The Difference between Stewardship and Slavery

Gazing at a strobing milky way, wondering how there could be a beginning or an end to the universe.

Knowing deeply that the God-force is beyond any human comprehension, and that our pitiful attempts to anthropomorphize it are an extreme injustice to truth.

It seems to be human nature to shy away from the hard questions. For too long I’ve avoided asking if my chickens are slaves.

The stewardship theory holds that such a relationship is either (A) God-ordained, or (B) to the mutual benefit of all parties. The extreme egotism that humans can know the will of God has led to everything from the crusades to 911; its results deny its validity. The second argument was used to justify human slavery, but it is all I have to cling to as I rob my chicken’s eggs and keep them caged⁠—however “humanely.”

I’m afraid I don’t have the backbone to become a Jain. Yet I find attempts at gradualism too much parallel nineteenth century arguments for bringing slaves to independence slowly, neither can I rest on the laurel that my treatment of these chickens is immensely better than that of those from the factory farms where I would otherwise get my eggs. “I treat my slaves better than you do” seems to be a feeble and evasive argument.

Chickens are arguably the most widely domesticated animals in the world. Human intervention has certainly increased their numbers, but do sheer numbers have meaning?

I am thinking of reversing how I do things with my chickens, turning them loose and fencing my garden from them. Every time I move their tractors they dash about frantically catching all the grasshoppers and other insects the move brings. What if I fed them in the evening to get them into the chicken house, kept them there till they’d laid their eggs, and then around noon, turned them loose to range the fields? Is this a fair exchange, or is it the equivalent of a factory owner exploiting the labor of his workers?

The most important questions are the hardest to answer.