Som dyr

Som dyr

Når mennesker behandles uverdig, behandles de "som dyr". Når mennesker opptrer uverdig, opptrer de "som dyr". Mennesker er som dyr ganske ofte, om vi skal dømme etter den tilsynelatende hyppige bruken av uttrykket. Noen ganger kommer det i varianter av "jeg er et menneske, ikke dyr", noe som ofte impliserer at personen anser seg behandlet som et dyr, noe han ikke har fortjent, fordi han er noe mer. 

Men mennesket er et dyr. 

Mennesket er en art blant andre, som har sin unike adferd. Mennesker har særegne, menneskelige språk. Mennesker har særdeles god evne til å lage og bruke redskaper. Vi bygger hus som er tydelig forskjellige fra kråkereir, bikuber eller hamsterdemninger, og kanskje veldig menneskelig; som regel bygger vi ikke hus engang, men betaler andre for å bygge dem eller bytter penger for å få bo i ett som egentlig tilhører andre. 

Tidvis henspeiler klisjeen "som dyr" til spesifikk menneskelig adferd, som i den nylig (på NRK) omtalte partykulturen på Magaluf med høyt alkoholkonsum, slåsskamper og spy. Mennesker er fortsatt dyr, men fenomenet er artsspesifikt og burde omtales deretter.

Den hyppige bruken av uttrykket fremstår noe hysterisk, når vi til vanlig ville medgitt at mennesket jo, i hvert fall biologisk sett, er et dyr. Det er som om vi ikke helt vil ta inn over oss dette i dagligspråket. 

Men kanskje legger jeg for mye i akkurat dét aspektet. Viktigere enn å skyte inn halvfordekte påstander om at mennesket er utenfor dyreriket, spiller frasen på at noe som ikke burde skjedd, har skjedd. At noen har blitt behandlet feil, altså behandlet like dårlig som et dyr, da på frasens premisser forstått som et ikke-menneske. 

For dårlig vil ikke mennesker behandles. Men det tror jeg ikke de andre dyrene vil heller.

Bo-Nicolai Gjerpen Hansen

Brutalitetsbruk (dikt)

Det finnes ikke dyp i dette havet
og heller ingen bunn
for havet tørket inn
og er ikke lenger hav, men noe annet
Saltklumpene ruller
mens tang og tare tørker
og fiskene er i gang å råtne.
De knuses når du går,
men det er slik det er.
De har bruk for din brutalitet.
Nå må det jevnes ut
til ingen lenger vil
forsøke seg på å svømme en gang til.

Bo-Nicolai Gjerpen Hansen

Fra øverste hold (dikt)

Jeg balanserer på toppen av et stilas
av bæreposer, påfunn, angstanfall og fjas;
det er gårsdagens konstruksjon
som noen kaller tradisjon
men som samles sammen til unødvendig mas
Å
Om det bare raste ned!
kunne jeg i hvert fall se
om bunnen de bygget fra var stødig nok
og om stilaset var verdt alt det.


Bo-Nicolai Gjerpen Hansen

Dyreforsøk

Søndag 24. april var det forsøksdyrenes dag.

Jeg har skrevet om testing på dyr tidligere, i et innlegg fra 2014. Der gikk jeg imot tanken om at dyr skal behandles annerledes bare fordi de ikke er mennesker, når de faktisk både har vilje til liv (overlevelsesinstinkt) og evnen til å føle smerte. Samtidig presiserte jeg at jeg ikke ville ønsket noe lovforbud mot dyretesting. Dette gjaldt spesielt innen medisin, fordi det kan hende total nytte for dem som trenger medisinene er større enn lidelsen til dyrene - i noen tilfeller. Det betydde ikke at jeg var positiv til dyreforsøk, men at jeg kunne se den teoretiske nytten av det i avgrensede tilfeller. Dette til forskjell fra kjøttproduksjon, som jeg ikke ser noen nytte av.

Drøftingen min i det innlegget fulgte i stor grad konsekvensialistiske prinsipper. Konsekvensialismen er ikke den etiske retningen jeg har mest sansen for, i hvert fall ikke i sin utilitaristiske utforming, eller der en tenker best mulig konsekvenser for flest mulig berørte. Jeg tenker at vi ikke har en rett til å ta liv eller påføre noen smerte, annet enn for eksempel under medisinske operasjoner individet selv tjener på. Det vanskeliggjør dyreforsøk som volder lidelse eller død. Det kan imidlertid tenkes dyreforsøk som ikke volder lidelse eller død, og da blir diskusjonen mer komplisert.

Samtidig finnes det alternativer til dyreforsøk. Dette dreier seg for eksempel om cellekulturer, data-animasjoner eller roboter, samt andre nyere teknologier. Det innvendes at disse ofte ikke kan erstatte dyreforsøk. Det er jeg ikke i stand til å avgjøre, men med tanke på at for eksempel medisiner virker inn på en hel, biologisk kropp, høres dette helt sannsynlig ut. På den annen side har vi poenget om at det er forskjeller artene mellom og en medisin som tolereres godt av en mus, tolereres ikke nødvendigvis godt av et menneske, og omvendt. Dyreforsøk gir oss ikke den fulle informasjon om testproduktet.

Problemet med dyreforsøk, slik jeg ser det, er at det nærmest med nødvendighet medfører ulemper for dyret. Først dreier det seg om frihetsberøvelse. Forsøksdyr er riktignok alt opp og kjøpt med forsøk for øye, så jeg mener ikke at man kidnapper dyr fra naturlige habitat her. Men selv om dyret er født i fangenskap, betyr ikke det at dette er et gode for dyret. Dernest er forsøkene ofte smertefulle. Tenk for eksempel Draize-testen hvor test-substansen påføres dyrets øye, for så å holdes der i en bestemt tid. Ofte vil dyrene bli bedøvd der forsøkene er smertefulle, men noen ganger vil bedøvelsen ødelegge for resultatet, og dermed bli droppet. Sist er at dyret til slutt dør, enten av forsøkene eller fordi det har tjent sin rolle. Det er vanskelig å tenke seg mange dyreforsøk der ingen av disse ulempene er tilstede.

Noe av det viktigste vi kan gjøre fremover nå er å støtte alternative teknologier til dyreforsøk. Det er flere organisasjoner som støtter slik forskning med penger, slik som PETA, britiske FRAME - Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments og norske Dyrebeskyttelsens fond for alternativ forskning.

De alternativene vi allerede har, gir en viss grunn til optimisme. Etisk bevissthet og krav om bedre og snillere alternativer, fører til slutt et sted, og det kan lede til innovasjon. Jeg synes det er positivt at flere organisasjoner aktivt støtter forskning for å få frem nye alternativer til dyreforsøk.

Skal verden bli et bedre sted, er dette klart et område som må prioriteres. Foruten å støtte nye teknologier, gjelder det å være kritisk til bruken av dyr som er i dag.

Hvorfor bruker man dyreforsøk i det aktuelle tilfellet? Hvorfor regner forskerne eller andre med at det er nødvendig eller nyttig? Hvorfor brukes ikke alternativer? Er det i det hele tatt nødvendig med forsøket?

Og ikke minst: Har vi rett til å bruke dyr på denne måten?

_____
Mye av bakgrunnskunnskapen for dette innlegget henter jeg fra NOAHs ark nr.2 2012, temanummer om dyreforsøk

The unjustness of exploiting animals

Confining, inflicting pain on or killing animals is unjust and unfair

Confining, inflicting pain on or killing animals, when unnecessary, is unjust and unfair. I consider practices causing this to be examples of exploitation.

You wouldn't want these same things happening to you, so don't do it to them.

The Golden Rule

Does this reasoning sound familiar? It sure echoes the Golden rule, as found in Matthew 7:12:

Do to others what you want them to do to you.

It is also found in other traditions, like in the Buddhist text Dhammapada verses 129 (and 130): 

All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.

Historical differences between Eastern and Western traditions

Now, in "Indian" or Eastern religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, it has been common to include animals in that equation. While most adherents of Buddhism, and maybe also Hinduism, actually eat meat, many do not, and the topic of meat eating and killing of animals has been discussed for thousands of years. 

However, although there has been exceptions, in Western culture the separation between human and other animals has mostly been assumed or taken for granted. Humans on the one hand, belong to one category, and animals to another. 

Discrimination and prejudice

Often, both in the West and the East, the human category has been split up into a hierarchy with some humans being considered of higher worth than others. The humans considered inferior, curiously, have often been described as animals or given animal-like characteristics. Inferior humans are beast-like, driven by instinct, they are irrational, they are primitive, uncivilized (civilization is a human construct) and so forth. In short, they are given labels associated with non-human animals. Now, these groups of people are of course non-whites, women, sexual minorities, slaves, religious and ethnic minorities as well as people who just don't conform to society's standards. 

At its most base level, discrimination of any of these groups, are justified simply by pointing to the group's distinctiveness. The argument is that discrimination, or differential treatment, is justified because the person discriminated against is, as an example, black. 

Assuming privilege

By promoting standards one can easily adapt to oneself, or already shares, one tries to assume privilege, consciously or subconsciously. If white, heterosexual men are considered the best of the best, one gets a lot for free simply by coincidentally being a white, heterosexual man. If one promotes the white, heterosexual man as the ideal being, one is partial and promoting one's own image. If one considers the interests of the human more important than the identitical interests of the non-human animal, just because the human is human, one discriminates in favor of oneself and one's own group.

Philosopher Mark Rowlands writes: "the species to which you belong is not something over which you have any control: it is not, that is, something for which you are in any way responsible. So, therefore, species is morally irrelevant" (from Animals Like Us 2002, page 53). Discrimination based on species membership has a name: Speciesism. 

The Contractarian Approach to Animal Ethics

Philosopher Mark Rowlands has carried John Rawls' thought experiment of The veil of Ignorance, or the Impartial Position, further. In his great book, Animals Like Us, Mark Rowlands presents the contractarian approach to animal ethics. I would highly recommend it as one of the best books I've read on the subject. The contractarian approach presented is highly practical and possible to follow. He also presents several examples of the actual exploitation and suppression of animals today. Also, he delivers a great elaboration on the problem of killing and death, in general. 

What I present here is based on Rowlands' argument, though I can't possibly do justice to his wonderful book, that you should all be reading instead of this blogpost. 

The Impartial Position

Imagine you are not born yet. 

You are hovering in space, looking down on earth, waiting to be born. 

You don't know who you will be. You only know you will be sentient. You will live, and you will feel pain and pleasure. You could become a human engineer or a teacher. You could be male, or you could be female. 

You could become a cat, a pig or even a cow. Actually, nothing stops you from being born as a fish or an insect. 

As you contemplate this, an angel appears with a blank book for you to fill in.

Now you are given the chance to choose which rules should apply to this world, how human and non-human animals should behave towards one another. You will write them into the book, and the book shall be law.

Remember, this law shall apply to all who are able to follow and understand the law. Everyone who can understand will, in this thought experiment, do so. 

After writing down the law, you will be born into the world. A random animal form will be given to you. Maybe you will become a chicken, a hen or a cow. 

Would you choose a world where you might live your whole, but short, life in a cage for then being slaughtered? Would you choose a world where human animals could hold non-human animals captive, if that animal were you? Would you choose a world were animals are used for unnecessary experimentation for new cosmetic products?

Or, would you choose a world in which there was no killing, no captivity and no inflicting of suffering for needless reasons? 

Remember what you chose. 

A person constructing a system in which he himself could be tortured and killed, would be an irrational, self-defeating person. Now, in this thought experiment, what is irrational in the Impartial Position, is unjust and immoral in real life, as not following one's own rules would be having a double standard. 

If you are now human, breaking the rules you made, why do you? 

_________

The intention of this blogpost is to present one of many arguments for taking animals' interests into account, as well as to make my readers aware of Rowlands' book Animals Like Us, which was a great inspiration for me. Also, presenting the argument here, I can refer to this blogpost in the future, hopefully making future blogposts shorter. There have been some months since I read this book in entirety, so I apologize if there is any error. I am trying to convey what I take to be the essence of this position, not a summary of the book. 

__________

You can buy Mark Rowlands' book on Amazon.com, 

For Norwegian readers, you could also get it on the online store Adlibris.no. 

I full oppriktighet (dikt)

I full oppriktighet

Jeg liker dyret i deg bedre enn mennesket

Lukten av din bare hud mer enn parfymen

Ditt bare begjær mer enn dine pene fraser

Så når du kommer hjem vil jeg at du vasker deg

Jeg vil at du fjerner siste rest av by og folk

Jeg vil ha deg naken, jeg vil ha deg som du er

Vi skal brenne klærne våre, vi skal kaste penger

Og vi skal knulle siste urbane minne bort. 

Bo-Nicolai Gjerpen Hansen

Forsvar for kjøttfri mandag i offentlige kantiner

Mange reagerer på innføring av kjøttfri mandag i offentlige kantiner i Oslo. For eksempel i et debatt-innlegg på Aftenposten av Melsom, 2. nestformann i FpU. Han mener vi bør si nei til kjøttfri mandag av hensyn til enkeltmenneskets valgfrihet. Jeg mener dette er en urimelig kritikk. Det er ikke total valgfrihet i dag, og vi kan heller aldri forvente det på offentlige kantiner.

I dag er det som regel motsatt. Det er stort sett bare kjøtt eller animalia som serveres, til tross for at det verken er sunt, etisk eller miljøvennlig. 

Vi har allerede en ensidighet og bytter den ut med en annen. Hvor høyt ropte folk om valgfrihet når det var vegetarianere som ikke hadde noe valg?

I valgfrihetens navn kan man tenke at det burde være både og. Men hvor stor skal en offentlig meny være og hvor mange skattekroner skal pøses inn i denne? Om hver og en skal ha akkurat sin rett, så blir det fort en dyr kantine. Hva gjelder offentlige kantiner i storbyene, er som regel andre spisesteder innen kort avstand. Vegetarianere, folk med allergier, spesielt helsebevisste og folk med dårlig råd, vil ofte måtte ta med seg matpakke. Hvorfor skal det alltid være disse gruppene som skal måtte det?

Hvorfor er det mangel på valgfrihet når den oppsatte retten er kjøttfri, men ikke mangel på valgfrihet når den er med kjøtt? Hvis kantinen ikke serverer det man har lyst på, så gjør den ikke det, og det er klart det kan være frustrerende, men skal man forvente at kantinen har en endeløs meny og serverer alt folk kan ha lyst på? Problemet oppstår ikke når menyen er begrenset i seg selv. Problemet oppstår når den ene, eller de få, retten(e) som tilbys er kjøttfri. Da kommer klagene om mangel på valgfrihet. Jeg leser dette til ideologisk innpakning av at man har lyst på kjøtt. Man vil spise kjøtt. Til hvert eneste måltid. På den samme kantinen. Hver dag. Dette er ikke en kamp for valgfrihet. Det er en kamp for status quo og for egne matpreferanser. Det forkler også en motstand mot vegetarmat som sådan. Hva den bunner i, kan man lure på, men jeg vil tippe det er forestillinger som at vegetarmat ikke metter eller at man egentlig må ha kjøtt. Til hvert måltid. Hver dag. I den samme kantinen. 

Noe av motstanden mot kjøttfri mandag kommer kanskje av at dette kommer etter flere grep fra MDG og Byfyrstedømmet, Byregjeringen eller Bystyret, Byrådet eller hva det nå var det het, som griper inn i folks hverdag og oppleves som overformynderi. Isolert sett er imidlertid ikke den kjøttfri mandagen i offentlige kantiner noe stort eller radikalt grep, og ikke et stort brudd med valgfrihet. 

Motstanden mot den kjøttfri mandagen - på offentlige kantiner i Oslo - er ikke et utslag av liberalisme, men av et sakte krympende flertalls (de som vil spise kjøtt hver bidige dag) insistering på å beholde status quo. Dette er kulturkonservatisme parret med subjektive matpreferanser og som politisk ytring er den dårlig gjennomtenkt. 

____

Innlegget mitt her er en bearbeidet variant av en kommentar jeg hadde på FpUs Facebook-sider. For redelighetens skyld vil jeg opplyse at jeg selv har vært medlem av FpU, om enn ikke den mest aktive. Jeg har i utgangspunktet stor sans for FpU. Jeg er ideologisk liberalist og vegetarianer. 

Hvert år ved vinterens slutt (dikt)

Hvert år ved vinterens slutt
går jeg gjennom disse grå rom
jeg har kjent fra jeg var gutt.
Jeg leter etter ilden,
men bygningen er alltid tom. 

Jeg har ropt gjennom gangene
og jeg har gått med tøfler.
Jeg har forestilt fargene,
jeg har holdt bort tanken
og her er det ingen som ler.

For når tanken har det for kaldt,
kan ingen flamme bli født.
Men det er ikke så altfor galt.
For ute skinner solen
og her står et vindu på gløtt. 

Bo-Nicolai Gjerpen Hansen

I thank my flu

I was about to write that I love my flu, but that would be an exaggeration. My nose keeps running. I have red spots under my nostrils. I'm tired from not sleeping well due to waking up with bouts of uncontrolled coughing. My throat feels like sun-dried cardboard. Still, I thank my flu.

Health anxiety

I thank my flu because I used to have severe health anxiety. Now I don't. I don't have it anymore. When I cough, even though my back hurts, I don't expect my ribs to crack. I know it's just a flu. I know it will pass.

Though I wouldn't wish severe health anxiety upon anyone, I learned something from that period of my life. I learned how it feels to fear for one's life. I know how it feels to be frightened when noone sess or understands why, when the cause is invisible. That period made it easier for me to empathize with old or sick people, and it made me appreciate being alive and making the most out of it.

After having recovered from my health anxiety, I soon faced a challenge when I got some kind of food poisoning and fever. Deciding it should not freak me out, I decided to watch my feverish condition with interest. Okay, so I have a fever. Interesting. Now how does this feel? Okay, so I had an uncomfortable dream. It was different. It was exceptional. It was unique. It will never return again. What can I learn from it? I came through without problem. I wasn't scared.

Lessons from Nietzsche and the Buddha

What had changed? Well, first of all my outlook. Instead of believing the point of life was to be always happy, hedonistically understood, I started believing it was about developing myself and living my life. To exist is to live one's own exceptional story, including living through one's own particular pain or discomfort. Now, the psychological component of suffering almost disappears when one watches one's physical suffering with the eyes of a scientist, with interest. With mindfulness. I had come to believe what Nietzsche said: "That which does not kill us makes us stronger".

Nietzsche also wrote: "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering". I agree wholeheartedly. Amor fati. Love your destiny, embrace your history, your biography.

Now, this parallells the Buddhist teachings of the inevitability of suffering, of aging, sickness and death. However, instead of seeing the suffering as a problem in itself, Nietzsche saw it as a tool for hardening oneself and growing. I side with Nietzsche, although relieving the suffering that can be relieved, should be done. If not for anything else, than so in order to free the individual from the disability caused by agony. However, also the Buddha taught that everything is transient, nothing remains. Nothing is stationary. Reality is a process, not an essence.

Learning from my flu

Now I'm in the process of having a flu. So what can I take from it?

Yesterday I was on a train that was almost completely full. Accordingly, I was sitting next to another person, which in Norway, one does not do voluntarily unless one is intoxicated or has a psychiatric disease. Now I was coughing uncontrallaby, and had to sneeze repeatedly, though less often than I had to blow my nose. Not having napkins I kept having to go fetch paper from the bathroom or "tea section". Sitting next to the window, I felt like quite a nuisance to the guy I was sat next to. In short, I felt a bit shameful. Why? Because I felt weak? Because illness is disgusting? What norm does that reflect? Why should it be shameful to be sick? Now, this is something to reflect on. Which I wouldn't have if I wasn't exposed to that situation.

I discovered that when walking fast, or normally, I had to cough more. Thus I needed to walk at a slow pace. This made slightly impatient because I consider it a waste of time. So I am aware of that now. Also, I felt a bit annoyed when people were rushing past me on the bus when I was paying for my ticket. I felt slightly envious of the healthy people, and thought they were disrespectful not to wait in line till I had paid my ticket. Now, my flu is transient. It will pass. In a few days I will be among the rushing people again. However, some people have permanent health problems. They have to live with a slowed pace everyday. Although a flu is a flu, being sick in general will help you relate to other people being sick. Thus, the experience enables me to understand others' experiences a bit better, if never perfect. This enables bonding between me and them.

Today I slept at day time. I never do that. I did it because I felt I had to. Having the flu also makes me more generous with myself. I don't expect myself to make big dinners, being social or sleeping at regular hours. It's a state of exception. It disrupts the daily routine. Disrupting the daily routine is good. Then one sees that the world doesn't end by breaking the habit.

Still, I don't love my flu. I look forward to getting rid of it. I look forward to being a rusher again. Then I'll be thankful for being healthy.

Constellar bear (poem) EN

Constellar bear

Oh, glittering galaxy in my headbanging coat

Constellar bear in dreamy forests

running through cottoned rain,

jumping over spruce tops,

growing snow nuts in paw prints

oh, hear how the crows converse

oh, secret bending of trees!

He turns into snow.

Bo-Nicolai Gjerpen Hansen 

Ordforbruk (dikt)

Ordforbruk

Da siste løgn var sagt,

gjenstod bare sannhet.

Du forandret talen

og - overraskende -

var den nå om kjærlighet

så jeg krøp inn i den myke, dype stemmen din

og bad deg holde fred.

Bo-Nicolai Gjerpen Hansen

The imperative to love yourself

What is a person's prime duty?

Is it to be kind to his others? Is it to serve a god? Is it to take responsibility for his closest companions? Is it to follow a principle of justice? Or is it to serve society? 

What's known as the ethics of closeness, associated with philosophers such as Buber, Løgstrup and Levinas, posits that a person owes himself to his others. He recognizes himself first after meeting them. He gains his own face before the face of the other. To a high extent the quality of his life depends on the way his closest treats him. Does he meet love and acceptance or is he rejected? 

On the face of it, the ethics of closeness might seem individualist in the sense that it speaks of relations and relationships, capturing situations with people you can actually see. The emphasis is not as much on society as it is on close and actual existing bonds. Thus it might seem more realistic and down-to-earth than certain other ethical theories that tend to posit universal answers, trying to capture what's right at all times at all places, though perhaps taking givens into account. This allows it to be more flexible. A person practicing it can be present in the situation, relying more on empathy and communication with his others, than just running to his book of laws (or straightjacket ethical platform). Instead of running through principles in his head, he can be open to perceive the actual person in front of him. 

I'm no expert on this theory and it does have its pros. 

However, I don't buy into it. 

It is true that our existence to a certain extent depends on others. We needed parents to be born. We needed someone to take care of us in our earliest years. And both then, and after, someone could at any time hurt us or even kill us. You might have a brain unique to yourself. You might have your own, unique genetical make-up. Noone is quite like you, biologically. But still, also your ideas are at least affected by your surrounding. Be as original as you want, what you think is formed in interaction with your surroundings. You can distance yourself, you can be the first to realize something is unjust. You can be the first to come up with an idea. But this idea will, at least in most cases, be formed in reaction to the given. 

This, however, doesn't mean your primary obligation is to others. Your life story is unique. Your face is unique. Noone is quite like you. Noone will never understand you completely. Why? Because they are not you. And they have not walked your path. They didn't share your story. And even though you could be a good narrator, you don't have the time to narrate all your life, and your memory is imperfect. No matter how you try to turn yourself inside out, noone will ever know you completely. You might not know yourself completely, either, but these facts mean you will win any arms race for knowledge of your self. Therefore, you will also be in a better position to assess your own needs. And likewise, the other has better cards at hand for understanding himself. To prioritize the other over yourself leads to less than optimal providing for needs, when compared to attending to oneself first and foremost. 

But most importantly, you were born with a survival instinct. If you didn't want to live, you wouldn't live. You could be careless or severely depressed and survive almost by chance. But you could also succumb to outright self-hatred and in the end commit suicide. This happens. All too often. But still, relatively few among the population, when the whole is taken together, succumb to such extreme self-hatred. It seems like the inborn survival instinct offers some protection from that. However, language is a strong tool. Sadly, our great cognitive capacities can be gravely abused. Thus a person can be made to hold ideals that ground him down, ideals he can not possibly ever come close to, because his nature keeps him from it. A person can also be made to dislike himself through internalizing bullying for example, or society's prejudices. Typical here is of course racism, homophobia, discrimination of people with disabilities, hatred of people deviating from social customs. The individual might be unable to succumb to society's conformist ideals. Therefore he ends up with the choice of accepting the prejudice and then seeing himself as inferior, or alternatively; reject it. He has an imperative to reject it. 

If he doesn't, he lets injustice get the upper hand. And at worst his perceived inferiority will lead him to self-hatred and isolation. 

Because you have the ability to commit suicide, and it can be done in a burst of anger, in a few seconds, in the spur of a moment, you must love yourself. Your life depends on your self-image. Once you realize this, you understand that lots of society's expectations of you must be rejected. You understand that social codes that repress your nature and labels it as wrong, must be fought against. My realization of this is part experience, having both struggled with impulsive, physical self-harm, been part suicidal myself and having lost a friend to suicide. 

There would be no humanity if noone liked himself to a certain degree. There can be no other, if the other refuses to exist. If all refused, there'd be no society for the one remaining. The last to go, is the one. 

All that follows from the one, depends on the one's choice to remain alive. 

You might say this means we need to build up the self-image of the other, and gives us a strong reason to condemn bullying. This might look like it can be accounted for by the ethics of closeness. However, that means that we must let the other be as he wishes. We must leave him be. Don't mold him, lest he molds you. 

Thus we end up in some form of ethical individualism. 

“To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’", said Ayn Rand. 

And in order to exist, you must choose your own existence, I say. 

_____________

I hope you take this for what it is, a fast written blog entry, not an academic paper or text. I have so many things I want to write about. I don't have time for a tenth of them. If I should write academically about every subject that could be academic, I'd end up writing even less. This text could be expanded indefinitely. I encourage the reader to familarize yourself with the positions mentioned, as my coverage of them because of small space, is by necessity simplistic. My central point here is the primary necessity of loving oneself, so that one will choose to live. 

Understanding - my New Year Resolution

My New Year resolution for this year is to be more understanding, or forgiving, if you prefer. This for the sake of my own happiness.

Humankind has disappointed me over and over again. True enough, those who hurt me personally and directly are few. However it is also true that far too many among the world's human population fail to appreciate an individual's right to his own life and body, with what I consider awful consequences. At worst, people are outright killed. For gain, for having commited a crime themselves, for claiming the right to believe what they want or just for choosing a sex partner not to the killer's liking (by being gay, for example). This I consider evil. And it doesn't just happen incidentally. It is outright propagated by twisted moral systems and political ideologies, disguising quest for power and domination in coats of beautiful words. 

Some people disrespecting others' right to their own lives wouldn't kill anyone. They would just insist on making the decisions for others, on ruling them, that is. Substituting their own judgment for the judgment of the other. Considering themselves more knowledgeable of the other, than the other himself. This is disrespect. And most people are guilty of it, thinking their own way of life is the right one for all. Defend yourself, call it necessary, call it what you want. It's not worthy of praise. 

In the name of tradition and for the sake of farmers' profits, people cage up animals, depriving them of the space and freedom to act according to their impulses, instincts and urges. In the name of the same traditions, the animals end up slaughtered and eaten, even though there is plenty of evidence showing that it is unnecessary and even detrimental to the eater's health. 

I have trouble breathing in this polluted global village of madhouses. When I'm walking in a crowded street, I am most probably walking amongst perpetrators of the greatest evils there are. 

The only way I can deal with this is to remember they don't think like me. They act on different information. They cling to other standards of morality. They didn't live my life. They might never have heard any of these things discussed or debated. One cannot act in a space one isn't located in.  

I believe in information. I believe in knowledge. I believe in understanding. 

When not informed, how can you be judged from making decisions on the wrong premises? 

Jesus reportedly said: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luk 23:34). That is what I intend on doing (without being anyone's father). I intend on forgiving. Most have no idea what they do, or don't share my perspective. They don't mean to mean. They just happen to be. 

It's not personal. It's not intended. It's not a quality of the victim that causes evil. It's a lack of understanding and information on the part of the oppressor, of the abilitiy to stand in another's shoes. 

Bad actions might not be the offspring of hatred, they might just be the products of ignorance. 

Things can change.