Black rights, Animal rights, and......?

Recently, I was watching the movie "Lincoln". I was feeling a strange sense of discomfort and disconnect throughout the time of the movie. Discomfort because of seeing the plight of blacks then. Disconnect because a question was constantly nagging me. How could those white people ever believe blacks were actually inferior and treat them the way they treated?? That was the time when my discomfort skyrocketed. In fact, I became so uncomfortable that I paused the movie, formulated my thoughts and resumed after about 2 hours. The discomfort skyrocketed not because of what whites did to blacks but because in a way I saw myself in the shoes of those whites. But my context was not about black rights, it was about animal rights. This post is about my thought processes which took place in those 2 hours between the movie.

Firstly, I had to develop a model to put the actions of whites and myself into perspective. So I came up with the below model.

Point A in the above figure represent the mind set of those whites who brutally discriminated against the blacks. In their mind, the categorization was crystal clear. While whites are superior, all other forms of lives including the blacks are inferior. So they kept themselves inside a circle while others outside. They justified (rather rationalized) their actions by setting up this 'in and out' mindset. Whites are 'in' and the rest are 'out'.

This sort of a categorization which existed 150 years back made me uncomfortable while watching the movie. As far as I am concerned (Point B in the timeline), all humans are the same. I don't subscribe to any sort of discrimination based on gender, race, color, sex etc etc. I want to discuss two incidents which took place in the past pertaining to the point of discussion here.

1. Once I asked a hypothetical question to a Hindu fundamentalist doctor friend of mine. I asked him "If there is a Hindu patient and a Muslim patient, both are about to die, and you can save only one of them, whom would you save?". I was appalled when he said he will choose a Hindu patient over a Muslim patient. That incident severed my friendship with him. In my world view, where I put all the humans inside the circle, the correct answer to that hypothetical question is "A coin toss".  
2. I am a strong proponent of informed consent (My posts on forced intersection is a testimony to this belief of mine). In fact, I believe it to such an extent that I have become an anti natalist. The fact that consent is not involved (barring the practical impossibility of it) in child birth (we are not asking the 'to be born' child whether it wants to be born), I completely oppose child birth on moral grounds. When I was sharing this view point of mine with a friend, she asked me "Have I taken the consent of a chicken before killing and eating it?". I was not able to give a convincing answer to her immediately. But the point B in the timeline is the answer to her question. For me, people are 'in' and other forms of life are 'out' and so I am okay being a non-vegetarian.

So far so good. All these did not amplify my discomfort. My discomfort was amplified when I projected my thoughts in to the next 150 years. That is the point C of the timeline.

Let us just imagine in the next 150 years, animal rights take the momentum as black rights did from the time of Lincoln. Say in 2150 AD, most of the people subscribe to the ideology that animals should be treated equal to humans (Point C in the timeline). Let us suppose all forms of experimentation on animals are banned and nearly 90% of humans are have quit eating meat. Even those who eat are heavily frowned upon. In their world view, if a human and a kitten is about to die, and if a doctor can save only one, it has to be a 'coin toss' and not preferring human over a kitten. Now, if those people watch a movie which is set in 2000 AD, how will they feel when they see rampant eating of meat?? They will feel the discomfort and disconnect I felt when I was watching the movie Lincoln. This is when I saw myself on the same platform as those who discriminated against blacks which amplified my discomfort. I was no different from them in the way I saw and operated. Just that their circle was smaller than mine. But is my circle the biggest possible circle? What if 150 years after 2150 AD, people decide to put plants also within teh circle? What will people eat? Guess laboratory synthesized food!!

In conclusion - We all have our circles. Our time, context and upbringing makes us comfortable with the circle we draw. Did the above realization make me quit eating non-veg? Absolutely not. The way many whites then (still now maybe) did not get convinced with Lincoln's ideology and continued to discriminate blacks, I will continue to eat non-veg. Hopefully I will die before reaching a stage where eating non-veg is heavily frowned upon (I am pretty sure I wont make it till 2150 ;-))