Okay, time to complete my account of a great day. Let's see...

I got out of bed and went to the library. Nothing unusual there. Nothing unusual happening. This doesn't look good. A blog entry with nothing to complain, whinge, or poke fun at? Good grief, it's the end of civilisation as we know it!

The End Of Civilisation As We Know It

To confirm my misgivings I discover a news item that tells me chickens are capable of empathy. Researchers tell us they know when another chicken is feeling pain and probably feel sorry for it. Now people are claiming there are implications for farming.

Good grief people, don't you know that a supermarket is full of dead chickens? Don't you know that eating their eggs is cooking and consuming their children?

Is it just me or is political correctness getting a tad out of control? If a lion hunts and kills an antelope on the african savanna, are we to hold it guilty of murder? Now soom will already be screaming and gnashing their teeth, claiming that human beings are meant to eat nuts, berries, and all sorts of green stuff. Well, we can, if we so choose, but human beings are omnivores (especially the Chinese, who seem to eat anything for the fun of it) and the only reason our dim distant ancestors didn't rely on nuts and berries is because McMammoth's also provided lots of interesting stuff to utilise.

But of course fur coats are no longer permissible, because it's a sign of conspicuous consumption.. ooops... sorry, I meant cruelty to animals. No, let's be fair, I'm no expert on animal farming and for all I know there is a certain amount of cruelty involved. Why does that suprise us? Humans have always been a cruel species and still are.

That brings us to 'Animal Rights'. It's a peculiar attitude that we've seen in modern times, where every person or other species is supposed have inalienable rights. Actually we don't. Our rights are those our society has decided upon and made mandatory by agreement or decree. In any case, the people who shout loudest about rights are always those who insist on more than those society has provided.

What I'm getting at is there's a sort of woolly headed thinking over this issue. I don't personally believe harming an animal deliberately is in any way a good thing, but then I don't believe the issue is as black and white as some people regard it. After all, exploitation of resources is an essential survival strategy for human beings. It colours our attitudes toward food, fuel, comfortable living, all sorts of things.

But surely, I hear you cry, we now have a choice? We can choose to consume foodstuffs that don't involve physical harm. Quite so, but there's a reason why this will never change society.

Instinct. If a creature is hungry, it looks for food. If it restricts that choice, either by biological specialisation or inclination, it reduces the options available for survival. The fact that we now live in a modern world is irrelevant - we're still the same species as we always were, and those primeval instincts are still there.

Civilisation Is Saved

BFL is moaning again. If you haven't heard her whinge, I stand in awe of your deafness. But at least I now know life goes on as always.