The staff ate it later

In the west we have “No Animals Were Harmed in the making of …”, which I’m only just learning comes from the American Humane Society: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Humane_Society#No_A...

I had always thought it were a generic phrase!

Tripwiring (and thus fatally wounding) horses was quite a thing back in the day.

Wasn't there some horrible story about the number of animals killed in the filming of Homeward Bound or some similar movie? I simply cannot comprehend the callousness of people towards animals back then. I guess our cultures are simply too different, but it genuinely seems like people saw all animals as "things" until, like, the 1950s or something like that. What the heck?

> I guess our cultures are simply too different, but it genuinely seems like people saw all animals as "things" until, like, the 1950s or something like that.

There’s a weird disconnect where people ignore or are wilfully ignorant of cruelty to animals in industrial food production but are sensitive to it in virtually every other context. I saw a woman the other day who was tending to an injured pigeon and had called animal welfare people to come tend to it. Meanwhile, millions of chickens live in appalling conditions and die horrible deaths en masse.

I am genuinely unsure where this disconnect comes from. I was the same for most of my life but a few years ago, I started thinking about the animals I was eating and then I couldn’t eat them any more.

I don’t begrudge people their compassion. A few nights ago I went outside to put some stuff on the barbecue and my wife was in the backyard, concerned for the fate of a female cardinal that had flown into our sunroom window. It was stunned and couldn’t fly. Its mate was worriedly flitting through nearby bushes. “That’s so sad,” my wife said. “Yes,” I agreed, and then I put her skewers of meat on the barbecue.

Mencius, a thinker from over 300 BC, once said: "A gentleman, in his attitude towards animals, having seen them alive, cannot bear to see them die; having heard their cries, cannot bear to eat their flesh. Therefore, a gentleman keeps his distance from the kitchen."

The background of this statement is as follows: King Xuan of Qi once saw a man leading an ox to be slaughtered. Moved by the ox's sorrowful appearance, he was deeply distressed and ordered the butcher to spare the ox. However, the butcher informed him that the ox was intended for sacrificial rites. It must be noted that in ancient times, the two most important affairs of the state were sacrifices and warfare. Sparing the ox would have violated the moral principles of the time. In desperation, King Xuan came up with the idea: "Why not replace this ox with a sheep?" Later, the more he reflected on it, the more absurd he found his own decision. He then sought advice from Mencius, who uttered this statement in response.

Mencius believed that what distinguishes humans from beasts is humanity, meaning that humans treat all things with kindness, but human goodness is limited. Therefore, a gentleman practices kindness by helping those in front of him, unable to extend it to all.