Zombies: An Ethical Conundrum

Having spent quantifiable time around elementary age children, I've come to note that, when kids first make the connection between chicken nuggets and hamburgers, and real live chickens and cattle (and that the animals that they eat have to die), they tend to have one of two reactions. The first is that of pure horror and revulsion, the big-eyed seven-year-old face that watches the film version of Charlotte's Web and cannot face the idea of pork chops on a dinner plate ever again. The second reaction is slightly more disturbing and is that of the five-year-old who slowly understands the concept, and interprets this to mean that it's okay to kill and torture animals (proceeding to stomp on all the bugs he or she sees, pull the cat's tail and throw rocks at the birds). There does exist a third reaction that is, in my opinion, far too infrequently encountered, and that is one of a sudden reverence for the food that's put on the table at dinnertime, with an understanding that something had to die for the child to eat.

This issue does not pose an ethical conundrum for me, personally. I decided long ago that all life has intrinsic value, be it animal or vegetable, insect, canine or chondricthian. Thus, no life should be needlessly slain without due cause. This understood, destruction is an inherent requirement for the persistence of life: cattle mercilessly cut down living grass for sustenance the same way a lion takes down a gazelle (well, maybe in a slightly different fashion) and the vegetarian takes the life of an artichoke with no remorse, just as my grandmother shamelessly serves a turkey for dinner. The point isn't to lament the taking of life -for to do so would be to lament one's existence as a life on Earth with a status that is inescapable with out the faculties of photosynthesis- but to understand and appreciate the fact that life was sacrificed somewhere down the line. It's a fact of life, so get over it and don't get too worked up about it, but be mindful.

The factor that I hadn't considered when developing my worldview came to me today, as I had a friend show me the new sequel to the Dead Rising game for the Xbox: Zombies. Zombies are not alive, they are instead undead. This is to say that they were once alive, then were once dead, and then proceeded to become not dead anymore. To kill something that is alive is to violate its active pursuit to maintain a living status, but to rise from the dead is an active violation of the status of being dead, which naturally follows being alive. One could then say that the zombie is the antagonist, violating the natural order of things. Yeah, okay, but then why do I feel such revulsion at the scenes in Dead Rising 2, when certain individuals cut down bloody scores of zombie hoards with glee... for fun? There are, in fact, characters in this video game who have taken advantage of the zombie epidemic to create gameshows, the premise of which is to slaughter zombies in as many numbers as possible in the most creative (and rather sadistic) ways.

So I ask myself, is this an affront to the zombies? Well, they are not alive, thus the only result of their being "killed" is to stop their rebellion to, their overturning of, the natural order. Perhaps I feel some sort of revulsion because these forms were once alive, were once living individuals with personalities, contributions and relationships. In a way, wantonly cutting down their zombie forms for amusement is an insult to the lives they once lived, like the mutilation of a corpse. Okay, so that's understandable, I guess. But my reaction goes beyond feelings for the zombies. And I find myself remembering Emmanuel Kant's perspective on the issue of human responsibilities to animals.

Kant did not believe as I do, that animals and all life has intrinsic value simply because it exists and so humans have the obligation to revere it. No, Kant believed that animals had little value in themselves. He did believe, however, that Humans had a moral responsibility not to mistreat animals. This was because this moral obligation helps humans to develop their own morality, their own humanity. That is to say, a man should treat a dog well not because he values the life of the dog, but because a human should be above the mistreatment of an innocent animal. It was for our own sake. This is a logic that seems applicable to my zombie problem. I may not have any real sympathies for the zombies (especially when they grab onto you and go for the jugular) but don't think that they should be herded into an arena to be cut down by contestants with chainsaws simply because, well, humans should be beyond such base destruction. I have to side with Kant on this one and say that zombie-killing shouldn't be done for sport because such activities are a threat to our own humanity, the development of our own morality.

I honestly never thought I'd have to decide where I stand on this subject... but life's full of surprises I guess. Now, in the event there is ever a large-scale zombie outbreak, I'll have my priorities figured out.

Small thoughts on a big thing

"You are a child of the universe,

No less than the moon or the stars.

You have a right to be here,

And whether or not it is clear to you,

The universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God,

Whatever you perceive Him to be,

And through all your trials and tribulations,

Be at peace with your soul."

Any thoughts on this? Are we really an integral and instinsic part of the universe or do we impose ourselves upon it? Should we strive for such an existance? Should we entertain such a perception or are we deluding ourselves in doing so? What are the alternative approaches?

Hello? Hellooooooo!!!! - or How Rude!

Is anybody out there? No? Well, okay then. Now I don't have to worry about posting anything interesting or sounding intelligent. Gosh, I probably don't even have to use grammar... Then again, the prospect of such freedom is scary, so I'll stick with the grammar for now (It'd be like running around the house in your underwear when no one else is home. It still feels wrong).
Which leads me to my thought of today: Cultural mores (pronounced "mor-ay") and folkways. I think it's funny that we come to believe that certain things are wrong and others are right, without ever questioning why. To be fair, many of the things your parents taught you as you were growing up are "right" and "wrong" for good reasons -most often to avoid conflict and show respect to others. Then again, if we never take the time to ask why we do or don't do things, why some things are and are not socially acceptable, we end up with manners and practices that really don't make sense (and perhaps are simply inconveniences).
The best examples of such pointless social rules are often realized when submerged in another culture. The clash of cultures and the misunderstandings that ensue often force one to contemplate why they ever did things in their way to begin with and why the alternative is (or really shouldn't be) acceptable. For example, I have an American friend who's living in Paris (a pretty culturally-compatible place for Americans). She once recounted for me an episode during which she dropped her passport on the metro and couldn't find where it had fallen. A passport is a pretty important thing to lose while in a foreign country, and her consequential distress at her inability to find it was understandable. She was getting panicky, after a few minutes and was down on her hands and knees looking, asking everyone near if they'd seen it. However, everyone on the subway was completely ignoring her, despite her constant "I've lost my passport!"
She initially thought that all these Parisians were simply cold, rude individuals, but upon telling her French friend of the incident, she learned that the people on the metro were trying to be polite. Had she said, "Can you help me find my passport?" any decent person on the train would have tried to help, but since she was only exclaiming how she had lost it, they did what they believed was the polite thing and completely ignored her. The reasoning behind this behavior was that they didn't want to embarrass this woman in her distress, and so they refused to acknowledge it. This response is a far cry from what many decent Americans would do, which would be to help the poor woman find her passport (hopefully), so she simply thought these strangers' refusal to even make eye contact with her was just rude.
And so at the risk of this question echoing as it bounces off of the empty walls of this blog... Can you think of any manners or customs that you've been taught that don't make much sense when you stop and think about them? Have you ever been confronted with a different way of doing things -whether in a different household or a different country- that has ever seemed wrong or made you question the way that you do things?

Nature Deficit Disorder

The public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County chooses a book each month for community reading and June's book is called Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. In it, Louv argues that children in today's American society are growing up deprived of the experience of the outdoors for various reasons (society obsession with electronics, changing educational standards, etc.). In addition, he cites reasons for rekindling a connection with nature and the benefits to children that come with an exposure to nature. You skim my thoughts on the issue at http://hoveringkestral.blogspot.com/

But what do you think? Is there a "nature deficit disorder?" Should it be rectified? Is there any other way to learn the lessons that nature can teach?

Culture and the Human Condition

My grandparents have been lucky enough to have traveled to various locales all over the world. Never having believed this was something they would have done, they concede that the experience was one of the greatest they've ever had. My parents (and my mother especially), on the other hand, have no desire to venture outside the Midwest. I cannot fault them for being content to live where they are, but their desire to evade any sense of cultural discomfort is somewhat disconcerting. This is to say that my parents don't want to submerge themselves within a culture in which they are uncomfortable (ie. the minority). I think that part of this clear fear of culture shock stems from an inability to understand the ingrained cultural conscience that leads a people to hold different values or to see the world differently than you do. My parents, and many others I sure, can't understand how people who could otherwise be so similar to them can almost unanimously subscribe to a worldview that leads them to see things so differently.

I don't regard anyone with this aversion as wrong. It's only natural to seek out those who hold beliefs similar to one's own. Perhaps that's how we end up with different countries in the first place. But I do think that such an approach is too short sighted. Social animals like humans are inescapably shaped by the culture they grow up in. regardless of the values instilled by one's parents, regardless of the independent thinking done by the individual, people are products of their culture and the philosophies in which they are submerged. When, where, and to whom one is born has a powerful effect on the final product that is the human individual and those beliefs perceived to be simple facts of life by the majority ultimately sculpt the worldview to which a person subscribes, indirectly influencing the decisions they may make in life.

This said, I don't think that a tendency to shy away from cultures whose collective beliefs are different isn't a natural response, but I do believe it to feed into an unhealthy ethnocentrism that only hinders global progress in an ever-increasingly globalized community. The human condition hasn't changed for as long as the species has been around. Islanders in the Philippines 1000 years ago (assuming the islands were there back then) are fundamentally the same as the residents of New York City today -and yet they are very different. How is this reconciled? The human being is a standard-sized canvas, and universally white fro the beginning, but it is the cultural philosophies and ideologies that we grow up in that determines the paint job we get. So, I propose that anyone, under different cultural influences, could hold different views about life had the situation in which they grown up been different. Those Bosnians who see nothing more family-friendly than a day at the nude beach could have turned out just like my parents had they too grown up in the American Midwest. Any canvas on which is a Jackson Pollack could very well have been covered in a Marie Cassat under different conditions.

I find it amazing how pliable humans can be.

New and Improved

Do you think there's a way to reach an equilibrium in the realm of consumerism? There's need being incessantly created and fulfilled. There's constant production and consumption. There's never ending harvesting of resources and waste. And yet, the reuse and recycling of creative work is seen as an economic detriment, an injustice to the creators of a product. You don't buy a product new, and the creators of the product don't profit. You buy a product used and you conserve the energy and resources use to make it new, but you take away an opportunity from the creators to benefit.

It would seem a compromise might be to fashion a system in which intellectual work is paid for without the consequential manufacture, consumption and accumulation of resources. Though I'm not going to pretend like such a system would be simple, it seems possible with our increasing reliance upon computers and consolidation facilitated by the Internet.

Self Absorbed?

I've been doing some research for a paper I'm writing on organic agricultural methods. My thesis is that organic agriculture is an ecologically-sensitive alternative to conventional methods of farming -that is, organic farming is better for the environment. So, I've been looking for research studies to back up this thesis, and there are sufficient studies to be found, most concerning soil fertility, non-target insect, bird and bat populations; however, these relevant studies must be fished out of an ocean of studies concerning organic farming as it pertains to human health. There are hundreds and hundreds of studies that have been done concerning organic produce and its nutritional content, even more concerning pesticide levels on fruits and vegetables and what these do or don't do when ingested, even more on organic farming and links to reduced cancer risk. And so I begin to wonder... what does this say about our priorities? We can send our planet to hell in a hand basket, sure, but when it comes to how pesticide residues on our apples and lettuce might affect our health, only then do we begin to pay attention. The bald eagle can be on the brink of extinction, but when organic oranges might be higher in antioxidants, we start to care. I just think it's a shame that we only begin to show concern when we are the ones directly affected.

I believe that a concern for one's own interests is innate within a species -self-preservation is, understandably, high priority. But isn't it rather shortsighted of us and aren't we a little, well, vain?

Does anyone else think this, or is it just me?