"Modern-Day Nazis" article - the "hidden" meaning

[Dreamcatcher21]

Hi everyone. I’ve been a long-time reader of Steve’s articles, but this is my first forum post.

I know there are a couple of existing threads on this article, “Modern-Day Nazis,” but I wanted to start a new thread that wouldn’t be about debating animal rights or the rights or wrongs of eating eggs. What I’m interested in are people’s thoughts about why Steve said he wrote the article in the first place. If I understand correctly, it wasn’t about getting people to stop eating eggs, but about getting people to examine their emotional reaction to the article (and video).

See this post:

Modern-Day Nazis, Post #87

And Steve's response:

Modern-Day Nazis, Post #90

After initially reading the article (I couldn’t bring myself to watch the video), I had the reaction that many people did – anger and defensiveness. With thoughts like, “who does he think he is to be judging me that way” and “he’s really gone off the deep end this time” and “wow, he’s becoming very arrogant” and “what a hypocrite he is speaking in his other articles about peace and love and then going on a rant like this spewing out all of this hatred and judgement.”

But then after reading what Steve said his real intent was in posting the article, I decided to go inward and ask myself (in a subjective reality kind of way), “If this article showed up in my reality for a reason, what might that reason be?”

And one thing I realized is that if I was truly secure in my egg-consuming activities, then this article wouldn’t have bothered me at all. I either would have immediately realized what the true purpose of the article was or perhaps reacted with concern for Steve, like, “This article is so uncharacteristic of him. I hope everything is okay. Maybe he’s just having a bad day.”

I may have also reacted with gratitude that Steve made me aware of something I didn’t know about. And I may have decided to take it a step further and do my own research into the egg industry to confirm what he said so I could start making more conscious choices about the foods I eat. But I would not have needed to be angry or defensive about it.

And I realized that it would be like someone coming up to me on the street and accusing me of being, say, a purple pumpkin. And because I believe with certainty the falseness of that statement, I wouldn’t feel the need to launch into some long emotional defense about how I’m not a purple pumpkin and how dare you accuse me of being a purple pumpkin and that I can get 50 other people to agree with me that I’m not a purple pumpkin and that anybody who would believe that I’m a purple pumpkin is a fool. No, I would simply look at them as if they were nuts (or feel very sorry for them in their delusion) and continue to go about my business.

Or, I could have even reacted with non-attachment to my own beliefs, having the attitude, “Hey, maybe I actually am a purple pumpkin. How do I really know that I’m perceiving my reality accurately anyway? And if it turns out I am a purple pumpkin, that’s okay.” Or, “Thank you for making me aware that I might just be a purple pumpkin. I don’t think I want to be a purple pumpkin, so I think I’ll work on changing that.” (I hope this analogy isn’t getting too weird-sounding.)

I noticed that many people on the article thread didn’t “get” the underlying intent of the article, in spite of the explanation Steve gave to the above poster. A few people did “get it,” and a couple of people “got it,” but either didn’t buy Steve’s explanation or didn’t believe that posting this article was a particularly effective method for helping people grow.

So what I’d like to know is who else out there got the “real” intent behind the article and did you gain any insight into yourself as a result?

Thanks for sharing (hope the post wan't too long).