Michael Kirby on vegetarianism
I love meat. I love the smell of it, the taste of it and the sense of satisfaction that comes from devouring a steak.
As a result, I have kept my eyes firmly shut to any hint of moral objection that might come with being an omnivore.
There are a couple of things that have prompted my thoughts on vegetarianism more recently, forcing me to question my meat consumption..or at the very least to consider reducing its blind intake.
Former High Court judge, Justice Michael Kirby, is a late converter to vegetarianism and discussed his recent journey away from meat at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
His rationale for becoming vegetarian - like most vegetarians I would imagine - is based on the premise that animals are sentient yet voiceless beings, who suffer greatly in the corporatised global trade of animal farming, transport, slaughter, marketing and eating:
"...I was distressed at my earlier indifference and indirect participation in a huge industry of corporatised killing of sentient creatures. ...Yet we have come, as a society, from large-scale legal indifference to animal welfare to an expanding concern, especially from mammals and the higher forms of animal life.
Animal welfare law has been introduced in a journey that commenced with protection for companion animals; spread to a prohibition on senseless cruelty in sporting, circus and entertainment animals, and more recently has extended to the treatment of farm, exported and wild animals, and those in corporations and laboratories subjected to testing for human protection." ("Sense and sensibility about our fellow sentient creatures", Michael Kirby, SMH, August 2010)
"...If the human brain historically expanded because humans became carnivores, consuming cooked meat around the village camp fire that encouraged social life among our forebears, why should we turn our backs on these existential developments of our species that made us who and what we are?
The answer to that perfectly reasonable question is this. The ingestion of so much protein and the expansion of our human brain has produced a creature with a heightened capacity of moral reasoning.
In my lifetime, that moral reasoning has helped us to express and uphold the standards of universal human rights." ("Animals deserve our protection", Michael Kirby, The Australian, October 2011).
By no means a convert yet. But I do believe in sustainable produce and living. How I feel about animal cruelty requires more discussion and research into the actual slaughtering process. Maybe I'll start with Meatless Mondays for now.
