Earthlings: Make the Connection
Robert Bass, Ph.D.
November 20, 2005
The job of a teacher is to lead children -- and adults -- out of the slavery of ignorance. If you had been lucky enough to have a teacher, you'd know that. The job of a teacher is to induce you to rise above your appetites and your passions and your prejudices and your fears and your feelings and to impel you to use your mind. For an instant. For an hour. For a day. For a year. For a lifetime. The job of a teacher is to teach you to conquer your fears and your prejudices and your aversions, to say to them proudly, 'You will not enslave me, for my mind can master anything!'
??????????????????????????????- Greg Swann
Us versus Them. Insiders versus outsiders. We who count and those who do not. Our kind and not our kind.
It is a theme that has been played over and over through human history, with shifting lines of demarcation, lines of race or of gender, of religion, nationality or culture. Always, it is an excuse to treat the others badly, to mistreat, to abuse, to take advantage. When established and enduring, though we do not like to admit it to ourselves, it is always and fundamentally about power, domination, control ... the strong over the weak, the powerful over the powerless.
Perhaps the most powerful way in which domination is preserved consists of denial of, blindness to, ignorance of what is going on. For we do not wish to think that we are oppressors, would not tolerate it if we were, and so are readily convinced that nothing untoward is going on. Whatever is happening is said to be, thought to be, necessary, natural, inevitable, justified. We keep it out of sight and therefore out of mind. We are easily persuaded when we are complicit in our own self-deception.
Yet, difficult though it is, many of us have learned to see through lines of division and practices of oppression directed against our fellow human beings. We have struggled to achieve greater clarity and have learned that the divisions among us are artificially imposed, that our fellows are not less worthy for being different. In what is most fundamental, the differences are unimportant.
Most of us, so far, have not seen that the point extends beyond our species. In the opening scenes of Shaun Monson's award-winning documentary, Earthlings, we are introduced to the theme that we, along with the other animals, are all earthlings, sharers together of this planet, each of us with lives, wants, needs, enjoyment and suffering of our own. And, as earthlings, we need to break down and see beyond the boundaries that limit concern to our own species. Though we try to hide it from ourselves with the rhetoric of difference, of necessity, of naturalness, of inevitability, our practices of domination and exploitation are no more justified against non-human earthlings than against human earthlings. In what is most fundamental, in having needs and desires, in enjoying or suffering through the only lives that we have, we are all the same, all earthlings, and the differences are unimportant.
Still, the pattern repeats and we are self-blinded by our passionate desire not to see, not to know what we are doing, to keep enjoying the benefits of oppression and exploitation without accepting so much as the modest cost of knowing or admitting that what we do is exploitative and oppressive.
Watching Earthlings can make a difference. Through it, we can consider more lucidly, and with greater compassion and greater comprehension, our relations to our fellow earthlings. The film traces the deep and pervasive ways that human beings depend upon and make use of other animals in every area of our lives, from the pets we keep to the food we eat to the clothes we wear. It is all so convenient, so useful, and so easy. After you see this film, it may still be convenient and useful. It will not be so easy. You will see, in detail and in ways that you never imagined, that many of the so-called "conveniences" we rely upon and take for granted are purchased at a terrible price in the suffering and death of our fellow creatures. It is not easy to watch, not easy to be reminded that the price is often literally extracted from the hides of other living, feeling creatures.
But watch it. Don't let yourself off the hook. Resist the temptation to turn away without seeing, absorbing and understanding the message. If you're willing to take advantage of the "conveniences," you owe it to yourself to learn what goes into making them possible. If you can enjoy the taste of bacon and eggs, or delight in the tender, marbled meat of a fine steak, then you can watch what is done to the animals before their bodies and their products arrive on your plate. If you can insist on the luxury of leather for your shoes or furniture or briefcase, or on animal furs for warmth or fashion, you can observe the cost that never shows up on the bill of sale. Make the connection between what we do and the price that must be paid.
This is a powerful, disturbing, searing -- but ultimately enlightening -- film. In making it, producer Shaun Monson has proven himself one of the best of teachers, one who takes us beyond our prejudices, one who teaches us to make connections. When we see more clearly, more honestly, more compassionately, our practice will, perhaps haltingly, follow. At least, that is the hope.
Though the film has been widely acclaimed and has recieved multiple awards for Best Documentary and Best Content, it has not been readily available at local theatres. Now, you can get it on DVD from www.isawearthlings.com. Persia White has said this film has the power to change people's lives. Purchase it, share it with your friends and loved ones, and see for yourself.
??????????????????????????????- Greg Swann
Us versus Them. Insiders versus outsiders. We who count and those who do not. Our kind and not our kind.
It is a theme that has been played over and over through human history, with shifting lines of demarcation, lines of race or of gender, of religion, nationality or culture. Always, it is an excuse to treat the others badly, to mistreat, to abuse, to take advantage. When established and enduring, though we do not like to admit it to ourselves, it is always and fundamentally about power, domination, control ... the strong over the weak, the powerful over the powerless.
Perhaps the most powerful way in which domination is preserved consists of denial of, blindness to, ignorance of what is going on. For we do not wish to think that we are oppressors, would not tolerate it if we were, and so are readily convinced that nothing untoward is going on. Whatever is happening is said to be, thought to be, necessary, natural, inevitable, justified. We keep it out of sight and therefore out of mind. We are easily persuaded when we are complicit in our own self-deception.
Yet, difficult though it is, many of us have learned to see through lines of division and practices of oppression directed against our fellow human beings. We have struggled to achieve greater clarity and have learned that the divisions among us are artificially imposed, that our fellows are not less worthy for being different. In what is most fundamental, the differences are unimportant.
Most of us, so far, have not seen that the point extends beyond our species. In the opening scenes of Shaun Monson's award-winning documentary, Earthlings, we are introduced to the theme that we, along with the other animals, are all earthlings, sharers together of this planet, each of us with lives, wants, needs, enjoyment and suffering of our own. And, as earthlings, we need to break down and see beyond the boundaries that limit concern to our own species. Though we try to hide it from ourselves with the rhetoric of difference, of necessity, of naturalness, of inevitability, our practices of domination and exploitation are no more justified against non-human earthlings than against human earthlings. In what is most fundamental, in having needs and desires, in enjoying or suffering through the only lives that we have, we are all the same, all earthlings, and the differences are unimportant.
Still, the pattern repeats and we are self-blinded by our passionate desire not to see, not to know what we are doing, to keep enjoying the benefits of oppression and exploitation without accepting so much as the modest cost of knowing or admitting that what we do is exploitative and oppressive.
Watching Earthlings can make a difference. Through it, we can consider more lucidly, and with greater compassion and greater comprehension, our relations to our fellow earthlings. The film traces the deep and pervasive ways that human beings depend upon and make use of other animals in every area of our lives, from the pets we keep to the food we eat to the clothes we wear. It is all so convenient, so useful, and so easy. After you see this film, it may still be convenient and useful. It will not be so easy. You will see, in detail and in ways that you never imagined, that many of the so-called "conveniences" we rely upon and take for granted are purchased at a terrible price in the suffering and death of our fellow creatures. It is not easy to watch, not easy to be reminded that the price is often literally extracted from the hides of other living, feeling creatures.
But watch it. Don't let yourself off the hook. Resist the temptation to turn away without seeing, absorbing and understanding the message. If you're willing to take advantage of the "conveniences," you owe it to yourself to learn what goes into making them possible. If you can enjoy the taste of bacon and eggs, or delight in the tender, marbled meat of a fine steak, then you can watch what is done to the animals before their bodies and their products arrive on your plate. If you can insist on the luxury of leather for your shoes or furniture or briefcase, or on animal furs for warmth or fashion, you can observe the cost that never shows up on the bill of sale. Make the connection between what we do and the price that must be paid.
This is a powerful, disturbing, searing -- but ultimately enlightening -- film. In making it, producer Shaun Monson has proven himself one of the best of teachers, one who takes us beyond our prejudices, one who teaches us to make connections. When we see more clearly, more honestly, more compassionately, our practice will, perhaps haltingly, follow. At least, that is the hope.
Though the film has been widely acclaimed and has recieved multiple awards for Best Documentary and Best Content, it has not been readily available at local theatres. Now, you can get it on DVD from www.isawearthlings.com. Persia White has said this film has the power to change people's lives. Purchase it, share it with your friends and loved ones, and see for yourself.
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