there is a phenomenon in psychology that
affects all of us it explains things
like why q anon supporters are so
stubborn but also things like why we
collectively keep letting factory farms
cause so much suffering and to explain
what i'm talking about let's start by
playing again let's call it moral or
immoral i'm going to give you a set of
events and you tell me whether you think
they are moral or immoral number one in
2018 this guy john curnow made a habit
of showing up on a farm and penetrating
cows while pleasuring himself number two
in 2015 this guy john scott falbo ii
ran over a group of ducklings with his
lawnmower macerating them alive because
quote
they were in my path so i just kept
mowing number three and this year in
2022 joseph daria cut the throat of his
pet chihuahua as part of a religious
ritual that he was performing now would
you consider those actions to be moral
what do you think should happen to those
people well as it turns out society has
decided that all of those actions were
immoral and the people in question were
all punished john curnow was banned from
ever going on a farm again john scott
went to jail for a year and joseph daria
was sentenced to a two-year community
order
okay
round two let me run you through a
similar set of events in a slightly
different context
number one
in the dairy industry dairy farmers
routinely penetrate cows to get them
pregnant because well they need to have
babies in order to produce milk number
two in the egg industry male chicks who
are unable to produce eggs are deemed
useless and killed on their first day of
life typically by being macerated alive
and number three the most common way
animals are killed in slaughterhouses is
by having their throats cut
would you consider those events to be
moral
in this case the experience for the
animals is the same and since we have no
nutritional need for any animal products
the actions are just as unnecessary but
society has decided that these are
perfectly moral in those industries
those actions i just described as
standard legal practices the animal
agriculture industry does them to
billions of animals every single year
and not only that
but we pay them for it
so what is going on why is john curnow
described as dirty and pervy but we pay
dairy farmers to do the same thing when
it comes to penetrating the cows i mean
do we really want the secretions that
come up cows others that badly
most obviously these contradictions
exist because we are completely removed
from the process of what we are paying
for many of us are simply not aware that
these are among the standard legal
practices of the animal agriculture
industry however when we become aware of
what it is that we are supporting and
are forced to grapple with these
hypocrisies we display what is called
cognitive dissonance
the term cognitive dissonance was coined
by leon festinger in the 1950s festenger
read about a cult that believed the
world was going to end soon due to a
great flood because apparently aliens
had told them so these aliens had also
said that they would show up in a flying
saucer and save the cult followers by
flying them to another planet
obviously the flood never happened but
what interested festinger in particular
was not the belief itself but how the
cult members would react and cope with
the event not occurring some return to
their normal lives but others
particularly the ones who are deeply
invested in the cult and did things like
quit their jobs or end their
relationships with loved ones for the
sake of it
doubled down on their beliefs and
started rationalizing by saying for
example that they had spread so much
light that they had saved the world from
the impending tragedy a very similar
example played out recently when
followers of the q anon cult were forced
to confront the failed prophecy of the
so-called storm that they'd been
preparing for some followers turned
their back on the cult i'm so
embarrassed to be a part of this group
right now get us off national television
what are we doing whilst others became
more entrenched in their views the
elites
we've been suppressed we've been lied to
all of our lives these are examples of
cognitive dissonance so what exactly is
cognitive dissonance
basically cognitive dissonance describes
the uncomfortable tensions that arise
when we find contradictions within our
beliefs actions and reality this tension
can either lead us to change the
inconsistent elements of our beliefs and
actions or we attempt to find
rationalizations that seek to explain
the contradictions it's the tension
between the unwavering belief that a
flood was supposed to occur
and the reality that nothing happened or
the tension between interpreting a man
macerating nine ducklings is wrong while
knowingly eating eggs that come from an
industry that does the exact same thing
to billions of male chicks every year
our belief that hurting and killing
animals is wrong is inconsistent with
the behavior of supporting industries
that cause more harm and kill more
animals than any other
this causes tension and so to resolve
that we can either change our behavior
and go vegan or rationalize our behavior
by believing things like animals can't
really feel pain or vegans are just
preachy militant extremists or eating
animal products is necessary in truth
part of the reason why this example of
cognitive dissonance is so fascinating
is that it doesn't revolve around a cult
who appear suddenly and preach something
that is wildly outside of the societal
norms instead it is about a
multi-generational belief that is the
social norm and yet represents one of
the most obvious contradictions that we
as a society have when it comes to our
behaviors and beliefs after all if it's
wrong for john scott falbo ii to
macerate ducklings on his lawn how is it
not wrong to macerate male chicks in
hatcheries
if it was wrong for john curnow to
penetrate cows how is it not wrong for
dairy farmers to forcibly penetrate cows
if it's wrong to cut the throat of a dog
how is it not wrong to cut the throat of
any other animal of all the examples of
cognitive dissonance our treatment of
animals is one of the ones we as a
species are forced to grapple with the
most we are literally forced to confront
it every time we sit down to eat so the
question is do we make the changes
necessary to remove the dissonance from
our beliefs or will we go round and
round the hamster wheel of
rationalizations hoping in vain that
these contradictions just magically
disappear
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