Various morbid ponderings (was Meat Processing)

[Amanda Lewanski]

Scott wrote:

> --Ok Amanda I can respect that, but honestly it is sickening just to
> think about how meat is produced. Bleah! :-(

It's been a source of many interesting discussions betwixt my husband
and me, how modern attitudes toward both eating meat and death have been
influenced by the fact that insulation from the realities of both is,
more often than not, the norm. I'm not trying to tweak vegetarians at
all, but I consider all life is precious, and I've quite honestly never
understood why breeding specific varieties of plants, planting, and
harvesting them for the specific purpose of eating them is any different
from doing so with animals. I sort of figured it's because it's a
different enough form of life from animal, with no blood and no obvious
pain response. I also think that if you're not real familiar with
butchering, then you're free to imagine things that are lots worse than
it really is (sort of like the best erotica involves clothes and the
imagination).

As for death, I will always applaud my mother, who took me at age four
to my brother's funeral, and lifted me up to see into the casket. He
died of leukemia, and we all knew what was going on. If I had not been
allowed that closure, had not had it explained to me ("the part that was
Kelley, that laughed and sang, is gone, this is just the shell, like a
locust shell"), Kelley would have just "disappeared." Infinitely more
frightening to a four-year-old--what if it happens to me? Where did he
go? Etc. The visual and the participation is vital at that age, but so
many people "don't like funerals" or "they're not the place for
children." On the contrary, weddings and funerals are two of the *most*
important places for children.

Up until the very recent past, it was the family that prepared the body
for burial, the family that made all the arrangements. Hard as it is, I
still think that such involvement is necessary for the psyche to come to
grips with what's happened. And again, that "unknown," out there to
imagine about, makes it even worse.

And a book plug--for the stout-hearted--"The American Way of Death" by
Jessica somebody. Covers how the funeral industry has sort of stealthily
gotten control of all the facets of death and burial and preparation and
such over about the past century, in the process charging exorbitant
fees. Very, very, very interesting reading. I now will NOT have an open
casket, under any circumstances.

> Then again I am a vegetarian and even though I made that choice for
> namely health reasons the moral issue of eating a living creature also
> came into play.

*ahem.* I eat *dead* creatures. <g>

--Amanda
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://archive.hpfgu.org/pipermail/hpfgu-otchatter/attachments/20010417/d1c112d5/attachment.html>