Earth Day Assignment: Recognize and Undo the "Latches"

In his brilliant book, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson writes:

"I was told by some New Zealand sheep farmers that sometimes a particularly smart lamb will learn to undo the latch of a gate, evidently not an uncommon skill, and the sheep farmer then worries that the lamb might teach his less clever companions to do the same."

Masson asked a group of farmers, "What do you with sheep who can undo the latch?" "We shoot them," came the reply, "so they can't pass on their knowledge." "Others nodded in agreement," Masson continued. "They all had anecdotes about particularly intelligent sheep who were shot as a reward for their cleverness."

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"The gates that keep our minds imprisoned"

While this anecdote stands alone as a telling indictment of human behavior in general and the treatment of animals in particular, it additionally reminds eco-activists of how important it is to not only undo the latches on the gates that keep our minds imprisoned...but to pass on that knowledge.

Of course, those who have learned to undo the latches in human society are often "rewarded for their cleverness," too: deported (Emma Goldman), murdered (Fred Hampton), framed and imprisoned (Leonard Peltier), marginalized (Noam Chomsky). The tactics vary, but in the United States of Amnesia, these tactics are usually more subtle than overt terror.

"If you come from the more privileged classes, if you're a white middle-class person, then the chances that you are going to be subjected to literal state terror are very slight," says the aforementioned Chomsky. "It could happen, but it's slight. What will happen is that you'll be marginalized, excluded. Instead of becoming part of the privileged elite, you'll be driving a taxi cab. It's not torture, but very few people are going to select that option, if they have a choice. And the ones who do select it will never be heard from again. Therefore they are not part of the indoctrination system. They don't make it. It could be worse, but it's enough to discipline people."

To a certain degree, yes, the "American Way" certainly is more than enough to discipline people. But even the most conditioned of societies can be pushed too far and that's when the latches get undone, the knowledge passed on, and those gates fly open.

This Earth Day, let's start spreading the word...