Quote:
Originally Posted by
bethanie 
it was in a book in this new-agey bookshop...but I found it profound. The statement I read was, "What if the secret was not to try to change the world, but to learn to love the world instead."
I think that it is quite absurd to think that's it's a good thing to try to learn to "love the world" no matter what the world is like. Bethanie, what if the world was filled with people who happened to despise people or your race and that, because of your race, you got beaten to a bloody pulp on a regular basis and were told that you were going to get tortured to death before you reached age a certain age? Would this still be a world that you would want to learn to "love"? Would you think about how much you love the world as you are getting severely beaten and think how you love the people who are beating on you (after all, they are just part of the world)? Would you think that the secret is "not to try to change the world". I can't imagine how anyone could think they would.
And what if it wasn't you that was getting beaten regularily but it was people of a different race? Would you then think that it's good to love the world while they get beaten and tortured? I definitely hope not. I think that a sensible person who cares about others would not love a world like this and would try hard to change the world. And in this world, there billions of animals that are killed every year (and forced to live in torturesome conditions) and if people care about the lives of these innocent animals and realize that they should be allowed to live good lives, then it's natural to not love the world (at least the aspects of the world that cause these animals to suffer) and it's natural to then try to change the world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
pepper_pig
I just feel that no matter what we do it just isn't going to end, I'm not saying that I will go back to eating animals or buying stuff tested on animals but I feel so in the minority. I can't even get my husband to understand. The 'world' it seems to me is fixed in its cruel and selfish ways and it really upsets me. Anyone else feel the same way?
Pepper_pig, major forms of animal exploitation won't end overnight just as slavery didn't end overnight but there could still be a day when the majority of people in the world believe that many kinds of animals deserve good treatment. Every year, there are more people who are becoming concerned about animal rights and the number of people could grow faster if people support organizations that discover really good ways of getting animal rights ideas out to people. There are some people who simply are unwilling to listen to ideas about animal rights, so I think people should just focus their efforts on trying to get ideas out to people who are often more open to listening to ideas about animal rights (like young people). Your husband may not be willing to listen to certain ideas about animal rights, but he's just one person, and he may change at some later time or he may encounter some arguments at some later time that make more sense to him.
I find it frustrating that the animal rights movement is growing so slowly at this point in time and I think there could be many things done to help make it grow faster, but at least it is growing and there is no reason to believe that there will never be a day when the majority of people in the world believe that animals deserve good treatment. This day may not occur in our lifetime, but the important thing is that people try to work in ways that are effective to get more and more people concerned about animal rights, and then this will make it easier for this day to occur at some point.
Pepper_pig, if you're upset that there is lots of animal exploitation that goes on in the world, then I think you should try to not let yourself get really depressed about this but instead you should try to use your upsetness as a motivator for getting involved supporting animal rights organizations through volunteer work, donations or something else. Trying to earn some extra money to donate to organizations for activist campaigns is one straight-forward way to support animal rights organizations so perhaps this is something that could work for you if you decide you want to support some animal rights organizations. I think that getting involved with helping the animal rights movement grow is a good way to deal with upsetness about having all sorts of animal exploitation occuring in the world, since most people feel better about actually working in effective ways to stop things that they think are wrong, instead of just sitting back and feeling helpless in watching the things happen.
The world is definitely changing and more and more people are working to stop animal exploitation and doing things like not eating animal products in order to avoid supporting animal exploitation, so the world is not fixed regarding the issue of animal rights. The animal rights movement is growing slowly at this time, but it could grow faster in the future and it still is possible for there to be enough people at some point so that major forms of animal exploitation (like killing animals for food) are made illegal. There are plenty of different things to try out with animal rights activist work, so it's a matter of figuring out some things that work really well and this will help the animal rights movement grow faster.
