Fear of Feeling

First lines in the movie Crash: "It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

This quest for feeling is hindered by fear. Fear of actually being invested in something and thus being vulnerable. Fear of really feeling something. Why are we so scared to do so? Because "apathy prevails over caring [and] we lack the imagination needed to reckon with evil, and it is hard to even imagine evil (Adams,368)," and since "the basis of morality is imagination (Albert Einstein)" being apathetic is inhuman... but still safer. Easier. Apathy is easily achieved through conditioned indifference, lacking interest or concern to make denial easier later. So that in hindsight we can guiltlessly ask ourselves, "how could we have let that happen (Adams, 367)?" Ignorance makes genocide possible, as "attention to individual suffering and to the political economic systems causing the suffering (Adams, 358)" is impossible to achieve if apathetic. Attentiveness is mandatory to facilitate change of any kind. Society has major influence to continue this apathy for some national interest, so "ideological systems [continue to] screen humans from animals harm and suffering by offering rationalizations that legitimize those harms (Adams, 358)," but this is so crucial for humanity to change as such genocide cannot be "explained away (Adams, 368)."This objectifying mindset inevitably leads to loss of awareness of feeling and/or feelings of any kind. The excuses for maintaining apathy seem foolish and cowardly. People rationalize their choice of not utilizing their feelings because "knowledge [can be] so overwhelming," and that it might be "futile to care (Adams, 368)," when in actuality they are simply afraid and caught up in the "war against compassion (Adams, 368)." On the other hand, some people who do act sympathetic and utilize their emotions seem a bit unreasonable at times. Feelings aren't normally rational anyways.

The Playboy bunny degrades women to animal status, which is inarguably belittling because the socially accepted hierarchy puts humans before animals. Being compared to such an animal is rendering some women insignificant futile creatures. I don't agree that animals should be considered equal to humans, but I do think that they don't deserve to suffer. Not all oppression is the same. Not all genocide is comparable. The eco-feminists skew the meaning of morality and compassion as something unobtainable to others (men mostly). I think that the introduction to The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics leaves out a crucial point that it is a natural maternal tendency to rely more on emotions. Women are genetically made this way because women have babies, and to continue humankind at least one sex must raise children. I don't think that all of their arguments are unreasonable or foundationless, I just think that it is a bit of a stretch.

Lastly, in relation to animals suffering in slaughterhouses like we witnessed in Earthlings, today in my Politics of Food class a guest speaker addressed an opposing view of animal treatment. Doug Fairland spoke of how he actually doesn't know of any other animal breeders or slaughterhouse owners who actually unreasonably oppress their animals. He made many valid points, and now after seeing both sides of the spectrum I am a bit confused. I do think that animals are "instrumental to human interests (Donovan, 378)," but I don't believe that morally we should allow animals to suffer for such interests. My rationalizations are competing with my emotions about this subject. I, like Kant, "seem to imagine that emotional experience necessarily obliterates rational thinking (Donovan, 379)." I know that this contradicts what we learned about the necessity of emotional intelligence, but I am having a hard time figuring out how to approach this subject with cooperation from my brain and my heart.  “Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance (Brian Tracy, author).”
I am imbalanced because of this sudden influx of viewpoints and information.