Why do we pardon a turkey in act of magnanimity and promptly proceed to cook another in the oven? We carve and consume the bird without a second thought ! Are we heartless? No, we’re conditioned.
The pardoning of the turkey is a classic moral dilemma for us to learn the layers and ability of the human mind to block out the truth. Instead of pardoning a turkey, we should be thanking and revering the animal being slaughtered to provide our meal.
On Thanksgiving, it may seem like all the focus is on getting a good meal. But that’s not the only reason why we celebrate this holiday: We also know about loved ones and what it means to be thankful for God’s gifts. This holiday has been around for many years, but it wasn’t always so commercialized. In fact, there are some parts of it that have become controversial as time passes by.
Pardoning the turkey is the ultimate case of human hypocrisy. We steal their lives and they die for our own consumption!
The turkey pardoning is a classic moral dilemma. The turkey has no choice, but the festival and the pardon are symbols of assuaging our guilt at eating it. This is another symbolic gesture that commodified an animal in the worst way possible. It involves not only carrying out the actual pardon, but also carrying out a mass slaughter of the same thing. This disconnect encourages systemic violence against animals.
Regardless of the crime you steal from nature, the pardoning of a turkey forces us to remember how we’ve been treating our animals. This tradition reminds us that when we put down an animal, it’s not like we’re just killing an innocent chicken or a cute lamb or whatever – it’s actually taking away life from something else! And as we all know, taking away life is taking away the one thing that would make this world better if everyone collectively were responsible for saving every living creature out there.
This is not an argument about traditional hunter gatherers or hunting communities. There was and still is not the ability to mass produce and kill animals. The hunt is fair and both prey and hunter are equally at risk.
In our industrialised food system, the animals and workers in these fast paced institutes are at risk. There is little respect or connection to the process and so it should make us think- what are we thankful for on Thanksgiving Day?
Every Thanksgiving, it’s a mad dash to the oven. But before you stuff the bird, stop and consider some common myths about turkey farming.
It’s an inefficient procedure that causes unnecessary suffering and death. However, the pardon is a way to pretend that you are doing something good for the animal in order not to make yourself feel guilt. It was also a popular method used by people to “hide the fact” that they were eating meat or other products that were considered as cruelty when compared with mammal-free alternatives.
As we are increasingly controlled by ‘influencers and marketing experts’ we’re loosing sight of what is real and what is contrived reality. Days like these are becoming harder to accept for so many thinking minds.
We’re thankful for the small things and big, but are we ever going to be thankful to know the truth? So we can change for the better?
Leafy Fox 