PDA

View Full Version : A posting I made on my college Psychology Board


Delicious
04-05-2006, 08:48 AM
In my Psychology class on "Learning" we are discussing "Taste Aversions". I responded to the below quote as follows and will post when I hear the responses I get:

My classmate:

"2) Taste Aversion:

I was raised on a farm. When I was twelve years old, my mother made me go out and catch a duck for dinner. She made me slit its throat and dunk it in the hot boiling water before plucking its skin. I cried the whole time. That night we had duck soup. I protested and refused to eat the soup. My mother was very angry with me and made me tasted it. I gagged and vomited. After that, I refused to eat duck. My mother said, that after that event, she too stopped killing our ducks. Now we have too many on the farm. "


My response:

Thank you for sharing. I grew up in an area of National City that was zoned for farming and woke to the sound of pigs throats being slit on many a morning prior to Quinceneras, birthdays and weddings;there is no sound on earth like the screams they make and no sight like seeing them hung upside down, the blood dripping from thier throats as they struggle to keep breathing. It's so sad how people selfishly use and abuse animals.

I am interested in knowing if you had seen animals killed before or had participated in that act and if this event inspired you to become a vegetarian or just avoid consuming that particular animal. I also am curious as to what other changes-if any- your mother made besides avoiding killing and eating ducks.

I find that most people don't think about the fact that a living, breathing being is slaughtered to make the "burger" or "fillet" they so enjoy. I doubt as many people would eat animals if they had to murder them directly themselves.

It takes a special kind of denial, a disconnect and a form of cognitive dissonance occurs to "allow" most people to continue doing something they innately feel is wrong, gross or sad such as killing another living creature just to satisfy thier desire for the taste of flesh.

When it has been scientifically proven that humans do not need to eat animals in order to survive and thrive and when we live in a country such as the USA where we have an overabundance of healthy, affordable, ecologically sound and ethically superior choices available as food sources it really seems crazy to me that people continue to come from a place of cognitive dissonance and refuse to make rational, informed choices about such issues once they are made aware of the facts about the animal industry in realtion to health, ecology, ethics and even Spirituality.

This is an area of Psychology I am continually exploring and intend to keep at it as I find it both puzzling and fascinating

Bowwowmeow
04-05-2006, 08:33 PM
How interesting Delicious! I look forward to reading the answer. I like how you presented yourself in your posting, too, very non-judgemental, but still being true to your vegan way of seeing the killing of animals for food.
:nanakiss:
I cannot express how grateful I am to never have killed an animal or been near a place where so many die every day. :(:(:(

Oracl
04-06-2006, 05:14 AM
Yes, excellent, thoughtful response, Delicious. :thumbsup:

I await the replies with interest. :rubchin:

thevegantwins
04-06-2006, 01:23 PM
[FONT=Papyrus][SIZE=3]How interesting Delicious! I look forward to reading the answer. I like how you presented yourself in your posting, too, very non-judgemental, but still being true to your vegan way of seeing the killing of animals for food.
:nanakiss:

:agree: Agree!

I cannot express how grateful I am to never have killed an animal or been near a place where so many die every day. :(:(:(
I did kill insects on occasion before I went vegan which I still regret and accidentally ran over a bird and a rodent (possum or mole) years ago but I am grateful that going vegan has shown me how sacred all life is, from a tiny insect to an enormous elephant and I do my best to avoid taking any lives.

Bowwowmeow
04-06-2006, 05:12 PM
:agree: Agree!

I did kill insects on occasion before I went vegan which I still regret and accidentally ran over a bird and a rodent (possum or mole) years ago but I am grateful that going vegan has shown me how sacred all life is, from a tiny insect to an enormous elephant and I do my best to avoid taking any lives.
Well, I have killed fleas and ticks, but I guess I feel differently about that since they are in a sense "attacking" the animals they get on, and I can't see whether they are suffering, so there isn't the emotional trauma there for me. I am not happy about doing it, but I find feeling compassion for true parasites a challenge. If it were possible to remove them from an animal and keep them off without killing them I would do it, but there really are no good repellants for serious flea problems, and in California, we have serious fleas! There is a major street in San Mateo county called Alameda de las Pulgas, which is Spanish for Flea Road!

Rainbow
04-07-2006, 08:45 AM
Let's just hope that you don't a blank response. :rubchin:
People hate being challenged out from their comfort zones - I know! (I'm embedded in mine!!! :laugh: )

Delicious
04-08-2006, 08:37 AM
Well, only the OP responded and she actually wasn't rude or defensive at all...Several people have spoken up about thier horrifying "animals they play with being served as food" stories and yet not a ONE of them is a vegetarian! Also, no one has made any comments on the "cognitive dissonance" thing, even the INSTRUCTOR!!! I am not suprised;Their denial runs deep :(

Here is the one direct response I received from the original person posting:

"Brande,

No I do not have an aversion to any other food. I am not a vegeterian, just lactos intolerance. But I do prefer to eat more vegetables and fish. As a small child I lived in the Orients, people there do slaughter there own animals, which, I did not participate in nor watched. The villagers are mainly farmers and fishermans, we do not have cows or dairies. Pigs and other animals were reserve for special occassions. I believe what really affected me was the fact that I raised those ducks from an egg, watched them grow and played with them. It is also a passage into womenhood that my mother wanted to teach me to be able to prepare the animal for food. It is every womens job. I convinced her that we are not back in the old country but the US, if we needed meat we just go to the store. It is true, we can eat meat that is store bought without having a conscience of ever having to slaughter it.

If I didn't have to cook for my husband the American traditional meals of meat and potatoes. I would not be eating red meat. Mostly fish."

Fauxmage
04-08-2006, 11:32 AM
That makes me very sad to read that Delicious. :(:(:(

I think it is a condition very similar to racism. To know and raise and love a duck, but not to extend this consideration to all other animals, is like knowing and raising and loving your own children, but not extending this to children of other races. HOW do people get this way??? How is it that some are not like this? To me as a small child it was intuitive that to love one animal meant to love all of them, whether I knew them personally or not, and to discover that some were being killed and eaten while others were lucky enough to be loved as family members was so utterly wrong. But this lady sounds like she has given up her power to her husband and her culture, and can no longer think for herself. How sad that she has the potential for compassion, but it is being stifled into near non-existence.
:(:(:(

Rainbow
04-08-2006, 03:29 PM
This kind of multi-tier system of placing value on sentients life exists throughout the globe!
Today I discovered someone had been jailed for several years for cruelly treating a neighbours dog. I was told about this by someone:female: who felt people who did things like this to animals should be treated in the same way as those who do them to humans.
(:female: eats animals and doesn't worry about what goes on inside viv labs.:sigh: )

Oracl
04-08-2006, 11:26 PM
Someone at my workplace has told me how much she loves pigs. :pface: She has pig pictures at home and pig ornaments and pig toys. :pface: :pface: :pface:

But, yes, you've guessed it, she still eats pig flesh regularly. :( When I queried this amazing fact (well it was amazing to me anyway :confused: ) she just laughed and called me extreme and then didn't want to talk about it. :dark:

My brain hurts! :dizzy:

Rainbow
04-13-2006, 04:15 AM
Someone at my workplace has told me how much she loves pigs. :pface: She has pig pictures at home and pig ornaments and pig toys. :pface: :pface: :pface:

But, yes, you've guessed it, she still eats pig flesh regularly. :( When I queried this amazing fact (well it was amazing to me anyway :confused: ) she just laughed and called me extreme and then didn't want to talk about it. :dark:

My brain hurts! :dizzy:
These people belong in a different time zone!

Oracl
04-13-2006, 09:40 PM
These people belong in a different time zone!
:agree: :rolleyes: