Post by astrocat on Mar 3, 2007 14:44:33 GMT
WEY - HEY !
An article which i wrote and submitted recently, about Respect, has been published in the recent copy of Vegan Views.
So, yay for me !
(^0^)^ Whoooo ! Whoooo!
It's in this issue, on page 12 -
www.ibiblio.org/veganviews/vv110.pdf
__________________________________
This is what i have said -
An article which i wrote and submitted recently, about Respect, has been published in the recent copy of Vegan Views.
So, yay for me !
(^0^)^ Whoooo ! Whoooo!
It's in this issue, on page 12 -
www.ibiblio.org/veganviews/vv110.pdf
__________________________________
This is what i have said -
Respect
I have encountered numerous people trying to twist around respect for others, in order to justify, rationalise or advocate eating dead bodies or animals' bodily fluids, and I would be surprised if others here haven;t encountered the same thing and felt the same way.
For example, the most common assertions would be the one from flesh-eaters, that "because I respect vegans , vegans ought to respect me regardless of what I am doing or my approach to others" , which shows that they are trying to trivialise respect and make it into some kind of bargaining tool... they behave as if respect is like a form of payment - "I pay others respect because i want whatever i do to be respected, so they should pay me respect back again" , rather than something which happens when you consider another person's approach or actions to be meritable.
Their idea is that vegans should all just shut up and be supportive and entirely non-critical of those who eat flesh/body-fluids, because to behave otherwise is disrespectful and we should all be going around respecting them.
Indeed, the way in which these people define 'respect' is so far removed from what it actually is all about, that their approach is downright wrong.
Of course, if people find the needless support and active perpetuation of abusive torture of others to be ethically deplorable then surely they would have to be very superficial or false to then claim to respect that sort of behaviour and say that they find it to be very acceptable.
The "respect me like I respect you" thing is just a really pathetic attempt to gain support for doing cruel things entirely without necessity... after all, respect is about others doing things which you find meritable, and you valuing those things or holding them in high esteem as a result of that. If people find it good that there are those who live their life by trying to avoid needlessly abusing others then they can decide whether or not they find that respectable behaviour. It's an ethically meritable approach so it would be logical for people do decide to respect such an approach.
On the other hand, if people find it good to live their life by needlessly abusing others because they are selfish people who lack compassion, then based on that people can decide whether or not they find that to be respectable behaviour. It's a very selfish, and ethically unmeritable, approach... so it would be logical for people not to decide to respect such an approach.
The "I eat flesh, i respect vegans so they should respect my decision to eat flesh" thing is so intellectually flawed.... it's like if someone were to say "I respect others' decision not to beat their wife and kids, so those who don;t do that ought to respect my decision to decide to do it" , or "I respect people who aren't rapists, so when i rape people i expect a bit of respect from any non-rapists, in return" ....
Effectively, it's all about manipulation and bribery, rather than a genuine, unbiased, constructive approach to respecting (or disrespecting) others.
Some people would say that by respect they simply mean "due regard for another's feelings" ... but by this they mean that we should value the human desire to needlessly abuse/exploit animals to be more important than advocating against their ethically unwholesome actions.... we should 'have regard for their feelings' by tiptoeing around doing our best not to 'upset' them, for example by criticising their decision to support animal abuse needlessly. It could also be said that a compulsive need to be respectful towards others should only last as long as those others are respectful themselves. "Treat others as you wish to be treated yourself", and all that.
It is also apparent to me that by criticising my criticism of ethically deplorable mindsets and behaviour, such people are (by their own definition of respect) being disrespectful towards me in an obviously hypocritical manner....
In the case of them criticising me, they are not even criticising me for doing anything ethically deplorable or abusive... as is the case when i criticise those who are doing such things.... they are criticising me because i do not find unethical behaviour to be acceptable. So, their 'disrespectful' criticism has a very different motivation from mine.
It all just seems to be co-ordinated to try and suppress the voices of those who would criticise selfish and abusively themed behaviour, because otherwise "the poor timorous delicate abusively-involved people might feel upset"
It seems unworkable to say that people should all just respect absolutely everybody, regardless of who they are or how unethical, or ethical, their actions are. For example, should we all be respecting mass-murderers or paedophiles, and being respectful of their decisions to kill people and molest small children ? If we should, then why should we ?
And if not, then why does the reasoning for why not, also apply to people who engage themselves in other behaviour which extensively harms others, causes environmental destruction, supports human & non-human exploitation, and involves a lot of needless killing of defenceless victims ?
I have encountered numerous people trying to twist around respect for others, in order to justify, rationalise or advocate eating dead bodies or animals' bodily fluids, and I would be surprised if others here haven;t encountered the same thing and felt the same way.
For example, the most common assertions would be the one from flesh-eaters, that "because I respect vegans , vegans ought to respect me regardless of what I am doing or my approach to others" , which shows that they are trying to trivialise respect and make it into some kind of bargaining tool... they behave as if respect is like a form of payment - "I pay others respect because i want whatever i do to be respected, so they should pay me respect back again" , rather than something which happens when you consider another person's approach or actions to be meritable.
Their idea is that vegans should all just shut up and be supportive and entirely non-critical of those who eat flesh/body-fluids, because to behave otherwise is disrespectful and we should all be going around respecting them.
Indeed, the way in which these people define 'respect' is so far removed from what it actually is all about, that their approach is downright wrong.
Of course, if people find the needless support and active perpetuation of abusive torture of others to be ethically deplorable then surely they would have to be very superficial or false to then claim to respect that sort of behaviour and say that they find it to be very acceptable.
The "respect me like I respect you" thing is just a really pathetic attempt to gain support for doing cruel things entirely without necessity... after all, respect is about others doing things which you find meritable, and you valuing those things or holding them in high esteem as a result of that. If people find it good that there are those who live their life by trying to avoid needlessly abusing others then they can decide whether or not they find that respectable behaviour. It's an ethically meritable approach so it would be logical for people do decide to respect such an approach.
On the other hand, if people find it good to live their life by needlessly abusing others because they are selfish people who lack compassion, then based on that people can decide whether or not they find that to be respectable behaviour. It's a very selfish, and ethically unmeritable, approach... so it would be logical for people not to decide to respect such an approach.
The "I eat flesh, i respect vegans so they should respect my decision to eat flesh" thing is so intellectually flawed.... it's like if someone were to say "I respect others' decision not to beat their wife and kids, so those who don;t do that ought to respect my decision to decide to do it" , or "I respect people who aren't rapists, so when i rape people i expect a bit of respect from any non-rapists, in return" ....
Effectively, it's all about manipulation and bribery, rather than a genuine, unbiased, constructive approach to respecting (or disrespecting) others.
Some people would say that by respect they simply mean "due regard for another's feelings" ... but by this they mean that we should value the human desire to needlessly abuse/exploit animals to be more important than advocating against their ethically unwholesome actions.... we should 'have regard for their feelings' by tiptoeing around doing our best not to 'upset' them, for example by criticising their decision to support animal abuse needlessly. It could also be said that a compulsive need to be respectful towards others should only last as long as those others are respectful themselves. "Treat others as you wish to be treated yourself", and all that.
It is also apparent to me that by criticising my criticism of ethically deplorable mindsets and behaviour, such people are (by their own definition of respect) being disrespectful towards me in an obviously hypocritical manner....
In the case of them criticising me, they are not even criticising me for doing anything ethically deplorable or abusive... as is the case when i criticise those who are doing such things.... they are criticising me because i do not find unethical behaviour to be acceptable. So, their 'disrespectful' criticism has a very different motivation from mine.
It all just seems to be co-ordinated to try and suppress the voices of those who would criticise selfish and abusively themed behaviour, because otherwise "the poor timorous delicate abusively-involved people might feel upset"
It seems unworkable to say that people should all just respect absolutely everybody, regardless of who they are or how unethical, or ethical, their actions are. For example, should we all be respecting mass-murderers or paedophiles, and being respectful of their decisions to kill people and molest small children ? If we should, then why should we ?
And if not, then why does the reasoning for why not, also apply to people who engage themselves in other behaviour which extensively harms others, causes environmental destruction, supports human & non-human exploitation, and involves a lot of needless killing of defenceless victims ?