Peter Singer has been on my radar
since I first heard his potentially inflammatory ideas about bestiality, just
after the turn of the century. Over time
I came to a better understanding of his view on this, but more recently the
concept of consent and the power humans have over animals has swung me back
towards my original position on this challenging topic. Nonetheless, I find his
ideas incredibly powerful, if only to trigger thought and internal debate. Of all
the speakers on offer over the festival, he excited me the most. I expected to
be challenged, perhaps even threatened by what he had to say, and I was not disappointed.
I allowed myself some smug satisfaction when he
gently derided ‘slacktivism,’ only to
later conclude that my near total lack of activism probably left me behind even
those who only bothered to thematically colour their profile picture or ‘slap’
the like button for a cause doing the rounds on social media. His talk of
veganism was challenging, too. I have long respected my many vegetarian and
vegan friends for what I saw as a personal sacrifice. However, Singer put it
into a larger context. The easiest thing we can do to benefit the environment
is to move away from eating resource-intensive meat. There are three-fold
benefits to eating less meat, he pointed out. Not just environmental, but it is
healthier for us, and more importantly it reduces the pain and suffering of the
animals raised for slaughter. In other subjects I have looked at the vast amount
of suffering the Australian obsession with chicken meat leads to. Brazil, I
think, is the only country in the world that exceeds us per capita on chicken
meat consumption, and 96% of all chicken consumed in Australia is not
free-range, regardless of how much of the poultry section at the supermarket
seems to be given over to ‘free-range’ chicken. (Free range chicken is bullshit
anyway – see my video on the topic at <https://youtu.be/j-UUsK1jC80>)
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