Coldly Logical

The last post was a bit too coldly logical. To restate, my point was that people shouldn't get caught up in self-righteous histrionics, given the totality of humanity's current relationship with animals.

I had been following PETA on both Facebook and Twitter. PETA actually advocated hanging Walter Palmer. That's so over the top, I don't really know what to say. Later Ingrid Newkirk tried to walk it back. Maybe they can develop better sense and more compassion in the future, but they do not seem to have it right now. 

Tonight I'll say a prayer for Walter Palmer. I've got my hands full as it is, but I can spare a prayer for someone who's being subjected to mob hysteria. 

Cecil the Lion

I believe, with regard to the dentist and the lion:

Humaneness and kind treatment of animals arise in part from our recognition of their capacity to suffer and their capacity of conscious awareness--in other words, their human-like qualities. Killing and eating a person is more morally blameworthy than merely* killing a person, therefore, where survival does not require it, killing and eating an animal is more morally blameworthy than just killing it. 

Imagine millions of people were being killed and eaten for food in Country A. Imagine that millions of people were being killed and eaten for food in Country B. Now imagine that a man travels from Country A to Country B and murders a famous actor to acquire a trophy. Imagine further that after doing so, the populations of Country A and Country B, the overwhelming majority of whom participate in the holocaust-food genocide just described, were in an uproar over the "egregious nature of the murder" and wanted to destroy the man's business in retribution. 

That would be utterly irrational, wouldn't it?

Less self-righteousness, please. 

*The word merely is inserted as an argument building block to distinguish two levels of bad, not to diminish the wrongness of murder. 

Good vs. Evil

1. Where there are no inflexible principles, people treat one another badly because there's nothing to stop them (e.g., slavery).

2. Where there are inflexible principles, people treat one another better because they are held to standards (e.g., laws disallowing inhumane treatment of others).

2. Where there are inflexible principles, people treat one another badly, because of the inflexible principles (e.g., the European Wars of Religion).

3. Where there are inflexible principles, people treat one another badly, because the invention of good is impliedly the invention of evil. 

The moral balance sheet of monotheistic-dualistic religions is impossible to tally. 

If cosmic good and cosmic evil were real, multiple perspectives would not exist with regard to the moral dimension of events in human history, just as there are no ordinary, valid differences of perspective on physical laws, such as gravity. But perspective does exist: The same events can be regarded by different parties as immensely good, immensely bad, neither good nor bad, on a continuum between good and bad, and so forth. 

Instead of cosmic good and evil, the universe has aspects, features, qualities: Anger, Kindness, Desk, Cat, Star, Boredom, etc. This is borne out by everyday experience and science (unless you subscribe to the untalked about implicit assumption of many popular science writers that a composite thing has less metaphysical realness than its constituent elements). 

The Gods We Worship

People worship War, Conflict, Death, Misunderstanding, Passion, Demagoguery.

People don't like Concordia, Minerva, Mens, Pax.

We have no adults, neither left nor right.

Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge

I went to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. It was very different than a mountain hike. There aren't a lot of trails. As a wildlife refuge, it's nature oriented, not people oriented. The longest trail is only 1.6 miles, which I walked, out and back. There are several wildlife observation areas with wooden blinds, which are nice. The observation areas are in some of the swampiest areas of the refuge. At midday, these places were quite striking--the atmosphere, the heat, the water plants, and the bullfrog sounds. The foliage along the trail was about chest high, and the trail itself was mostly no wider than a deer track. 

Milkweed was in bloom, as well as a kind of spotted lily, and a third kind of flower that I didn't know the name of. There were also enormous cattails. I heard a cardinal. 

Hay

My father had baled up all the hay in the main field, so today was the day we set to take it in. My father is not getting any younger, and he can't really carry a bale of hay. So I piled them into the pickup truck. Then we would drive to the barn. Then I would unload and stack them. After we finished this morning, my father baled up the hay in the side fields. Altogether it was 149 bales. I think my arms are going to fall off. I also fell down getting off the truck and kind of sprained my wrist. Haha..

There was a dead catbird by the back door. I took its body up to the top of the field and laid it down in the bushes at the edge of the woods. I picked three asters and laid them by its body. I said a little prayer. Sweet little catbird. 

Butterflies

I came down a mountain once ending up in front of a dark tunnel going through a ridge, a tunnel with no sidewalk such that it would have been easy for a car to smear you against the tunnel wall; I wanted to walk through because the greenery in the bright sunlight on the far end looked alluring. A car came, and I tried to run back, but I had walked too far in, and there was no way I would make it out before the car overtook me. I prayed it wouldn't hit me, and a moment after I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by several white moths or butterflies fluttering all about me. I say moths because I think that's what they were, but they were not shabby in the way that word suggests. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Last month, getting onboard my connecting train through the narrow train door, I had been feeling kind of like my stress was too much. There were dozens of people on the platform getting on, too, and as many people already in their seats inside the railroad car. As I plopped down in my seat, with all those people in all that enclosed, air-conditioned space, a white moth flew over and fluttered around my seat, finally settling on the seatback in front of me. I think this is also a coincidence.

This week, also feeling stressed out, while walking through the middle of Penn Station, inside and underground, in the middle of New York City, a dark butterfly fluttered directly in front of me, inches from me. 

Today while driving home, a butterfly flew directly in front of the truck. 

If you look for signs, you will find what fits your preconceptions. Still, these felt otherworldly, in an indeterminate way.