As I've mentioned, my neighbors are great people, but culturally distant from us. We moved up here from suburban NJ. They are self-described "rednecks" and proud of it. We love each other as friends and neighbors and we coexist wonderfully.
Today my neighbor posted on FB a picture of her 14 year old son who bagged a bear today. It looked like a young one, but what do I know? This boy is very skilled at many things, and he's a really good kid.
But I had such a negative visceral reaction to that picture. My friend captioned the picture with "no negative comments please." He doesn't deserve negative opinions. At the same time, I have a hard time being happy for him.. I'm happy for his skill and for his family's pride. But when I look at that bear, as a suburban mom not raised in that lifestyle, I have a hard time with it.
I have an herbalist friend who is totally into permaculture. He foraged for food for a long time. A couple of months ago he said that he was learning how to hunt, because in nature, if you want to live off the land you eat what you kill. So many of us choose to eat styrofoam packaged meat and are fine with that but are revolted by the idea of killing our own food. This is a problem with civilization as I see it. We are miles removed from the reality of how our food gets to our plate. I personally applaud the decision of my herbalist friend to kill his food, and I applaud my neighbors who kill deer and then butcher it themselves in an outbuilding in their yard and eat it. But it's still such a foreign concept to me. I don't want to face the animal I'm eating--which is why I was vegetarian for so many years.
What do you think about hunting? How do I respond to my friend? Could you kill your food if you had to? Does the idea of killing influence your eating habits today? Do you think that the divide between the hunters and [supermarket] gatherers is an issue?
Peace Pilgrim once said that if she couldn't personally kill the food she ate, she couldn't expect someone else to do it for her, so she was vegetarian. At the same time, in nature, little fish are eaten by big fish. Slower animals are eaten by faster animals. So do I need to get over my revulsion of seeing a 14 year old boy holding up the head of a dead bear? And if I can't get over it, isn't it wrong for me to eat meat that has been killed for me?
Just a few philosophical questions.