Ahimsa – Conscious Compassion – A Public Lecture at the British Library
Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Ed.M. a Harvard-educated psychologist, professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, celebrated speaker, and the author of the award-winning primer on carnism “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows” will be giving a presentation at the British Library on 11th October 2013 7pm – 8.30pm in association with the Institute of Jainology and the British Library. This free event is open to all, but prior registration is required.
Why are we happy to send millions of animals of one species for slaughter, yet give our love and kindness to another for apparently no reason? We rationalise our behaviour by saying that’s just the way things are. We turn a blind eye to the bleeding obvious but pay the price of moral discomfort. Something is wrong when we have love for animals and their welfare, yet we support an industry that kills billions of animals each year and don’t spend a minute to really think about it. The ideology of meat-eating distorts our view such that we continue to consume meat and share a deep connection with other animals. Dr Melanie Joy has termed this ideology “Carnism”. It is an ideology so powerful and engrained that it can cause us to numb our thinking and not even realise that we have done so.
The scale of animal suffering is unimaginably high and there seems no end to its constant rise. The answer to this is to open our minds to clearer perceptions of our behaviour, to establish congruency with our core values of love and compassion, to move beyond arguments of “natural diet” to the reality of what is justifiable. Carnism is the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat certain animals. By examining this belief system Dr. Joy shows how it is perpetrated and sustained. She exposes the reality of what is so conveniently disguised, and puts forward a concept that has the potential to transform the way in which society thinks about eating animals.
About the Institute of Jainology: This public lecture has been organised by the Institute of Jainology, a UK based organisation at the forefront of spreading awareness of Jainism and its core values within the Jain and wider community. A vegetarian plant based diet is an important aspect of minimising the amount of harm we cause to other living beings and the environment. The work of Dr. Joy has the potential to bring this awareness to societies around the world.
Further information:
Institute of Jainology: www.jainology.org. Further information: info@jainology.org
Carnism Awareness & Action Network: http://www.carnism.org
Register for the event at : http://www.jainology.org/events/ahimsa-conscious-compassion/
Venue: British Library Conference Centre. 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB
Date & Time : 11th October 2013 from 7.00 pm to 8.30 pm