"In our current society…

Animals are things.

We remove ourselves from animal suffering by disassociating ourselves from their pain. we disassociate the violence (if slaughterhouses had glass walls) or, in close encounters (hunting) we remove ourselves emotionally because animals are not the same as us – “we’re different, we feel things differently. Humans possess rationality.”

Therefore animals cease to be us, animals become them. Their suffering becomes abstract and unreal against our need for carrying on habit and shopping comfortably. Animals sit in our ovens, animal heads adorn our walls, and animal skins are twisted into shapes in order for them to carry our animal-tested lipsticks. Animals are very clearly things for us.

People who are the ‘other’, and those in far-away lands are already things.

We remove the violence that is not on our doorsteps. It is far. It is not our problem, or responsibility. We remove ourselves from those who do not look like us, do not act like us – because they are different, by choice or by nature. Again, people are not us, they become them. These people become disposable. Murder in war is rationalized by the media and as a justification for our own safety.

Or, those who are suffering on our doorstep – the homeless finding spikes placed in the drier spots they used to sleep – we find any rationale to associate ourselves with them. People are things.

~

In our modern world, animals are definitely seen as things, products to consume, literally, to the point that we gnaw upon the unnaturally cooked flesh of an animal that was bred and tortured to be slaughtered.

People are already seen as things, factory workers sewing help messages into big brand clothing labels as suicide nets are put up as an answer to a despicable problem, whole communities are starved out, poisoned and murdered for land. Genocide swept under the rug in the name of patriotism.

Already, we witness a basic lack of empathy and sense of responsibility for suffering within ourselves, our caring friends, and loving families.

Mad Max: human skulls are used for decoration, human blood and milk are extracted from the unwilling to fuel the wants of the few. Milk taken from nursing mothers, and blood from captives literally keep Immortan Joe’s cannon fodder able to fight.

Today, in England, the US, almost everywhere: Milk is forcibly taken from mothers who are constantly impregnated, as their calves, their babies, are sold as veal, just for profit, as they’re not actually allowed to tell you dairy is good for you anymore, because it’s not.

So, I ask you, what is the difference between the microcosm society that horrifies us so in Mad Max, and the lives we live right now?"

https://rachelsar.wordpress.com/tag/mad-max/