Words of an 18th Century Dairy Farmer
A Meat and Dairy Industries Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Art From a Vegan World
June 2018

It is not impossible for animal farmers to break free from their dogmatic ignorance.

A dairy farmer wrote this in the early 1800s:

"Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether Heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection."

This sounds hauntingly similar to the modern farmers' views of their animals. Though, I should note that this farmer's name was Thomas Jefferson and sadly he was not talking about his cows. We know he was wrong about what he was talking about here and he had the IQ of a genius based on all best estimates. Most animal farmers today are not geniuses. Nor are they reflecting on the rights of living beings as Jefferson did and yet still failed to see the truth so plainly before him.

And today's farmers cling to outdated justifications for the enslavement of other living beings based on unfounded beliefs in the superiority of their personal identifiers. They further buttress their beliefs with claims of 'God-given dominion' and claims of 'this is how it has always been.' This should trouble everyone that those very claims were also used by the farmer and people alive in his day to justify what Jefferson was speaking about in his quote.

It is not impossible for animal farmers to break free from their dogmatic ignorance but it will take an immense amount of courage and personal strength. Do they have it? Some do, and these are the people we see coming forward who have abandoned the barbaric practices of the past to speak out against them.

Let us hope more farmers will have these character qualities. Or at the very least, that they will get out of the way of the forward movement of justice for all.



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