Quote:
Originally Posted by borisg  Not to pick on you Mato...
but your hunting story was disturbing. Of all the places on the internet, Steve Pavlina...come on.
There is nothing respectful about teaching a teenager take the life of an innocent animal.
Was it respectful to the deer's mother or relatives? Or do you believe that the mother or other relative of the deer have no feelings? |
I don't feel picked on... yet...
(Though I suspect that's coming. As you said, "...of all places on the net, Steve Pavlina?") But I do feel that you seem to be missing the point.
The lesson the young man in question learned was not killing - he could do that the second he picked up a gun. The lesson he learned was one of understanding his place in this world and that the ability to choose to show respect (or not to show respect) to all our relations with regards to our actions and vis-a-vis our place is not just an ability, but a responsibility unique to humans and the human experience.
We are hunters. We hunt, kill and eat other animals to survive. The fact that in the last one hundred years - out of the last
FORTY THOUSAND - we have had the luxury of choosing not to be, does not change our nature or our place in the Great Circle. I would argue that it is because of this luxury that we have
FORGOTTEN what our place in the Great Circle truly is.
Do not attempt to assign human emotions or "feelings" to anything other than a human. It's nonsensical. To say that anything other than a human would react, respond, or think like a human is ignorant and illconceived at best and arrogant at worst. To ask if it was respectful to the deer's mother or relatives shows me two things: 1. You don't think that you are a relative of this particular - or possibly any - deer, and 2. You seem to think that deer have the same understanding or experience of the world that you or I do. Do you believe that the deer in question distiguishes a Human predator any differently than a wolf pack, pack of coyotes, mountain lion, or any other predator? Certainly not. Are we, then, to assign ourselve some other, more lofty position? I don't believe so. And that is the point of the lesson the young man learned from my friend when he chose to select the deer that was offering herself instead of the 8 point buck that he could've had as a trophy. That was respecting the sacrifice of that deer. A sacrifice that was accepted by the deer and communicated to the hunter.
When we acknowledge who and what we are with clarity and authenticity, without prejudice or arrogance, we can begin to once again understand our place in this world.