All education should be directed toward the refinement of the individual's sensibilities in relation not only to one's fellow humans everywhere, but to all things whatsoever. In the societies of the Western world compassionate intelligence is encouraged in girls - in boys it is tabu. The tabu on tenderness in which boys are conditioned, the emphasis on 'manliness,' 'machoism,' plays havoc with the male's capacity for compassionate intelligence. Tenderness is considered to be feminine, and that is sufficient to remove it from the repertoire of masculine behavior. Indeed, things have reached such a pass in the Western world that many men seem to have lost all understanding of its meaning. The masculine world would substitute for it the idea of 'justice.' The difficulty with that is that there is not much compassion in their justice, and justice without compassion is not justice at all.
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The bond and kinship which indissolubly exists between all living beings requires especially on our part a deep involvement in their welfare. The indifference, callousness and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil first because it results in great suffering in animals, and second because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of the human spirit.
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Stand still, close your eyes and listen; in the silence you can hear the cries of pain and low moans of anguish of animals waiting to die... do everything you can even if today it is just one small thing. There are no excuses for inaction, despair, egotism, or petulance that matter to the animals.
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