blog #4

In the beggining of this section it talks a lot about vegetarianism and about causing the least amount of pain towards the animal and plants of the earth as possible. The point of being a vegetarian, is to not participate in the evil that exists in this world. Therefore, you would have a clean conscience. But, even as a vegetarian, you are still killing plants. The point however, is to cause the least amount of pain and torture in this world. Regarding this topic, I myslef am not a vegetarian nor will I ever be. I do consume a lot of meant and have no guilty conscience of it. I do feel terrible when you bring up that cows are being injected with steroids and are left stuvk in a cage without walking around just so that the meat is extra tender. I believe in what the indians did. As long as we do not waste what we kill or consume then consuming is not a problem. However, I know that in today's society we waste a lot and the people in the U.S. consume 25% of the earth's goods. The fact that you told us in class, that a child in the U.S. will consume 15 times as much as a child in anothe country, is uncomprehendible.
Another intersting point in this section is that it says that one person can make a difference. Everybody in the population is made up of (I) individuals. Therefore what you do can make a triple effect in the society. For example if you decide to walk to work or take the train, you are preventing someone else from taking a car and polluting the earth.
Bernard Rollin presents his topic in the same case as Singer. He believes that animals and people are different in that humans are more superior. This does not mean that we can treat animals like garbage. The main difference that he presents is that humans have freedom and animals do not. The most powerful statement that he presents is that the benefit of the experiment must outweigh the damage involved.
Another big topic in this section is consumerism. Consumerism can basicly be sumed up by the word greed. Not just in our society do we see consumerism, but in the rest of the world. We go by the more things we have, the more powerful we are as an individual. In my opinion this is the wrong way to go about being the most powerful,but i do it. I have purchased a cell phone, car, ipod, boat, etc. All of these things i do not need but i bought them anyway. I am not sure that if purchasing an ipod could have forced the Apple company to expand their business and create a factory by tearing down trees and the homes of many animals and plants.
Evernden states that humans stand out of nature by our very nature. He means that we surround oursleves by a so-called wall of technology. Most of us have computers and television sets. We all have houses with walls blocking the sounds and movement of nature. The more we technologically advanced we become, the more we will stand out of nature. Evernden presents one of the strongest discussions in the book.