©Ashy Macbean 2002
The pamoika
I am usually quite optimistic about human nature. I like to think people are capable of great things if they are given the chance and appropriate encouragement. Sometimes, however, I see something which causes my faith in human nature to take a dive. It happened recently, when the local authority cleansing department set up a new pamoika next to our house. A pamoika is an area where people can deposit their rubbish, with bins which are emptied every couple of days.
A few days later, another new pamoika was created at the other end of our block, only forty metres away, which seemed a bit excessive to us. The local authorities, apparently, thought the same and perhaps the creation of the second pamoika had been the result of an administrative oversight. They decided to remove one of them a couple of weeks later anyway and we considered ourselves really lucky that they chose the one nearest us, especially as they had built it first. It was right under our window and we were dreading summer and the inevitable swarms of pamoika flies that would appear with the heat. After it had been removed, apart from one old fridge standing on it's own on an otherwise clean-swept piece of asphalt, there remained absolutely no trace of the pamoika. People still left bags of rubbish however, in the place where it had been, even though the other pamoika was already functioning and so close. They stacked their crap next to the old fridge as if that justified what they were doing. The yard cleaner cleared it away every day but by the next morning there was another pile of shit.
That really pissed me off. Not just because of the rubbish but also because it seemed to confirm a certain cynical, deterministic view that humans are essentially mindless. Like amoebae. Give them a little shove in one direction and they'll keep going, blindly, until they hit an obstacle. Such behaviour depresses me. I like to think that humans are still evolving, just like all the other species around us, except that while the other species are merely adapting physically and behaviorally to the changing environment, humans are also evolving intellectually and morally.
This is, as I see it, the main defence against the argument that humans are 'naturally' meat eaters. Yes, our ancestors were often hunters and meat eaters (though not always - Hindus have a history of vegetarianism going back thousands of years) and the image of the 'noble savage', just taking enough from the environment to feed his family (it's usually a 'he') appeals to many people, but those days, if they ever existed, are long gone. Humans have evolved socially and intellectually to the extent that we now have numerous choices when it comes to defining and living meaningful and fulfilling lives. Because of technological advances and the sheer number of humans alive today, we can also, and usually do, have a much greater impact on our environment and the other living beings that we share it with.
I believe that such evolution must involve a moral obligation to alter what might previously have seemed like 'natural' behaviour if, when examined rationally, it appears unsustainable, cruel or unjust when applied to modern times. I think this is especially the case when it is within our power to alter such behaviour without significantly reducing the levels of comfort at which we are used to living. From this point of view, meat eating as 'natural' behaviour could be viewed as redundant. It could be argued that it is unsustainable, and in our efforts as a race to try to make it sustainable, we have begun to inflict incredible cruelty on other living beings. We see nations acting unjustly towards each other solely to maintain the wealth of resources necessary to sustain the levels of meat consumption their populations are used to.
If these thoughts are to have any relevance to the world today,
however, we have to assume that humans are essentially rational and capable
of modifying their behaviour. Looking out the window at the growing pile of
shit round the old fridge, I can't help thinking we might be in deep trouble.