"The fact that you cannot come out of hunting feeling unambiguously good about it is perhaps what should commend the practice to us.... If I've learned anything about hunting and eating meat, it's that it's even messier than the moralist thinks. Having killed a pig and...now looking forward (if that's the word) to eating that pig, I have to say there is a part of me that envies the moral clarity of the vegetarian, the blamelessness of the tofu eater. Yet part of me pities him too. Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris."
. . . . -Michael Pollan, "The Modern Hunter-Gatherer"
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Quote of Note
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3 comments:
Brilliant. Another book for my to-read list.
I don't know. I have had days (many of them, I think, maybe most!) that were unabmiguously good hunting days.
THAT'S WHY I DO IT!
I'm more wishy-washy than most hunters I know, and more equivocal about my feeling on it. But I DO enjoy it. I wouldn't do it if I didn't.
Does that make me better or worse a person? Again, I don't know.
I think if you hunt small game a lot you get to be OK with death. One reason is that small critters (birds, rabbits, groundhogs, fox), tend to have 70 percent mortality rates anyway, so there's a sense that nothing much is being changed in terms of the lifespan or survival odds of any one creature. If the game is bigger, however (elk, bear), and you are pulling the trigger (so to speak) only once or twice a year, it might feel more "interventionist" than it does for small game. Just an idea ...
Patrick
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