Welcome to Diaspora* - the online social world where you are in control..
If you look at social media for what it is & not what we purport it to be, it's much easier to accept an agenda-riddled narrative. The facts are presented as THE objective truth & almost always appeal to a version of morality apposite with the mainstream culture of the consumptive user ie: the reader or the viewer. These are always engineered versions of the founding facts or again, if you prefer, simple subjective assaults on the truth to validate an argument or a response; violent or otherwise.
The Natural World dominates my social media feed; a feed custom-made for the purpose of entrenching my version of reality & it's precisely this subjective reality which compounds susceptibility to engineered versions of the founding facts. It's emotive currency & almost always exploitable -
The Faroese & the Japanese haveexploited harvested cetaceans for generations. In the Faroe Islands locals justify their grindadrap ('The Grind' ie: the annual, sustainable utilisation of Pilot Whales) in tradition or in cultural heritage. The socio-economic benefits are 'clear..' & the distributed meat feeds (1st-world) people largely reliant on the seas for sustenance... In Taiji Japanese whalers herd a plethora of dolphin / porpoise species [per quota] into coves & harvest the lot, mostly for the table, although to be fair some do end up in captivity..
We Some of us berate the Chinese / Vietnamese for their obsessive animal-product demands, a consumptive abhorrence* based on ignorance an inherited tradition & yet so many dissenting voices wear diamonds on their gnarly digits; mere stones & assigned an impossible / improbable value - another equally ignorant inherited tradition. You could argue that stones don't suffer the slaughter & that's true specific to the stones but perhaps not as true for the child-slave in the pit.
When tradition or culture perpetuates the inhumane exploitation of free-roaming species then it is incumbent on each & every one of us, men & women, to live up to the very highest standards dictated by conscience; an obligation or compass if you like without which we cannot claim custody of good & evil. When the left is pitted against the right & the Shepherds blockade tradition we, the literate / fence-hugging, undecided many sit in truthful judgement; a judgement of conscience rather than of subjective interpretation.
Humanity finds itself at a moral crossroad & as individuals, on a macro level, we have to concede that doing nothing is simply a contradiction of our own humanity.
If you look at social media for what it is & not what we purport it to be, it's much easier to accept an agenda-riddled narrative. The facts are presented as THE objective truth & almost always appeal to a version of morality apposite with the mainstream culture of the consumptive user ie: the reader or the viewer. These are always engineered versions of the founding facts or again, if you prefer, simple subjective assaults on the truth to validate an argument or a response; violent or otherwise.
The Natural World dominates my social media feed; a feed custom-made for the purpose of entrenching my version of reality & it's precisely this subjective reality which compounds susceptibility to engineered versions of the founding facts. It's emotive currency & almost always exploitable -
- Cetaceans ie: whales, porpoises & dolphins feature prominently in my social media feed. [Fact]
- Cetaceans are marine mammals; not fish. [Fact] I've been to Sea World; a proactive institution if ever there was... No? (The movie 'Blackfish' highlights Killer Whales turned killer (there's a shock) from confinement in tanks too small for purposes of recreational / financial exploitation. [Simply appalling.])
- Cetaceans are eaten, by people. [Fact; at least as far as I can tell.] I've never actually eaten one nor seen anyone do so myself.
- Cetaceans are intelligent, sentient beings. [One of my own presupposed / founding facts]
- Cetaceans are brutally butchered in acts of violence so abhorrent that the very fabric of morality screams bloody murder. [A subjective fact.]
- Cetaceans murdered in the Faroes [Denmark administered] & in Taiji [Japan] is a poke in the eye of good people everywhere.. [An emotive conclusion to a subjective fact - & certainly for the individuals either butchered / to be butchered]
The Faroese & the Japanese have
When tradition or culture perpetuates the inhumane exploitation of free-roaming species then it is incumbent on each & every one of us, men & women, to live up to the very highest standards dictated by conscience; an obligation or compass if you like without which we cannot claim custody of good & evil. When the left is pitted against the right & the Shepherds blockade tradition we, the literate / fence-hugging, undecided many sit in truthful judgement; a judgement of conscience rather than of subjective interpretation.
Humanity finds itself at a moral crossroad & as individuals, on a macro level, we have to concede that doing nothing is simply a contradiction of our own humanity.
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