But why is it wrong to eat…
The other day I come across a very disturbing video; hell! Very disturbing doesn’t even begin to describe my sheer visceral horror at what I was watching; the words, the body language, as the young male interviewee leaned forward, driven by the passion of his argument “But why is it wrong to eat babies? I mean they’re there, nobody wants them, so what’s wrong with eating them”. This was the point that I was overtaken by projectile vomiting, and that’s not because I’m a vegetarian, and missed the rest of the argument.
This is, by far, the saddest and most appalling of muses that prompts me to write. That one should have to explain something so fundamentally unethical, that strikes so deep at the heart of the social contract between the 9 billion apex predators that allows them to coexist in relative harmony.
The canibal’s world view is the abyss, a lord of the flies world, the dimming of civilisation, the anarchy of ICE. For the sake of our humanity, we have to fill this abyss, we have to be the immune system that expels this virus, that destroy that which nourishes it. ‘Might is right’ is never, ever right, no matter how compelling, seductive and effficient it might appear, it always destroys itself; it’s always a zero sum game. Our goal, civilisation’s goal is a win-win proposition.
That young cannibal’s denial of one’s fundamental human right to live without fear or prejudice strikes at the heart of the unwritten social contract and puts each one of us on notice, him included; nobody is safe. As apex predators, we humans treat nature’s bounty the way Judaism treats the goyim; as resources in the natural order of this world. However, within the sum of humanity there has developed over history a tacit underlying agreement that we would not treat other humans as natural resources to be exploited asymmetrically.
I mean, what fucking insane world view requires that something as fundamental as this needs EXPLAING?
Babies, the most vulnerable in society, to whom we owe the greatest protections, are human beings with inherent moral worth. That they are “unwanted” doesn’t strip them of personhood. There was a time when I would confidently state that virtually every ethical framework — religious, secular, utilitarian — prohibits killing and eating humans, babies, in particular, carry a much higher taboo. But, today, between the young cannibal above, the Epstein files, and apparent modern Baal worship… I just don’t know. The island of ethical humanity is ever shrinking.
We have to rise to the challenge and remove this zero sum game thinking from the very heart of our society, from our economic, financial, political and governance systems. The Epstein files catalogues a horror that has not been matched by the wildest and looniest of loony conspiracy theories. I cannot believe that I am writing, seriously and in good faith about deeds so dark that I never once gave them free rent; in fact, treated them with the contempt I thought they deserved; rejected them with such muscular vigour they bounced of the originator’s wall.
Boy, was I ever wrong. God knows what the next conspiracy theory vomits into the public domain, one things for sure I’ll never dismiss one again. And no, I’m not going to wear a tin foil hat!
My one comfort is that had this canibal’s view been acceptable at the time of his birth, well he wouldn’t be present today to discuss the virtues of eating himself.