Saturday, September 12, 2009

Wealth distorts perception

Living in the pink bubble of a "rich" country distorts your perception of reality.
Few days ago, in the Netherlands, a discussion emerged about animal rights with the concrete proposal of applying a "meat tax" (up to 2 euro's per kilo, depending on how "bio" the piece of meat is), with the aim to reduce meat consumption and ensure better treatment for the animals.

For quiet a while I was myself very involved into this discussion. Until I saw this. A documentary about child trafficking and women forced into prostitution. To give you an indication of the extent of the problem: about 50.00 women per year are being trafficked to the USA alone...

When I am confronted with stuff like this anything else seems SO FUTILE... "Animal right, 1 or 2 euros"- What are we even babbling about!!... But alas, we DO live in our own MICROCOSMOS... It is a problem of perception. Apparently to 'us' it seems that most problems pertaining to "human rights" are solved (in our part of the world at least) so we can now actually start worrying about "animal rights"...

Don't get me wrong, I find any initiative to better the world (animal or human) more than welcome but sometimes things just seem awfully out of balance...

Anyways. Beside the point of us living in our pink bubble, I also wonder:
Is forced prostitution a poverty problem? Or is this a social/mentality problem? (ie. where there is a need that shall be a supply)

9 comments:

Jason Li said...

Oh darling I love the title for this blog!!!

About the post... true, but sometimes things are linked. Consumption in the MEDCs is fed by production in the LEDCs... not that this example is a particularly good one. But the issues aren't either or, are they? Can't you deal with both?

Philo said...

Haha! Glad you like the tittle though I was afraid you would not approve :P

Yes, very true. Was thinking about that as well after having published this. After all in a way, everything is linked. Can't wait to solve one problem entirely anyways before tackling the next. But I just find it amazing how one (at least I caught myself doing that) can sort of forget about the rest of the world and be fully absorbed in their own microcosmos.

Jason Li said...

Yeah. It's pretty pathetic isn't it? How we get caught up in little details that don't matter at the end of the day. *sigh* :p

Philo said...

And you know what the irony is? Me writing in my blog is one of those "details" :P Ah well, one has gotta have fun. Back to my bubble!:)

Jason Li said...

hey i've spent most of my last two days fidgeting with CSS for my new wordpress system for my comic... beat that!

Philo said...

Online comic??? Do show, do show!

Jason Li said...

Tomorrow. I have to scan stuff at work.

gmsmc said...

Speaking about animal rights, I'm curious about how this whole halal thing is going to end. After all, what we're talking about here is a clash between animal rights and religious freedom. Which one would you pick?

Philo said...

Halal or not, eating meat at all is against animal rights I guess, right...(?) If they have the right to live, then what gives us the right to take their life?