(no subject)

Right now we should be in Flatland again, for the funeral of Jan's Aunt Joyce, who passed away last week. Unfortunately, we're not, because neither of us could face the journey. This is giving rise to guilt feelings. J was the good and deserving aunt in many ways. Still, at least we got to see her and talk to her last time we went.

We had a very nice weekend with the_magician and valydiarosada and music, and I made a roast lamb lunch which worked rather well. (Also toad in the hole later on which didn't, but everyone was very kind. I am out of practice with Yorkshire pud.) I even hooked some little speakers up to my keyboard rig and played some synth, though since I was in my tiny room hip deep in kipple and the others were on the landing they couldn't hear much of what I was doing. I must have a clear out.

Other than that; jobless, aching and depressed. How's everyone else?

(no subject)

A friend comments in another friend's journal and, as a side issue, cites the argument that if one is not prepared to kill one's own food one should not expect anyone else to do it for one.

This is one of those special arguments. You often hear it applied to killing one's own food, but less frequently to digging one's own latrines, baking one's own bricks, weaving one's own shirts, milking one's own cat et cetera (though there are people who do all these things, and more power to them*). This is possibly because killing an animal is seen as an achievement, something to be proud of, whereas all those other things are just work.

I do not kill my own food, and largely I'm happy with that arrangement. This is one of the reasons that humans gather together in communities, so that people can do what they're good at and let other people, who are good at other things, do those other things. I share in the responsibility for the fact that animals are killed so that I may eat of their flesh, and if that turns out to have been against God's law then I will be punished when I die. I also share in the responsibility for the fact that those animals are kept and raised and fed and can be seen standing about in fields and looking pastoral and nice (this being Britain) and adding to the beauty of the countryside. You're welcome. I also share in the responsibility for the methane they produce which apparently is one of the anthropogenic causes of global warming. Sorry about that. And if you've stepped in a cowpat lately? My bad. But I don't do the deed myself, and if I had to I would probably pass and learn to love vegetable stew, or starve.

But killing an animal, even in self-defence, is not a cause for pride. It's not something you have to do to be a man, unless sourcing your own clean water and bleaching your own cloth is too. (Cue Heinlein's list, if your tastes run that way. Mine don't.) It doesn't need romanticising, and I think that the argument cited above, used for killing animals but not for anything else, may be a result of lingering echoes of romanticism hanging around the image of the mighty hunter. It's just something that sometimes has to be done, like policing the streets and disposing of the rubbish. It's okay to let someone else do it for you. At least, that's what I think.

*I lied about the cat.