I recently read
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera and
shared with you some of its profundity. After this week's
tragic events at the Muskingum County Animal Farm, I immediately reached for the book again and went straight to a tabbed section. A section that, when I read it 10 days ago, seemed eerie and prophetic, and now seems - well, the same. Even if I disagree with organized religion and most of the associated doctrine, for me, Kundera applies inarguable and poignant perspective to the most known book of the bible... and to Us. From Part Seven, Chapter 2:
"The very beginning of Genesis tells us that God created man in order to give him dominion over fish and fowl and all creatures. Of course, Genesis was written by a man, not a horse. There is no certainty that God actually did grant man dominion over other creatures. What seems more likely, in fact, is that man invented God to sanctify the dominion that he had usurped over himself over the cow and the horse. Yes, the right to kill a deer or a cow is the only thing that all of mankind can agree upon, even during the bloodiest of wars.
The reason we take that right for granted is that we stand at the top of the hierarchy. But let a third party enter the game-a visitor from another planet, for example, soemone to whom God says, "Thou shalt have dominion over creatures of all other stars" -and all at once taking Genesis for granted becomes problematical. Perhaps a man hitched to the cart of a Martian or roasted on the spit by inhabitants of the Milky Way will recall the veal cutlet he used to slice on his dinner plate and apologize (belatedly!) to the cow...
...True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it."
-The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
Such a loss of value has a lot of debates stirring up...
