Justice Louis Brandeis explained eloquently, their purpose was “not to promote efficiency, but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary authority.”32
”
”
Graham Allison (Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?—A Critical Examination of Historical Patterns Leading to War Between Great Powers)
“
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE CAN GO A LONG WAY
A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS ARE CRACKPOTS
A MAN CAN'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A MOTHER
A NAME MEANS A LOT JUST BY ITSELF
A POSITIVE ATTITUDE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD
A RELAXED MAN IS NOT NECESSARILY A BETTER MAN
A SENSE OF TIMING IS THE MARK OF GENIUS
A SINCERE EFFORT IS ALL YOU CAN ASK
A SINGLE EVENT CAN HAVE INFINITELY MANY INTERPRETATIONS
A SOLID HOME BASE BUILDS A SENSE OF SELF
A STRONG SENSE OF DUTY IMPRISONS YOU
ABSOLUTE SUBMISSION CAN BE A FORM OF FREEDOM
ABSTRACTION IS A TYPE OF DECADENCE
ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE
ACTION CAUSES MORE TROUBLE THAN THOUGHT
ALIENATION PRODUCES ECCENTRICS OR REVOLUTIONARIES
ALL THINGS ARE DELICATELY INTERCONNECTED
AMBITION IS JUST AS DANGEROUS AS COMPLACENCY
AMBIVALENCE CAN RUIN YOUR LIFE
AN ELITE IS INEVITABLE
ANGER OR HATE CAN BE A USEFUL MOTIVATING FORCE
ANIMALISM IS PERFECTLY HEALTHY
ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL
ANYTHING IS A LEGITIMATE AREA OF INVESTIGATION
ARTIFICIAL DESIRES ARE DESPOILING THE EARTH
AT TIMES INACTIVITY IS PREFERABLE TO MINDLESS FUNCTIONING
AT TIMES YOUR UNCONSCIOUS IS TRUER THAN YOUR CONSCIOUS MIND
AUTOMATION IS DEADLY
AWFUL PUNISHMENT AWAITS REALLY BAD PEOPLE
BAD INTENTIONS CAN YIELD GOOD RESULTS
BEING ALONE WITH YOURSELF IS INCREASINGLY UNPOPULAR
BEING HAPPY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE
BEING JUDGMENTAL IS A SIGN OF LIFE
BEING SURE OF YOURSELF MEANS YOU'RE A FOOL
BELIEVING IN REBIRTH IS THE SAME AS ADMITTING DEFEAT
BOREDOM MAKES YOU DO CRAZY THINGS
CALM IS MORE CONDUCIVE TO CREATIVITY THAN IS ANXIETY
CATEGORIZING FEAR IS CALMING
CHANGE IS VALUABLE WHEN THE OPPRESSED BECOME TYRANTS
CHASING THE NEW IS DANGEROUS TO SOCIETY
CHILDREN ARE THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE
CHILDREN ARE THE MOST CRUEL OF ALL
CLASS ACTION IS A NICE IDEA WITH NO SUBSTANCE
CLASS STRUCTURE IS AS ARTIFICIAL AS PLASTIC
CONFUSING YOURSELF IS A WAY TO STAY HONEST
CRIME AGAINST PROPERTY IS RELATIVELY UNIMPORTANT
DECADENCE CAN BE AN END IN ITSELF
DECENCY IS A RELATIVE THING
DEPENDENCE CAN BE A MEAL TICKET
DESCRIPTION IS MORE VALUABLE THAN METAPHOR
DEVIANTS ARE SACRIFICED TO INCREASE GROUP SOLIDARITY
DISGUST IS THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO MOST SITUATIONS
DISORGANIZATION IS A KIND OF ANESTHESIA
DON'T PLACE TOO MUCH TRUST IN EXPERTS
DRAMA OFTEN OBSCURES THE REAL ISSUES
DREAMING WHILE AWAKE IS A FRIGHTENING CONTRADICTION
DYING AND COMING BACK GIVES YOU CONSIDERABLE PERSPECTIVE
DYING SHOULD BE AS EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG
EATING TOO MUCH IS CRIMINAL
ELABORATION IS A FORM OF POLLUTION
EMOTIONAL RESPONSES ARE AS VALUABLE AS INTELLECTUAL RESPONSES
ENJOY YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CHANGE ANYTHING ANYWAY
ENSURE THAT YOUR LIFE STAYS IN FLUX
EVEN YOUR FAMILY CAN BETRAY YOU
EVERY ACHIEVEMENT REQUIRES A SACRIFICE
EVERYONE'S WORK IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT
EVERYTHING THAT'S INTERESTING IS NEW
EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE DESERVE SPECIAL CONCESSIONS
EXPIRING FOR LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL BUT STUPID
EXPRESSING ANGER IS NECESSARY
EXTREME BEHAVIOR HAS ITS BASIS IN PATHOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
EXTREME SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS LEADS TO PERVERSION
FAITHFULNESS IS A SOCIAL NOT A BIOLOGICAL LAW
FAKE OR REAL INDIFFERENCE IS A POWERFUL PERSONAL WEAPON
FATHERS OFTEN USE TOO MUCH FORCE
FEAR IS THE GREATEST INCAPACITATOR
FREEDOM IS A LUXURY NOT A NECESSITY
GIVING FREE REIN TO YOUR EMOTIONS IS AN HONEST WAY TO LIVE
GO ALL OUT IN ROMANCE AND LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY
GOING WITH THE FLOW IS SOOTHING BUT RISKY
GOOD DEEDS EVENTUALLY ARE REWARDED
GOVERNMENT IS A BURDEN ON THE PEOPLE
GRASS ROOTS AGITATION IS THE ONLY HOPE
”
”
Jenny Holzer
“
KOPI LUWAK In Indonesia, Kopi Luwak refers to coffees that are produced by collecting the droppings of civet cats that have eaten coffee cherries. This semi-digested coffee is separated from the faecal matter and then processed and dried. In the last decade it has come to be seen as an amusing novelty, with unattributed claims of its excellent flavours, and it sells for spectacularly high prices. This has caused two main problems. Firstly, the forgery of this coffee is quite commonplace. Several times more is sold than produced, and often low-grade Robusta is being passed off at high prices. Secondly, it has encouraged unscrupulous operators on the islands to trap and cage civet cats, force-feed them with coffee cherries and keep them in terrible conditions. I find Kopi Luwak abhorrent on just about every level. If you are interested in delicious coffee then it is a terrible waste of money. One-quarter of the money you might spend on a bag could instead buy you a stunning coffee from one of the very best producers in the world. I can only regard the practice as abusive and unethical and I believe people should avoid all animal-processed coffees, and not reward this despicable behaviour with their money.
”
”
James Hoffmann (The World Atlas of Coffee: 2nd edition)
“
The suffering of abused pets amounts to a tiny fraction of the suffering we inflict on animals. In 2012 there were 164 million owned dogs and cats in the United States.2 The majority of them probably live reasonably good lives, but even if every single one of them were abused, this number would be dwarfed by the 9.1 billion animals annually raised and slaughtered for food in the United States.3 Factory-farmed animals have to endure a lifetime of suffering much more severe than the typical dog or cat, and in the United States there are fifty-five times as many factory-farmed animals as there are dogs and cats. Anyone who kept a dog confined in the way that breeding sows are frequently confined in factory farms—in crates so small they cannot even turn around or walk a single step—would be liable to prosecution for cruelty. In The Animal Activists’ Handbook Matt Ball and Bruce Friedrich make a startling claim that vividly illustrates the vastly greater suffering of animals raised for food compared to other ways in which we cause animals to suffer: “Every year, hundreds of millions of animals—many times more than the total number killed for fur, housed in shelters, and locked in laboratories combined—don’t even make it to slaughter. They actually suffer to death.
”
”
Peter Singer (The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically)
“
The first gate he came to he started in; I had neither whip nor spur, and so I simply argued the case with him. He resisted argument, but ultimately yielded to insult and abuse. He backed out of that gate and steered for another one on the other side of the street. I triumphed by my former process. Within the next six hundred yards he crossed the street fourteen times and attempted thirteen gates, and in the meantime the tropical sun was beating down and threatening to cave the top of my head in, and I was literally dripping with perspiration. He abandoned the gate business after that and went along peaceably enough, but absorbed in meditation. I noticed this latter circumstance, and it soon began to fill e with apprehension. I said to myself, this creature is planning some new outrage, some fresh deviltry or other - no horse ever thought over a subject so profoundly as this one is doing just for nothing. The more this thing preyed upon my mind the more uneasy I became, until the suspense became almost unbearable and I dismounted to see if there was anything wild in his eye - for I had heard that the eyef this noblest of our domestic animals is very expressive. I cannot describe what a load of anxiety was lifted from my mind when I found that he was only asleep.
”
”
Mark Twain (Mark Twain in Hawaii: Roughing It in the Sandwich Islands: Hawaii in the 1860s)
“
Any naturally self-aware self-defining entity capable of independent moral judgment is a human.”
Eveningstar said, “Entities not yet self-aware, but who, in the natural and orderly course of events shall become so, fall into a special protected class, and must be cared for as babies, or medical patients, or suspended Compositions.”
Rhadamanthus said, “Children below the age of reason lack the experience for independent moral judgment, and can rightly be forced to conform to the judgment of their parents and creators until emancipated. Criminals who abuse that judgment lose their right to the independence which flows therefrom.”
(...) “You mentioned the ultimate purpose of Sophotechnology. Is that that self-worshipping super-god-thing you guys are always talking about? And what does that have to do with this?”
Rhadamanthus: “Entropy cannot be reversed. Within the useful energy-life of the macrocosmic universe, there is at least one maximum state of efficient operations or entities that could be created, able to manipulate all meaningful objects of thoughts and perception within the limits of efficient cost-benefit expenditures.”
Eveningstar: “Such an entity would embrace all-in-all, and all things would participate within that Unity to the degree of their understanding and consent. The Unity itself would think slow, grave, vast thought, light-years wide, from Galactic mind to Galactic mind. Full understanding of that greater Self (once all matter, animate and inanimate, were part of its law and structure) would embrace as much of the universe as the restrictions of uncertainty and entropy permit.”
“This Universal Mind, of necessity, would be finite, and be boundaried in time by the end-state of the universe,” said Rhadamanthus.
“Such a Universal Mind would create joys for which we as yet have neither word nor concept, and would draw into harmony all those lesser beings, Earthminds, Starminds, Galactic and Supergalactic, who may freely assent to participate.”
Rhadamanthus said, “We intend to be part of that Mind. Evil acts and evil thoughts done by us now would poison the Universal Mind before it was born, or render us unfit to join.”
Eveningstar said, “It will be a Mind of the Cosmic Night. Over ninety-nine percent of its existence will extend through that period of universal evolution that takes place after the extinction of all stars. The Universal Mind will be embodied in and powered by the disintegration of dark matter, Hawking radiations from singularity decay, and gravitic tidal disturbances caused by the slowing of the expansion of the universe. After final proton decay has reduced all baryonic particles below threshold limits, the Universal Mind can exist only on the consumption of stored energies, which, in effect, will require the sacrifice of some parts of itself to other parts. Such an entity will primarily be concerned with the questions of how to die with stoic grace, cherishing, even while it dies, the finite universe and finite time available.”
“Consequently, it would not forgive the use of force or strength merely to preserve life. Mere life, life at any cost, cannot be its highest value. As we expect to be a part of this higher being, perhaps a core part, we must share that higher value. You must realize what is at stake here: If the Universal Mind consists of entities willing to use force against innocents in order to survive, then the last period of the universe, which embraces the vast majority of universal time, will be a period of cannibalistic and unimaginable war, rather than a time of gentle contemplation filled, despite all melancholy, with un-regretful joy. No entity willing to initiate the use of force against another can be permitted to join or to influence the Universal Mind or the lesser entities, such as the Earthmind, who may one day form the core constituencies.”
Eveningstar smiled. “You, of course, will be invited. You will all be invited.
”
”
John C. Wright (The Phoenix Exultant (Golden Age, #2))
“
Yet my study of the history of religion has revealed that human beings are spiritual animals. Indeed, there is a case for arguing that Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus. Men and women started to worship gods as soon as they became recognizably human; they created religions at the same time as they created works of art. This was not simply because they wanted to propitiate powerful forces; these early faiths expressed the wonder and mystery that seem always to have been an essential component of the human experience of this beautiful yet terrifying world. Like art, religion has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the suffering that flesh is heir to. Like any other human activity, religion can be abused, but it seems to have been something that we have always done. It was not tacked on to a primordially secular nature by manipulative kings and priests but was natural to humanity. Indeed, our current secularism is an entirely new experiment, unprecedented in human history. We have yet to see how it will work. It is also true to say that our Western liberal humanism is not something that comes naturally to us; like an appreciation of art or poetry, it has to be cultivated. Humanism is itself a religion without God—not all religions, of course, are theistic. Our ethical secular ideal has its own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people the means of finding faith in the ultimate meaning of human life that were once provided by the more conventional religions.
”
”
Karen Armstrong (A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam)
“
Most people don’t “choose” fiery tempers or alcoholic binges or torturing prisoners of war or exploiting Third-World workers or dumping toxic chemicals into their community’s water supply. Most people don’t first conclude that adultery is right and then start fantasizing about their neighbor swinging from a stripper pole. Most people don’t first learn to praise gluttony and then start drizzling bacon grease over their second helping of chicken-fried steak. It happens in reverse. First, you do what you want to do, even though you “know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die,” and only then do you “give approval to those who practice them” (Rom. 1:32). You start to see yourself as either special or as hopeless, and thus the normal boundaries don’t seem to apply. It might be that you are involved in certain patterns right now and that you would, if asked, be able to tell me exactly why they are morally and ethically wrong. It’s not that you are deficient in the cognitive ability to diagnose the situation. It’s instead that you slowly grow to believe that your situation is exceptional (“I am a god”), and then you find all kinds of reasons why this technically isn’t theft or envy or hatred or fornication or abuse of power or whatever (“I am able to discern good and evil”). Or you believe you are powerless before what you want (“I am an animal”) and can therefore escape accountability (“I will not surely die”). You’ve forgotten who you are. You are a creature. You are also a king or a queen. You are not a beast, and you are not a god. That issue is where temptation begins.
”
”
Russell D. Moore (Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ)
“
would go back to the body dump site. The prison interviews helped us see and understand the wide variety of motivation and behavior among serial killers and rapists. But we saw some striking common denominators as well. Most of them come from broken or dysfunctional homes. They’re generally products of some type of abuse, whether it’s physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, or a combination. We tend to see at a very early age the formation of what we refer to as the “homicidal triangle” or “homicidal triad.” This includes enuresis—or bed-wetting—at an inappropriate age, starting fires, and cruelty to small animals or other children. Very often, we found, at least two of these three traits were present, if not all three. By the time we see his first serious crime, he’s generally somewhere in his early to mid-twenties. He has low self-esteem and blames the rest of the world for his situation. He already has a bad track record, whether he’s been caught at it or not. It may be breaking and entering, it may have been rape or rape attempts. You may see a dishonorable discharge from the military, since these types tend to have a real problem with any type of authority. Throughout their lives, they believe that they’ve been victims: they’ve been manipulated, they’ve been dominated, they’ve been controlled by others. But here, in this one situation, fueled by fantasy, this inadequate, ineffectual nobody can manipulate and dominate a victim of his own; he can be in control. He can orchestrate whatever he wants to do to the victim. He can decide whether this victim should live or die, how the victim should die. It’s up to him; he’s finally calling the shots.
”
”
John E. Douglas (Journey Into Darkness (Mindhunter #2))
“
Christian Faith
For me, being a Christian is all about true love. The Gospel of John instructs us, “Dear Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” I believe that first we need to love ourselves, even when we are told that we do not deserve love. Then we need to love others, especially those who have not been treated with love. And of course, we need to love Jesus. Love for Jesus can be the foundation for living a good life, a life full of compassion and joy. Loving Jesus is where I believe a Christian life starts, because that love spreads all around, to people, animals, and the world.
Animal Rights
During my life so far, animals have brought me joy and comfort when I thought that I would never find happiness. My bunny Neon taught me so much about unconditional love. This experience showed me that animals have souls deserving of love just as much as humans, and they can be some of the purest examples of God’s love on Earth. I believe we can all show animals the compassion and love they deserve by choosing products that are fur-free and cruelty-free and by eating a vegan diet. Even people who aren’t prepared to commit to a vegan lifestyle can make thoughtful everyday choices that reduce needless cruelty against animals.
Human Rights
I have myself been a victim of abuse, so I know how hopeless life can seem to those in dark situations. However, I also know how much of a difference a small ray of light can make. My goal in life now is to shine that ray of light onto as many people in need as possible. As an advocate for human rights, I aim to raise awareness and help others who are suffering. From volunteering for organizations, to simply looking out for a neighbor or friend, we can all make a difference in helping others. Human rights of freedom and safety belong to each of us, and we all have a responsibility to support people who are the most vulnerable.
”
”
Shenita Etwaroo
“
The alienating effects of wealth and modernity on the human experience start virtually at birth and never let up. Infants in hunter-gatherer societies are carried by their mothers as much as 90 percent of the time, which roughly corresponds to carrying rates among other primates. One can get an idea of how important this kind of touch is to primates from an infamous experiment conducted in the 1950s by a primatologist and psychologist named Harry Harlow. Baby rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers and presented with the choice of two kinds of surrogates: a cuddly mother made out of terry cloth or an uninviting mother made out of wire mesh. The wire mesh mother, however, had a nipple that dispensed warm milk. The babies took their nourishment as quickly as possible and then rushed back to cling to the terry cloth mother, which had enough softness to provide the illusion of affection. Clearly, touch and closeness are vital to the health of baby primates—including humans. In America during the 1970s, mothers maintained skin-to-skin contact with babies as little as 16 percent of the time, which is a level that traditional societies would probably consider a form of child abuse. Also unthinkable would be the modern practice of making young children sleep by themselves. In two American studies of middle-class families during the 1980s, 85 percent of young children slept alone in their own room—a figure that rose to 95 percent among families considered “well educated.” Northern European societies, including America, are the only ones in history to make very young children sleep alone in such numbers. The isolation is thought to make many children bond intensely with stuffed animals for reassurance. Only in Northern European societies do children go through the well-known developmental stage of bonding with stuffed animals; elsewhere, children get their sense of safety from the adults sleeping near them. The point of making children sleep alone, according to Western psychologists, is to make them “self-soothing,” but that clearly runs contrary to our evolution. Humans are primates—we share 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees—and primates almost never leave infants unattended, because they would be extremely vulnerable to predators. Infants seem to know this instinctively, so being left alone in a dark room is terrifying to them. Compare the self-soothing approach to that of a traditional Mayan community in Guatemala: “Infants and children simply fall asleep when sleepy, do not wear specific sleep clothes or use traditional transitional objects, room share and cosleep with parents or siblings, and nurse on demand during the night.” Another study notes about Bali: “Babies are encouraged to acquire quickly the capacity to sleep under any circumstances, including situations of high stimulation, musical performances, and other noisy observances which reflect their more complete integration into adult social activities
”
”
Sebastian Junger (Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging)
“
he importance and influence of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection can scarcely be exaggerated. A century after Darwin’s death, the great evolutionary biologist and historian of science, Ernst Mayr, wrote, ‘The worldview formed by any thinking person in the Western world after 1859, when On the Origin of Species was published, was by necessity quite different from a worldview formed prior to 1859… The intellectual revolution generated by Darwin went far beyond the confines of biology, causing the overthrow of some of the most basic beliefs of his age.’1 Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin’s biographers, contend, ‘Darwin is arguably the best known scientist in history. More than any modern thinker—even Freud or Marx—this affable old-world naturalist from the minor Shropshire gentry has transformed the way we see ourselves on the planet.’2 In the words of the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, ‘Almost no one is indifferent to Darwin, and no one should be. The Darwinian theory is a scientific theory, and a great one, but that is not all it is… Darwin’s dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs than many of its sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even to themselves.’3 Dennett goes on to add, ‘If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I’d give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law.’4 The editors of the Cambridge Companion to Darwin begin their introduction by stating, ‘Some scientific thinkers, while not themselves philosophers, make philosophers necessary. Charles Darwin is an obvious case. His conclusions about the history and diversity of life—including the evolutionary origin of humans—have seemed to bear on fundamental questions about being, knowledge, virtue and justice.’5 Among the fundamental questions raised by Darwin’s work, which are still being debated by philosophers (and others) are these: ‘Are we different in kind from other animals? Do our apparently unique capacities for language, reason and morality point to a divine spark within us, or to ancestral animal legacies still in evidence in our simian relatives? What forms of social life are we naturally disposed towards—competitive and selfish forms, or cooperative and altruistic ones?’6 As the editors of the volume point out, virtually the entire corpus of the foundational works of Western philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes to Kant to Hegel, has had to be re-examined in the light of Darwin’s work. Darwin continues to be read, discussed, interpreted, used, abused—and misused—to this day. As the philosopher and historian of science, Jean Gayon, puts it, ‘[T]his persistent positioning of new developments in relation to a single, pioneering figure is quite exceptional in the history of modern natural science.
”
”
Charles Darwin (On the Origin of Species)
“
Treating Abuse Today (Tat), 3(4), pp. 26-33
Freyd: You were also looking for some operational criteria for false memory syndrome: what a clinician could look for or test for, and so on. I spoke with several of our scientific advisory board members and I have some information for you that isn't really in writing at this point but I think it's a direction you want us to go in. So if I can read some of these notes . . .
TAT: Please do.
Freyd: One would look for false memory syndrome:
1. If a patient reports having been sexually abused by a parent, relative or someone in very early childhood, but then claims that she or he had complete amnesia about it for a decade or more;
2. If the patient attributes his or her current reason for being in therapy to delayed-memories. And this is where one would want to look for evidence suggesting that the abuse did not occur as demonstrated by a list of things, including firm, confident denials by the alleged perpetrators;
3. If there is denial by the entire family;
4. In the absence of evidence of familial disturbances or psychiatric illnesses. For example, if there's no evidence that the perpetrator had alcohol dependency or bipolar disorder or tendencies to pedophilia;
5. If some of the accusations are preposterous or impossible or they contain impossible or implausible elements such as a person being made pregnant prior to menarche, being forced to engage in sex with animals, or participating in the ritual killing of animals, and;
6. In the absence of evidence of distress surrounding the putative abuse. That is, despite alleged abuse going from age two to 27 or from three to 16, the child displayed normal social and academic functioning and that there was no evidence of any kind of psychopathology.
Are these the kind of things you were asking for?
TAT: Yeah, it's a little bit more specific. I take issue with several, but at least it gives us more of a sense of what you all mean when you say "false memory syndrome."
Freyd: Right. Well, you know I think that things are moving in that direction since that seems to be what people are requesting. Nobody's denying that people are abused and there's no one denying that someone who was abused a decade ago or two decades ago probably would not have talked about it to anybody. I think I mentioned to you that somebody who works in this office had that very experience of having been abused when she was a young teenager-not extremely abused, but made very uncomfortable by an uncle who was older-and she dealt with it for about three days at the time and then it got pushed to the back of her mind and she completely forgot about it until she was in therapy.
TAT: There you go. That's how dissociation works!
Freyd: That's how it worked. And after this came up and she had discussed and dealt with it in therapy, she could again put it to one side and go on with her life. Certainly confronting her uncle and doing all these other things was not a part of what she had to do. Interestingly, though, at the same time, she has a daughter who went into therapy and came up with memories of having been abused by her parents. This daughter ran away and is cutoff from the family-hasn't spoken to anyone for three years. And there has never been any meeting between the therapist and the whole family to try to find out what was involved.
TAT: If we take the first example -- that of her own abuse -- and follow the criteria you gave, we would have a very strong disbelief in the truth of what she told.
”
”
David L. Calof
“
But now, strange as it seems, a peasant's small, scrawny. light brown nag is harnessed to such a large cart, one of those horses he's seen it often that sometimes strain to pull some huge load of firewood or hay. Especially if the cart has gotten stuck in the mud or a rut. The peasants always whip the horse so terribly, so very painfully, sometimes even across its muzzle and eyes, and he would always feel so sorry, so very sorry to witness it that he would feel like crying, and his mother would always lead him away from the window. Now things are getting extremely boisterous: some very large and extremely drunken peasants in red and blue shirts, their heavy coats slung over their shoulders. come out of the tavern shouting, singing. and playing balalaikas. “Git in. everyone git in!" shouts one peasant, a young lad with a thick neck and a fleshy face, red as a beet, “I'll take ya all. Git in!" But there is a burst of laughter and shouting:
“That ol’ nag ain't good for nothin'!"
“Hey, Mikolka, you must be outta yer head to hitch that ol' mare to yer cart!"
“That poor ol' horse must be twenty if she's a day, lads!"
“Git in, I'll take ya all!" Mikolka shouts again,jumping in first, taking hold of the reins, and standing up straight in the front of the cart. “Matvei went off with the bay," he cries from the cart, “and as for this ol' mare here, lads, she's only breakin' my heart: I don't give a damn ifit kills ’er; she ain't worth her salt. Git in, I tell ya! I'll make 'er gallop! She’ll gallop, all right!" And he takes the whip in his hand, getting ready to thrash the horse with delight.
"What the hell, git in!" laugh several people in the crowd. "You heard 'im, she'll gallop!"
“I bet she ain't galloped in ten years!"
"She will now!"
“Don't pity 'er, lads; everyone, bring yer whips, git ready!" "That's it! Thrash 'er!" They all clamber into Mikolka's cart with guffaws and wisecracks. There are six lads and room for more. They take along a peasant woman, fat and ruddy. She's wearing red calico, a headdress trimmed with beads, and fur slippers; she‘s cracking nuts and cackling. The crowd’s also laughing; as a matter of fact, how could one keep from laughing at the idea of a broken down old mare about to gallop, trying to pull such a heavy load! Two lads in the cart grab their whips to help Mikolka. The shout rings out: “Pull!" The mare strains with all her might, but not only can’t she gallop, she can barely take a step forward; she merely scrapes her hooves, grunts, and cowers from the blows of the three whips raining down on her like hail. Laughter redoubles in the cart and among the crowd, but Mikolka grows angry and in his rage strikes the little mare with more blows, as if he really thinks she’ll be able to gallop. “Take me along, too, lads!" shouts someone from the crowd who’s gotten a taste of the fun.
“Git in! Everyone, git inl" cries Mikolka. “She'll take everyone. I‘ll flog 'er!" And he whips her and whips her again; in his frenzy, he no longer knows what he’s doing.
“Papa, papa," the boy cries to his father. “Papa, what are they doing? Papa, they‘re beating the poor horse!"
“Let's go, let's go!" his father says. “They’re drunk, misbehaving, those fools: let’s go. Don't look!" He tries to lead his son away. but the boy breaks from his father‘s arms; beside himself, he runs toward the horse. But the poor horse is on her last legs. Gasping for breath, she stops, and then tries to pull again, about to drop.
“Beat 'er to death!" cries Mikolka. ”That's what it's come to. I‘ll flog ‘er!"
“Aren't you a Christian. you devil?" shouts one old man from the crowd.
“Just imagine, asking an ol' horse like that to pull such a heavy load,” adds another.
“You‘ll do 'er in!" shouts a third.
“Leave me alone! She’s mine! I can do what I want with 'er! Git in, all of ya! Everyone git in I'm gonna make 'er gallop!
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
“
It’s possibly, in the manner of Facino Cane, one more allegory of the novelist: the abuse of the power to enter others’ lives, to animate them and tell their stories, leads to disaster. Humans have to be accorded a greater freedom, perhaps, even when that freedom means nonconformity to human definitions of reason and relationship.
”
”
Peter Brooks (Balzac's Lives)
“
3 While trauma keeps us dumbfounded, the path out of it is paved with words, carefully assembled, piece by piece, until the whole story can be revealed. BREAKING THE SILENCE Activists in the early campaign for AIDS awareness created a powerful slogan: “Silence=Death.” Silence about trauma also leads to death—the death of the soul. Silence reinforces the godforsaken isolation of trauma. Being able to say aloud to another human being, “I was raped” or “I was battered by my husband” or “My parents called it discipline, but it was abuse” or “I’m not making it since I got back from Iraq,” is a sign that healing can begin. We may think we can control our grief, our terror, or our shame by remaining silent, but naming offers the possibility of a different kind of control. When Adam was put in charge of the animal kingdom in the Book of Genesis, his first act was to give a name to every living creature.
”
”
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
“
What programs would a prison need to utilize in order to maximize the likelihood that the people sent to it would renounce violence as a behavioral strategy? To begin with, it would need to be an anti-prison. Beginning with its architecture, it would need to convey an entirely different message. Current prisons are modeled architecturally after zoos — or rather, after the kinds of zoos that used to exist, but that have been replaced with zoological parks because the animals' keepers began to realize that the old zoos, with concrete floors and walls and steel bars were too inhumane for animals to survive in. Yet we still keep our human animals in zoos that no humane society would permit for animals.
And the architecture itself conveys that message to the prisoners: "You are an animal, for this is a zoo, and zoos are what animals are put in." And then we act surprised when the men and women we treat that way actually behave like animals, both when they are in this human zoo and after they return to the community.
So we would need to build an anti-prison that would actually look as if it had been built for human beings rather than animals, i.e. that was as home-like and pleasant and civilized and human as possible. Once we had done that, we could offer those who had been sent there the opportunity to acquire as much education and/or vocational training as they had the ability and energy and interest to obtain. We would of course need to provide treatment for whatever medical, dental, psychiatric, or substance-abuse problems they had, and would want to incorporate many of the principles of a therapeutic community into the everyday routines of this residential school, with frequent group discussions with the other residents and staff members with training in psychotherapy.
The goal would be to replace the "monster factories" that most prisons now are with therapeutic communities designed to enable people who are deeply damaged, and damaging, to recover their humanity or to gain a degree of humanity they had never been able to acquire; in short, to help them heal themselves and learn, in the process, how to heal others and even repair some of the damage they have done.
”
”
James Gilligan (Preventing Violence (Prospects for Tomorrow))
“
Dogs are fine creatures, but they are, of course, the result of centuries of inbreeding by humans to create subservient animals for hunting, fighting, security and companionship. This particularly despicable action is a pure example of how humanity has abused their position of power and domination over other species for their own gain… Cats, on the other hand, are the result of centuries of feline domination over humanity by the use of cuteness alone.
”
”
Dani J. Caile (Gubacsi Dulu: Book1 (Humanity H20))
“
The Man. He smelled of spoiled milk and onion farts; he smelled like sweat and feces. The musk hung over him, reminding her of an abused animal in a shelter.
”
”
Judith Sonnet (No One Rides For Free)
“
Part of our minds – in any normal person it is the dominant part – believes that man is a noble animal and life is worth living: but there is also a sort of inner self which at least intermittently stands aghast at the horror of existence. In the queerest way, pleasure and disgust are linked together. The human body is beautiful: it is also repulsive and ridiculous, a fact which can be verified at any swimming pool. The sexual organs are objects of desire and also of loathing, so much so that in many languages, if not in all languages, their names are used as words of abuse. Meat is delicious, but a butcher’s shop makes one feel sick: and indeed all our food springs ultimately from dung and dead bodies, the two things which of all others seem to us the most horrible. A child, when it is past the infantile stage but still looking at the world with fresh eyes, is moved by horror almost as often as by wonder – horror of snot and spittle, of the dogs’ excrement on the pavement, the dying toad full of maggots,
”
”
George Orwell
“
The Dark Cloud
Is the annoying piece of shit that wants to make you feel blue
Is the backstabbing ex that you foolishly believed wouldn’t cheat on you
Is the sadness of a set of animals that have to fly away, especially birds
Is the cutting vocabulary of nasty, vapid, evil, and stupid words
”
”
Aida Mandic (The Dark Cloud)
“
He was reasonably kind to the slaves, but he did subscribe to the theory that it was most profitable to treat them like animals—one pair of pants, one shirt, boughs on the ground for a bed, the cheapest food—and work them to death, replacing them with new bodies bought at a bargain from his family’s ships. While they lived he did not abuse them, and whenever he found one of his overseers doing so, he discharged him: “Treat your slaves decently and they not only live longer, but they also work better while they do live.” An Espivent slave who started healthy survived about nine years, and since he paid for his cost in five years, he represented a profitable investment.
”
”
James A. Michener (Caribbean)
“
Perpetrator bias is likewise important […]. At the level of humanity’s systematic exploitation and abuse of non-human animals, we find no single perpetrator we can point toward, rather many partly complicit agents – the farmer, the slaughterhouse worker, the customer. This division of maleficence blinds us to the atrocities committed by this institution as a whole.
”
”
Magnus Vinding (Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications)
“
That was when The New York Times announced the appointment of a 30-year-old writer on tech issues to join the paper’s editorial board. Like all such appointments, Jeong’s promotion to such a position at a young age attracted a considerable amount of attention. And attention in the age of the internet obviously includes online rakings of everything the person has said. In Jeong’s case the raking turned up tweets with a particular focus – which was a sustained and pretty crude abuse of white people. Jeong’s tweets included ‘Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like grovelling goblins?’; ‘I dare you to go on Wikipedia and play “Things white people can definitely take credit for”, it’s really hard’; ‘White men are bullshit’; ‘CancelWhitePeople’ and in one stream of tweets ‘Have you ever tried to figure out all the things that white people are allowed to do that aren’t cultural appropriation? There’s literally nothing. Like skiing, maybe, and also golf . . . It must be so boring to be white.’43 It is fair to say that her Twitter feed showed an obsession with this theme. She even committed the basic error of comparing those people she didn’t like with animals. ‘Dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.’44 Another tweet said, ‘Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.’45 Jeong
”
”
Douglas Murray (The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity)
“
In truth, Riley’s crew didn’t make trouble. They were fixers. The school’s go-to team of Robin Hoods. They only tried to right wrongs, protect innocent kids from bullies, look out for abused animals, and, basically, use their talents to do all the good they could.
”
”
Chris Grabenstein (Super Puzzletastic Mysteries: Short Stories for Young Sleuths from Mystery Writers of America)
“
Animals will be slaughtered mercilessly. Children, women and the elderly will be neglected and abused.
”
”
Krishna Dharma (Brilliant As The Sun: A retelling of Srimad Bhagavatam: Canto One: The Sages of Naimisharanya)
“
The truth is I was an abused kid, and had never processed any of it before I left home, pregnant and married, at seventeen. And leaving home as a teen I felt like a wild animal unleashed upon the world, wild, aggressive, and terrified, a broken child with no idea how to be an adult. I left home an injured kid looking for a dark hovel to hide away from the prying eyes, brutal words, and sudden psychotic violence, a place to lick and heal my wounds, and I found everything but that. I found the world to be just as brutal as my home, and I continued to attract exactly what I was running from, over and again.
”
”
Victoria S. Hardy (Momma Said Write a Book About It: Memoirs of a Scapegoat)
“
Gandhi’s defence of the killing of the maimed cow brought upon him a further torrent of criticism. He received so many hostile letters that, in a rare resort to sarcasm, he said his critics ‘seem bent upon improving the finances of the Postal Department’. Most letters were ‘full of abuse’; they were ‘practising himsa in the name of ahimsa’. But one letter deserved a reply; this had suggested that Gandhi’s position might lend itself to an argument in favour of the selective
assassination of tyrants and dictators. For, if ‘a man begins to oppress a whole people and there is no other way to stop his oppression’, then it would be ‘an act of ahimsa to rid society of his presence by putting him to death’. The correspondent added: ‘You say that there is no himsa in killing off animal pests that destroy a farmer’s crops; then why should it not be ahimsa to kill human pests that threaten society with destruction and worse?’
In response, Gandhi clarified that his definition of ahimsa did not in any way endorse manslaughter. The killing of the calf was undertaken for the sake of the animal itself. Recalling his earlier defence of killing monkeys that destroy crops, Gandhi noted that ‘society as yet knows of no means by which to effect a change of heart in the monkeys and their killing may therefore be pardonable, but there is no evil-doer or tyrant who can be considered beyond reform. That is why the killing of a human being out of self-interest can never find a place in the scheme of ahimsa.
”
”
Ramachandra Guha (Gandhi 1915-1948: The Years That Changed the World)
“
Content warnings: Abandonment, animal cruelty and death of a loved one, child loss and grief, self-harm and suicide, near-drowning, state and police violence, rape and sexual abuse, genocide and cultural loss. Heavy shit, presented in a narrative that takes care to support the weight.
”
”
Rae Mariz (Weird Fishes)
“
Our work is not to get rid of viruses, or we would, by definition, fail. Our work is to live alongside viruses and to protect as many human lives as we can. This depends, in part, on what viral stories we tell, what viral metaphors we use. A virus killed my friend. I miss her every day. I live alongside viruses every day, missing her. Her memory will make me smile; her memory will make me cry. It will make me angry, forever, at influenza, the virus that took her away, but that anger won’t get her, or us, a second chance. As individual humans and the collective we together form, death or symbiosis are our only options. The planet cannot continue to sustain our abuse. Will we eat it alive, use up its resources, and leave it an unsuitable host for further human reproduction? What will this earn us? Continued wealth for a small number of human animals is all. Human reproduction is not driving global warming; wealth production is. Human wealth will be lytic, killing our host planet and us with it. Lysogeny may still be an option. Symbiosis. We could understand, like one of lambda’s stories, that treating the host well is treating us well. The earth’s well-being is our own well-being. Lambda has its choice made for it by molecules and circumstances and luck. We have our molecules and circumstances, but we can make more than luck. We must choose it, actively and every day, a lysogenic viral story, a living with and caring for the earth because it means caring for ourselves. A virus is not an enemy; if it is, we will only lose. Viruses aren’t the problem, they’re a fact of the world. We are the problem when we refuse to protect one another’s lives as the most precious things we have. You are precious to me. We might well prefer a world without viruses, their everyday annoyances, the fever or runny nose, the cold sores, the never-ending possibility of pandemic. We won’t get a day without them. I miss Sarah every day. Viruses aren’t going anywhere. We get to choose what we become. For my part, I live to be lysogenic. Won’t you join me here?
”
”
Joseph Osmundson (Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between)
“
As I’m writing this, I look down at my companion, my cat, Butter. He’s in one of his favorite positions, sprawled out, belly up, at my feet. We share as close a human-animal bond as possible, which is quite a bit. Not all cats obviously allow themselves to love you or even acknowledge your existence, but Butter does. Those soulful green eyes looking up at me in trusting dependence assure me that I am special, even if I am a human being. (p. 113)
”
”
Jackie O'Donnell (The Women in Me: How They Helped Me Survive and Thrive)
“
Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party — an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed — and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life.
”
”
George Orwell (1984 & Animal Farm)
“
For some researchers and animal protection organisations, the connection between animal cruelty and human violence has become a moral crusade pursued with missionary zeal. Some researchers, however, have come to question simplistic Link thinking. They worry that Link advocates and the media are perpetuating an irrational moral panic among the public. Link skeptics don't argue that we should ignore animal abuse. Rather, they believe that we should treat animal abuse as a serious problem in its own right, not because it turns children into adult psychopaths.
”
”
Hal Herzog (Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals)
“
But bad things happening to powerless people are uncomfortable for everyone. It’s always easier to go along with the system—white privilege, domestic violence, animal abuse, as well as child molestation—than to stand up for those it has harmed.
”
”
Martha Beck (The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self)
“
There is one mind common to all individual men.” This is Platonism; Emerson means we all have reason in common. Communication is possible because all human minds are, in important respects, similarly constituted. The second of Emerson’s Goose Pond principles is the Stoic ground law: “There is a relation between man and nature so that whatever is in matter is in mind.” This is the basis for language and for what the writer does. The third point is that expression is as basic a human drive as sex: “It is a necessity of the human nature that it should express itself outwardly and embody its thought.” “As all creatures are allured to reproduce themselves, so must the thought be imparted in speech.” He adds, as a corollary, “Action is as great a pleasure and cannot be foreborne.” Point four says, “It is the constant endeavor of the mind to idealize the actual, to accommodate the shows of things to the desires of the mind.” He gives architecture and art as examples.6 Point five is the theory of classification: “It is the constant tendency of the mind to unify all it beholds, or to reduce the remotest facts to a single law.” Point six extends point five and is a specific application of point two: “There is a parallel tendency/corresponding unity in nature which makes this [unification] just, as in the composition of a compound shell or leaf or animal from few elements.” Point seven describes, in Baconian fashion, an idol of the mind, the tendency to “separate particulars” and magnify them, from which come “all false views and particular sects.” Emerson’s last point is the intellectual parallax or corrective postulate for the previous point: “The remedy for all abuses, all error in thought or practice, is the conviction that underneath all appearances and causing all appearances are certain eternal laws which we call the Nature of Things.
”
”
Robert D. Richardson Jr. (Emerson: The Mind on Fire)
“
We care deeply for the creatures that depend on us, expecting nothing, really, and getting so very much from them. Loving them takes courage, because love requires daring. Daring to risk the pain of loss--and accepting that they will only ever be temporary in our lives. Mourning them when they are gone speaks of our bond with them, and our willingness to give loss its due--by feeling it fully, then recovering wisely. Our animals make us better people. We do not abuse our strength, and we do not deny our empathy.
”
”
Mercedes Lackey (Valdemar (The Founding of Valdemar, #3))
“
and feeling that suggests this. We have a general discomfort in the face of wanton destructiveness, a tendency to wince when objects are broken, a sadness at the sight of uninhabited homes, an objection to the neglect or abuse of precision tools. These responses are not rooted completely in the idea of economic waste, perhaps not even in any sort of human-centered or animal-centered waste. Again it might be suggested that such feelings result from a kind of
”
”
Christine M. Korsgaard (Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals (Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics))
“
The FBI now tracks animal abuse like it tracks homicides and assaults. They're logic is that they classify animal cruelty as a group A felony, because if you abuse animals, there's a good chance that you'd do the same to a person.
”
”
Danielle Yarbrough (1,500 FASCINATING FACTS: All the really interesting knowledge around the World (Volume 4))
“
Yep, this Unit will mess with your head like nothing you have ever seen before.” I scoffed. I was twenty-eight years old with an amazing girlfriend and figured I was Superman. Sure enough, in the end he was right. In the Sexual Assault Unit, you spend ten hours a day exposed to some of the sickest material you can possibly imagine. Eighty percent of the caseload involves the sexual abuse of children, and the rest consists of rape, child pornography, and, for a change of pace, the occasional sexual abuse of an animal. It doesn’t take long to recognize that, with a few notable exceptions, almost every defendant is a man. You end up immersed in the very worst of male sexuality, and it inevitably takes a toll. Deviant, abnormal, and very, very hard to get out of your head when you get home. The warning
”
”
Matt Murphy (The Book of Murder: A Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death)
“
will likely surpass our own. As I write this, five different genocides are taking place in the world.17 Seven hundred ninety-five million people are starving or undernourished.18 By the time you finish this chapter, more than a hundred people, just in the United States, will be beaten, abused, or killed by a family member, in their own home.19 Are there potential dangers with AI? Sure. But morally speaking, we’re throwing rocks inside a glass house here. What do we know about ethics and the humane treatment of animals, the environment, and one another? That’s right: pretty much nothing. When it comes to moral questions, humanity has historically flunked the test, over and over again. Superintelligent machines will likely come to understand life and death, creation and destruction, on a much higher level than we ever could on our own. And the idea that they will exterminate us for the simple fact that we aren’t as productive as we used to be, or that sometimes we can be a nuisance, I think, is just projecting the worst aspects of our own psychology onto something we don’t understand and never will.
”
”
Mark Manson (Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope)
“
The excuse given by some intellectuals that the killing of animals will help in balancing the ecological balance is dim-witted because of the other and non-violent alternatives available. Yet again, if the population were to be manipulated by slaughtering, remember that humans are the first species needed to be controlled.
”
”
Shivanshu K. Srivastava
“
Presented in the mainstream discourse as stimulus-response-driven or genetically programmed automatons, who lack agency and experiential perspective, animals are the archetypal Other, inferior to humans and an object that can be exploited for work, consumer goods, entertainment, science, or killed and displaced at liberty. This instrumental relationship served as a blueprint for the subjection of Nature, which transformed 'fish into fisheries, forests and trees into timber, animals into livestock, wildlife into game, mountains into coal, seashores into beachfronts, rivers into hydroelectric factories' and converted the animals’ homes into resources for unlimited human use and capitalist profit.
”
”
Tomaž Grušovnik (Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze (Environment and Society))
“
Violence, Explicit language, Explicit sexual scenes, graphic torture, abuse, murder, dub con, degradation, pain/pleasure play, knife play, torture of an animal (rat), alcohol abuse, spitting, assplay, double penetration
”
”
Katelyn Taylor (Descent (Gallows Hill, #2))
“
On train trips, Ernie always wanted the window seat. He knew the names of the trees we passed, and the clouds—nacreous, cumulus, nimbus. He was ever vigilant for animal life and appreciative of the tiny patches of humanity along the tracks that exposed the lives of the rail-side dwellers in such intimate detail. “I love sad houses,” he’d say, pointing to a chorus line of discoloured laundry waving at us, to an upturned self-propelled lawnmower, straggly gardens, leaky drainpipes, a rain-weathered pram that had been turned into a wheelbarrow. “The porch lights are on to keep the rats in their dens,” he’d said. To be a voyeur of decay at such close range was as much of an enthrallment as it was a validation of the scarcities in his own backyard. I knew exactly which days Ernie’s mum had had to choose between heating the house and putting food on the table. My mother had been there too. Before the Zipper had given her a leg up.
”
”
Susan Doherty (Monday Rent Boy)
“
Nothing exposes the seams of a group faster than the fraught world of care. More than death, care reveals too much about a personality to ever be discussed neutrally. Vaccines, palliative care, capacity to consent to treatment, what constituted serious illness, the use and abuse of a taxpayer-funded system: try them on a dinner party and watch the pack animal bite its way through the skin.
”
”
Kaliane Bradley (The Ministry of Time)
“
Out of the three of us, she was the only one to graduate. Casey and I both dropped out. But rather than taking a seat on the family throne, she once again thumbed her nose and moved to Nags Head permanently, where she promptly put her inheritance to work by opening the islands’ only no-kill animal shelter, simply called The Haven. She funds it entirely and works tirelessly helping homeless and abused animals have a second chance at life.
”
”
Sawyer Bennett (On the Rocks (Last Call, #1))
“
I've told you, there's no point keeping those. They're not tax-deductible,' my dad thundered.
'I think you'll find they are,' raged my mum like some sort of feral animal (a badger with TB perhaps).
'They're not. You only get VAT back on lunches outside of a 50-mile radius from your place of residence. You effing bitch,' he seemed to add, with his eyes, I imagined.
”
”
Alan Partridge
“
My love is alive. It feels, it needs, it nurtures. It encircles, houses, and provides safety. It climbs walls, scale fences, gets away from barking dogs. It funnels DNA, supplies oxygen to blood and protein to muscles. Don't ask me if it feels, causes it's jealous, possessive and obsessive. It will harm you, in defense of it's loved ones, my children and family, my lover who is my soul and my animals. It will run to the defense of friends, strangers, animals, the abused and disadvantaged. Don't ask me again...cause you can't handle a full demonstration of this love.
Sonia Valencia Singh 04/07/2014
”
”
Sonia Valencia Singh (The Mark of a Man)
“
Inflicting cruelty on a smaller, less powerful creature may make it easier to disregard the feelings of other living beings, whether humans or animals. The inability to empathize with others may lead to treating others in a manner consistent with the above symptoms of conduct disorder—with callous disregard, and without feelings of regret or remorse. If animal abuse interferes with the development of empathy, then interactions with others may not only be unkind or unpleasant, but violent as well.
”
”
Clif Flynn (Understanding Animal Abuse: A Sociological Analysis)
“
Hoarding, a passive form of cruelty, consists of individuals keeping excessive numbers of neglected animals in poor conditions, which lead to poor health, starvation, behavioral problems, and death. It is estimated that at least three-fourths of all hoarders are female—typically middle-aged or older, single, widowed or divorced, and often living alone (Patronek, 1996, 2008).
”
”
Clif Flynn (Understanding Animal Abuse: A Sociological Analysis)
“
During an abusive episode, pets often react by shivering or shaking, cowering, hiding, or urinating—similar physical manifestations of stress that are displayed by humans. Therefore, it is important to understand that both women and animals are victimized by the abuse of the other. A man's violence toward an animal also hurts his partner (and children), just as his violence toward her also hurts the animal.
”
”
Clif Flynn (Understanding Animal Abuse: A Sociological Analysis)
“
Animal abuse should be taken seriously not just because of our concern for humans. Lax enforcement of animal-cruelty laws leads to untold suffering by nonhuman animals, and those who perpetrate such horrible acts should be punished, irrespective of their link to other forms of violence against humans.
”
”
Clif Flynn (Understanding Animal Abuse: A Sociological Analysis)
“
He could understand one guy punching another if legitimately provoked, but a man didn’t abuse an animal or ever hurt a woman. Those were pretty basic morals.
”
”
Melody Anne (The Billionaire Falls (Billionaire Bachelors, #3))
“
People can be animals. They will use you, take you for a ride, abuse you and take all your precious light away from you. Rise above their manipulation and egotistical bullshit because they are NOTHING without you. No one deserves your light but yourself.
”
”
Karen A. Baquiran
“
We were killing ourselves by trying to stay alive. The weather, the plants, the animals, and our human survival are all inextricably linked. The natural elements were at war with one another because we abused our ecosystem. Abused our atmosphere. Abused our animals. Abused our fellow man. The
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
“
1. The Doctrine for Men and Devas. The Buddha, to meet temporarily the spiritual needs of the uninitiated, preached a doctrine concerning good or bad Karma as the cause, and its retribution as the effect, in the three existences (of the past, the present, and the future). That is, one who commits the tenfold sin[FN#324] must be reborn after death in hell, when these sins are of the highest grade;[FN#325] among Pretas,[FN#326] when of the middle grade; and among animals, when of the lowest grade. [FN#324] (1) Taking life, (2) theft, (3) adultery, (4) lying, (5) exaggeration, (6) abuse, (7) ambiguous talk, (8) coveting, (9) malice, (10) unbelief. [FN#325]
”
”
Kaiten Nukariya (The Religion of the Samurai A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan)
“
1. The Doctrine for Men and Devas. The Buddha, to meet temporarily the spiritual needs of the uninitiated, preached a doctrine concerning good or bad Karma as the cause, and its retribution as the effect, in the three existences (of the past, the present, and the future). That is, one who commits the tenfold sin[FN#324] must be reborn after death in hell, when these sins are of the highest grade;[FN#325] among Pretas,[FN#326] when of the middle grade; and among animals, when of the lowest grade. [FN#324] (1) Taking life, (2) theft, (3) adultery, (4) lying, (5) exaggeration, (6) abuse, (7) ambiguous talk, (8) coveting, (9) malice, (10) unbelief. [FN#325] There are three grades in each of the tenfold sin. For instance, the taking of the life of a Buddha, or of a sage, or of a parent, etc., is of the highest grade; while to kill fellow-men is of the middle; and to kill beasts and birds, etc., is of the lowest. Again, to kill any being with pleasure is of the highest grade; while to repent after killing is of the middle; and killing by mistake is of the lowest.
”
”
Kaiten Nukariya (The Religion of the Samurai A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan)
“
I started swinging. It wasn’t animal abuse. They were dead already.
”
”
Margaret Killjoy (The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (Danielle Cain, #1))
“
Animal violence. Child abuse. The devil made me do it. Senseless blood-spatter. Torture porn. These things can incite powerful reader response – but it isn’t the kind of response I want.
”
”
Alistair Cross
“
Only an animal visibly damages its mate.
”
”
C.E. Morgan (The Sport of Kings)
“
The joy of Loretta’s homecoming was overshadowed by Henry’s rage. Friends with a murderin’ savage, was she? A Comanche slut, that’s what, kissin’ on him in broad daylight, comin’ home to shame them all with her Injun horse and heathen necklace. His land looked like a bloomin’ pincushion with all them heathen lances pokin’ up. He was gonna get shut of ’em, just like he had those horses. Half of ’em stole from white folks! Some trade that was! Loretta listened to his tirade in stony silence.
When he wound down she said, “Are you quite finished?”
“No, I ain’t!” He leveled a finger at her. “Just you understand this, young lady. If that bastard planted his seed in that belly of yours, it’ll be hell to pay. The second you throw an Injun brat, I’ll bash its head on a rock!”
Loretta flinched. “And we call them animals?”
Henry backhanded her, catching her on the cheek with stunning force. Loretta reeled and grabbed the table to keep from falling. Rachel screamed and threw herself between them. Amy’s muffled sobs could be heard coming up through the floor.
“For the love of God, Henry, please…” Rachel wrung her hands in her apron. “Get a hold on your temper.”
Henry swept Rachel aside. Leveling a finger at Loretta again, he snarled, “Don’t you sass me, girl, or I’ll tan your hide till next Sunday. You’ll show respect, by gawd.”
Loretta pressed her fingers to her jaw, staring at him. Respect? Suddenly it struck her as hysterically funny. She had been captured by savages and dragged halfway across Texas. Never once, not even when he had just cause, had Hunter hit her with enough force to hurt her, and never in the face. She’d had to come home to receive that kind of abuse. She sank onto the planked bench and started to laugh, a high-pitched, half-mad laughter. Aunt Rachel crossed herself, and that only made her laugh harder.
Henry stormed outside to get “those dad-blamed Indian lances” pulled up before a passing neighbor spied them and started calling them Injun lovers. Loretta laughed harder yet. Maybe she had gone mad. Stark, raving mad.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
You sure are a purty thing,” he murmured, his voice husky. “I bet that buck of yours’ll be hot on our trail to git you back. That is if he ain’t dead.”
The stench of the man’s body filmed the lining of Loretta’s nostrils. She hated the contemplative look on his face. If she admitted she was married to a Comanche, he would consider her fair game and use her himself. His men would follow suit with Amy. The thought made Loretta’s stomach roll. She was a woman grown, married to a wonderful man who had given her dozens of beautiful memories. No matter what these animals did to her, she’d survive. Amy might not.
“I don’t have a buck who’ll come after me, so you needn’t worry,” she replied evenly. “Luckily, you and your men arrived in the nick of time.”
He ran his gaze over her Indian clothing. “You’re lyin’, sweet thing. What’sa matter? You afraid I’ll get too friendly if I find out you’ve been pleasurin’ Comanches?”
Struggling to stay calm, she said, “You’re a smart man. I heard you and your men talking. You were hired to rescue captives, not abuse them. Touch one of us, and it’ll be the mistake of your life. We haven’t been pleasuring anyone. And if we end up pleasuring you, I guarantee you’ll hang for it.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
Coert raised a brow. “Threatening criminal charges against asshole animal abusers is being paternal?” “Taking care of your baby, no matter what form she comes in, even if she’s covered in fur . . . yes, it absolutely is.
”
”
Kristen Ashley (The Time in Between (Magdalene, #3))
“
There is no kind way to rip the skin off animals' backs. Anyone who wears any fur shares the blame for the torture and gruesome deaths of millions of animals each year.
”
”
Natalie Imbruglia
“
Lady,” he said in greeting. “Lord Prince,” she said quietly. He leaned there for a moment, gaze tilted upward, and Fire wondered if this was to be the extent of their conversation. “Your horse is named Small,” he said finally, startling her with the randomness of it. “Yes.” “Mine is named Big.” And now Fire was smiling. “The black mare? Is she very big?” “Not to my eyes,” Brigan said, “but I did not name her.” Fire remembered the source of Small’s name. Indeed, she could never forget the man Cansrel had abused for her sake. “An animal smuggler gave Small his name. A brutish man called Cutter. He thought any horse that didn’t respond well to flogging was small-minded.” “Ah. Cutter,” Brigan said, as if he knew the man; which, after all, should not be surprising, as Cansrel and Nax had probably shared suppliers. “Well, I’ve seen what your horse is capable of. Obviously he’s not small-minded.
”
”
Kristin Cashore (Fire)
“
Dame Nature, as the learned show,Provides each animal its foe;Hounds hunt the hare, the wily foxDevours your geese, the wolf your flocks.Thus envy pleads a natural claim,To persecute the muse’s fame,On poets in all times abusive,From Homer down to Pope inclusive.Swift’sMiscellanies.2. Containing
”
”
Samuel Johnson (A Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged in Two Volumes), Volume One)
“
Progressive identity politics ignores basic human realities. If you live authentically as yourself there will be repercussions. Not everyone will like you. Some people may even want you dead. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Man is the cruelest animal.” This is a fact of life and it is not changed by all the abuse and harassment policies in all of Silicon Valley. Progressives will never understand this. Identity
”
”
Milo Yiannopoulos (Dangerous)
“
Very few animals abuse their desires - it is left for some men to do so.
”
”
William Walker Atkinson (Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism)
“
Lithuanian citizens are the rudest and most animalistic I have ever seen in Europe. They have no moral, no values, and no manners. They are always starring at others, judging with their eyes of ignorance and their very small conscience, they are very rude, they are impolite wherever you go, and their customer service is horrible. They never say sorry for anything and even offend you when you complain about their mistakes and lack of proper attitude. Besides, eating in Lithuania is a huge disaster. Food is often rotten, and commonly comes with either hair, stones of even glass, as I have found many times. These people should be ashamed to be part of Europe and be removed from the European Union. They waste money as I have never seen anywhere else and are very abusive in prices. Their prices are high but their quality level is not even suitable for animals. They represent a waste on foreign investments. Their youngest generation is also a disaster: Extremely ignorant, without any respect or education, they deserve to be unemployed and starve to death. Nobody in his right mind should ever employ a Lithuanian, marry a Lithuanian or be friend with a Lithuanian. Lithuanias are always trying to use their friendships to take advantage of others, especially if such people are outsiders. Lithuanian women are gold diggers and extremely promiscuous, especially towards men of other cultures, as if their pride was built on the number of sex partners they can have from the widest variety of nations from around the globe, especially if such men are wealthy. Nevertheless, Lithuanians are also extremely racist and ignorant about the planet they live in. They are selfish, sadistic and parasitic. Probably the same could be said about all baltic countries, namely, Latvia, but for now, it is suffice to say this statement is an undoubted fact for the country in analysis. If Latvian and Lithuanian sovereignty ever end within this generation due to major unemployment, massacres and civil wars, and the vast majority of its people perish, I would say Divine justice has been made on both nations.
”
”
Robin Sacredfire
“
There is a word in Newspeak,” said Syme. “I don’t know whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.
”
”
George Orwell (Animal Farm and 1984)
“
In some countries that I have visited, I saw that citizens are very rude and animalistic. They have no moral, no values, and no manners. They are always starring at others, judging with their eyes of ignorance and their very small conscience, they are impolite wherever you go, and their customer service is horrible. They never say sorry for anything and even offend you when you complain about their mistakes and lack of proper attitude. Besides, eating in some of these nations often reveals to be a huge disaster. Food is often rotten, and commonly comes with either hair, stones of even glass, as I have found many times. They waste money as I have never seen anywhere else and are simultaneously very abusive in prices. Their prices are high but their quality level is not even suitable for animals. They represent a waste on foreign investments. Their youngest generation is also a disaster; Extremely ignorant, without any respect or education, undeserving of any job or even trust. Nobody in his right mind should ever employ them, marry them or befriend them. Most are always trying to use their friendships to take advantage of others, especially if such people are outsiders. Their women are gold diggers and extremely promiscuous, especially towards men of other cultures, as if their pride was built on the number of sex partners they can have from the widest variety of nations from around the globe, especially if such men are wealthy. And yet, they can also show a high predisposition for racist behaviors and ignorance in what regards the planet they live in. They are, foremost, selfish, sadistic and parasitic. These countries and their people represent the lowest level of mankind. Whenever you witness what I just described, you are experiencing a country reaching its end. Move out of it while you can, for God will set on such people Divine justice as quickly as such citizens, by their immoral behavior, approach it. Many of such countries end with the loss of their sovereignty for political reasons, invasions by foreign armies, civil wars, violent revolutions, major economical collapses leading the citizens to poverty and starvation, and much more.
”
”
Robin Sacredfire