To Serve Man

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a laudable mission statement signed in 1948. It’s a worthy list of inalienable rights. Unfortunately they are self-ordained by a single self-admiring specie for a self-admiring specie.  There were two billion humans alive in 1948, there were 7.6 billion by 2018. At least 70 billion animals who do not qualify for human rights will become “what’s for dinner” and other consumer products by this time next year.

http-::www.cartoonistgroup.com:properties:bizarro:art_images:cg50a3d418f0ac2

Universal rights? No. Membership is limited to just one specie.

Inalienable rights? No. I can violate them each and every day, with or without impunity. At a supermarket for example.

Can you name any species as selfish, self-serving, arrogant and violent? Humans excel at both inter- and intra- species exploitation. They are toolmakers who waste no time weaponizing every clever invention they devise into a long list of engineering marvels — to serve man. Damon Knight’s story is also set at the UN and is also a curious take on human rights.

Galaxy_195011

Humans domesticate every creature on this planet: inter- and intra- as well. They are toolmakers who can transmit their will at the speed of light, who recreate by watching blood sports and who domesticate their domestic realms with domestic violence. Do I hint at patriarchy here? Yes, it’s by design and by inheritance. How many matriarchal societies can you inscribe on the head of a pin?

Look at the Elephant in the Room as it looks back at you. The eyes have it.

theres.an.elephant.in.the.room

Built-in optical systems for locating sustenance and for detecting danger are not trivial physical characteristics. Eyes are something that homo sapiens have in common with other sentient beings who developed them during the Cambrian — about half a billion years ago.

we.dont.serve.your.kind.here

Creatures with eyes possess an astonishingly complex central nervous system that channels cognition to intention. Sentient creatures share a long list of extraordinarily similar organs, systems that pump lifeblood from the heart to each organ and back again — sentient beings possess extraordinarily similar oxygen-breathing mechanisms and waste elimination processes. Glance at the corresponding organs found in pig and in man.

If this all sounds a bit like a rant, initiating a discomfiting mood, I provide the following bit of reading material that contains much more “conventional wisdom” on the state of bacon in contemporary American thought on comfort food:

Where bacon comes from on a pig

for.sheer.horror.thanksgiving

Here is where I found the Dan Piraro (fellow vegan) cartoons. You may also wish to visit Dan’s website, Bizarro dot com

Thanks for reading.

Author: Bill Ziegler

I am a former resident of Delhi Township. These are memories of my life and times in that community during the 1950s and 1960s. A time capsule.

10 thoughts on “To Serve Man”

  2. There is definitely truth in your article and for that reason I am a vegetarian. Then you moved into your addicted territory of walls and strangers and of course Palestinians. There are different types of walls – those that keep people in and those that keep people out. That sad incident in Munich is why we Israelis have walls to keep those people educated at UNRWA hate schools keep the sin alive. In America they seem to have endless school shootings where people die. People have walls around their homes Obama included and I assume most people sadly lock their doors to keep out the stranger. Once it wasn’t like that and in Israel hardly anybody locked their front door – our lock was broken and there was no reason to get it fixed. We have come along a very interesting road as humans but people are not only killing animals they are killing people as well. Israel borders the sea and multiple Arab countries many of them have turned into killing fields with Turkey, Lebanon and Russia part of the killing machine in Syria. Before we can stop people killing animals we will have to first learn to stop killing each other.
    Mikel

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    1. Hello Mike, I much appreciate that you are a vegetarian. I was as well until realizing that eggs, milk and dairy are part of an otherwise healthy diet. You are what you eat, though it sounds better in the original German/Yiddish: man ist was man isst. Here is a post I wrote to clarify the difference between vegetarianism and veganism:
      https://billziegler1947.com/2017/04/26/from-vegan-to-veganist-and-beyond/
      Indeed we do excel at killing each other as well as those 70 billion animals per annum, I just think that the two are intertwined so closely that they are as one.
      Shalom,
      Bill

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  4. I think you know my thoughts on the matter! We have tremendous cognitive power over others. What we do with that power is what makes us so inherently destructive. And when we choose to restrain ourselves from wielding that power unnecessarily, that, my friend, is evolution at work. I am proud to be an evolving Homo sapien.

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    1. And I recommend your blog to all and each who arrive here. You guys make it real on your corner of this shared planet. I should include some additional media here, perhaps a rambling pedantic drone on veganism — something like the sound files you have for the birds who frequent there, but not as melodious 🙂

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        1. You are most welcome, Shannon. There is much of value on your blog — such as ‘Why Greens’ that I have now read and enjoyed, great Bizarro choice for the enigma of protein and sunlight. My greetes to all and each sentient being there 🙂

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