Weekly Newsletter from Christian Vegetarian Association CVA - July 14, 2021
From Christian Vegetarian Association (CVA)

  1. CVA and Social Media
  2. The Need for Trustworthiness
  3. All-Creatures.Org Ministry

1. CVA and Social Media

We need assistance setting up social media accounts. If interested, please contact stkaufman@mindspring.com. Compensation will be provided.

2. The Need for Trustworthiness

The vast majority of humans live in communities with hundreds, thousands, or millions of people. Doing so has permitted specialization, which has generated remarkable creativity, which has led to a massive growth in terms of knowledge about the world and material wealth. These large communities differ greatly from communities of our primal human ancestors, who lived ing groups of up to about 150 people. After that size, it was difficult for people to know each other well enough to know who was and who as not trustworthy.

One way to prevent antisocial behavior in large communities is to develop a legal system that punishes offenders. However, legal systems cannot resolve every possible dispute. To a degree, the need to preserve a reputation can also prevent antisocial behavior. For example, the most dishonest people will tend to get a bad reputation, leading to social isolation and prevention of further dishonest dealings. However, if everyone is dishonest, there is a breakdown of social order and, ultimately, degeneration into widespread violence.

Unless people abide by general standards of ethical behavior, large communities become unstable. It is crucial that people have a high degree of warranted trust in each other. For example, if the majority of physicians were concerned only with maximizing profit without consideration for the well-being of patients, our health care system would collapse as people avoided physicians like the plague.

Here's where animal issues apply. As discussed in prior essays, lies about the how animals are treated on contemporary farms, lies about animals’ ability to suffer, and lies about the ethics of mistreating animals underpin contemporary animal abuse on farms and elsewhere. People routinely lie to each other about animal issues, but few people object because most people believe they benefit from the falsehoods. However, a consequence of a world of lies is that nobody is fundamentally trustworthy. Everybody knows, deep down, that their neighbors are liars and that their leaders are liars, even if it’s also true that they are liars. I will consider some practical implications next week.

Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.

3. All-Creatures.Org Ministry

Please read our all-creatures Newsletters, which we hope you like and share with others to help stop the exploitation and killing of animals.

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