Meat is the essential ingredient of human diet. Today, it has become an object of hatred from many sides. All kinds of ecologist movements treat its consumption as an almost absolute evil. Struggling for their absurd utopia, they stop at nothing.
Non-meat eaters have existed for a long time. They have been called vegetarians. Today, however, vegetarianism is often more than just a harmless preference or, as some say, eccentricity. Sometimes it involves a real furor teutonicus – a wild rage aimed against hunters, meat companies or butchers.
Wesprzyj nas już teraz!
The butcher has been traditionally associated with a dark and brutal figure. In modern times, however, he has become a target for attacks. At the end of March 2018, a vegan activist almost praised Islamists’ murder of a butcher in a supermarket in Trèbes.
He said that the butcher “got what he deserved” and called his murder “justice”. Moreover, in April 2018, seven butchers’ shops in the Hauts-de Seine department of Paris were painted red (Bogdan Dobosz wrote about this in our magazine in July 2018).
KFC as an absolute evil
In the last few years, the main object of animal defenders’ hatred was KFC. The campaign against KFC was launched by the PETA organisation and joined by a number of stars, including Sir Paul McCartney and “venerable” Al Sharpton. Its advocates posted horrifying descriptions of what KFC does with chicken on kentuckyfriedcruelty.com. They also encouraged readers to become vegans. The company was even called the world’s biggest “factory of suffering”. Could we count on the same compassion in the case of the protection of unborn life?
Radical veganism in Poland
The extreme form of ecologism is also present in Poland. After all, in 2018, the film Pokot [Spoor] hit cinemas. It depicted hunters as drunkards who torment their families and love killing animals. And, worse still, they go to church. This is not surprising – as in the butcher’s case, the hunter is the real bête noire of ecologists.
The latter specialise in making hunters’ life miserable also during huntings. Joanna Podgórska describes one of such actions in Polityka. A group of activists made huntings impossible in Poznań by blocking hunters’ positions. Their action was successful, as hunters are not allowed to shoot in the presence of bystanders. Similar actions were organised in other cities, too.
The television reports that ecologists even resort to standing in the line of fire. That would be admirable if human life were protected. In the case of animals, such behaviour is at least strange. Moreover, one of the hunters said in the “Alarm!” magazine on TVP1 that she had fallen victim to threats and false accusations by ecologists.
In January 2019, ecologism became a mainstream topic on the occasion of hysteria around wild boar shooting plans. The romantic care of animals became more important than a rational debate. The matter was politicised and ideologised to the limits of absurdity. The leading mainstream politicians also began to use ecologists’ language. However, this propaganda campaign was brought to a grinding halt by the European Union, which announced its support of wild boar shooting plans.
Extreme vegetarianism vs. religion
Showing mercy for animals is often a consequence of sentimentalism that reaches the limits of absurdity. Rational reflections do not come into play here. Some of the activists or ordinary opponents of meat eating do not seek a deeper ideological foundation for their views.
It is, however, worth noting that radical vegetarianism often involves an ideology that is an almost clear contradiction of the Christian perception of the world. According to the latter, the universe consists of a hierarchically ordered great chain of beings. The supreme being is God; next are angels, people, animals, plants and inanimate beings. The radical difference between the human being and the animal justifies the use of the latter for the good of the former.
The situation changes when we replace the transcendent Christian God with the pantheistic God. Pantheism means that the whole universe is identified with God. In other words, all beings are regarded as a part of God. In this way, everything becomes equally sacred, and the animal is not less sacred than the human being. Thus, killing an animal appears to be a crime.
Of course, not every vegetarian is a pantheist, but the consistency between these two ideas is not accidental. As Rev. Andrzej Zwoliński notices in his book Wielkie Religie Wschodu [Great Eastern Religions] (opoka.org.pl), “as a consequence of rejecting Christianity, vegetarianism sought religious justification in various Eastern proposals. The pantheism of Eastern thought could be used easily for creating a religious clarification for vegetarian practices. The fashion for Eastern thought among young people, the rapid development of sects with an oriental background, the contestation of the Latin civilisation and relevantly targeted “ecological” campaigns with strong political overtones made it easier for vegetarianism to develop.
The need to reduce the growth of human population in the name of the good of animals (and biodiversity) can be found, for example, in the programme of the Association Workshop for All Beings.
As we can read in the “8 Principles of Deep Ecology” by George Sessions and Arne Naess, “the well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman Life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.” (pracownia.org.pl)
In the same document, we can read that “the flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.” It also states that “Policies must (…) be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.” Does that mean striving for the return of humanity to tribal life in small groups deprived of the benefits of civilisation? Such “tribal” possibility was predicted by the Brazilian thinker Plinio Correa de Oliveira.
Whatever may happen, we can see clearly today that animals are put above humans in the name of ecology, and the latter are insulted; there are even straightforward suggestions that the world’s population should be reduced. One French politician made a plea to his compatriots to stop reproduction in order to make room… for immigrants. Radical ecologists want people to stop reproducing themselves to leave room for animals. The motto of the Second Report of the Club of Rome (published in 1976) says: “The world has cancer, and this cancer is man.”
Marcin Jendrzejczak
