Blog

FEBRUARY 15, 2020 by Stephen McLaren
PETA

It's the speech that the whole world is talking about right now. On perhaps one of the biggest nights of his life, PETA's 2019 Person of the Year, Joaquin Phoenix, wasn't thinking about himself. As he accepted the Oscar for Best Actor, he gave a beautiful, humble speech about his own flaws and his belief in what he considers "the best of humanity": our most important trait, compassion for others. Here's some of what he had to say: I think that we've become very disconnected from the natural world. And many of us, what we're guilty of, is an egocentric worldview, the belief that we're the centre of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. And then we take her milk that's intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal, and I think we fear the idea of personal change, because we think that we have to sacrifice something, to give something up. But human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and ingenious, and I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop, and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.

People around the globe are reacting to Phoenix's speech in the best way possible: they're googling "speciesism" and getting informed about the realities of the meat, egg, and dairy industries

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