Re: Effects of Magic

Suzanne Blom wrote:
"Will in New Haven" <bill.reich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:8ab36081-084e-4f50-8138-0f593809da95@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Aug 29, 1:11 pm, "Suzanne Blom" <sueb...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Will in New Haven" <bill.re...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:665ed41f-523f-4fb7-8bd9-c8e3b7328d6b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Aug 28, 4:08 pm, "Suzanne Blom" <sueb...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Catja Pafort" <green_kni...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1imch5c.n9y12c1skht19N%green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
David Friedman wrote:
Meat tends to be expensive,
except when there is lots of empty land for grazing or hunting.
You can keep chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, guinea pigs, and rabbits on
next to no land.
Guinea pigs especially will live in the house on hard vegetable stems and
like that.
People will keep Guinea pigs or rabbits in their homes like that and
give them names and then kill them and eat them. And call me a monster
for shooting and eating Bambi. _Stock-raising_ is savage and
trecherous. Hunting is normal.

I never understood humans at all.

We have lost the understanding that all food is a sacrifice to us, and
should be honored as such. Raising livestock, done with reverence, is a
sacred reminder of this. Many ancient rituals are in honor of the food that
must die for us.
I myself do not understand hunting without this awareness.

Who could "harvest" a deer, or a duck for that matter, without being
aware that it is a living being, beautiful and not to be lightly
taken. The difference I see is that the deer has had no sign from me
that I am its friend or that it should trust me. Whatever ritual that
accompanies it, slaughtering an animal that I had nurtured would be a
betrayal.

On the contrary, it would, if the animal was raised for food, be fulfillment.

To you, not to the animal. It's not going to go gladly under the knife because of the character which you, for mystical or social reasons, have attributed to it. As a reductio ad absurdum, consider a society where a particular class of humans is raised for ceremonial eating. Will they all willingly go under the knife? Should they, think you?

I think those societies which have the custom of apologising to their victims, or propitiating their spirits, or for that matter regretfully noting that it's a hard world for man and guinea-pig alike, all display a somewhat saner attitude than the Jollity Farm McHappy Slaughterhouse vision you seem unintentionally to be evoking. I don't think I'd feel quite safe in the vicinity of a society that bought into celebrating involuntary deaths as joyful fulfilment for the victims, eh?

In the society I, & evidently you, live in, death is something
that is seen as a bad thing, but it is something that everyone & everything does. I believe it should, as much as possible be a celebration like all transitions.

I hope that, when I die, my friends will be moved to celebrate my life most merrily. If there is anybody out there planning to celebrate my death, I should rather like to give them something else to celebrate.


Humans also will die for a cause they believe important, &, in that case, there also has to be ritual involved.


And if somebody else wishes me to die for a cause they believe important, but I do not -- which is the relevant parallel -- they're going to want more powerful rituals than any I have quite yet experienced.

Nor do passers-by who dive into a burning house to drag strangers out require ritual, however dreadful or impossible they believe the odds to be. Similarly with other urgent calls to self-sacrifice. Are you talking about the rituals by which the survivors remember and honour them? But it is not and cannot be certain whether, or how far, the hero of such an event actually partakes of it: the survivors seem to be, at very least, the main players in it.


--
Cheers,

Gray

---
To unmung address, lop off the 'be invalid' command.
.

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