I have been taught, for instance, that animals have no rights, that lands can be used up by humans because we are entitled to them. When I look at the world from an aesthetical point of view, when I let beauty guide me, however, I could not disagree more. It is true that animals have evolved by taking advantage of the energy stored in other animals' bodies. A plant, which feeds directly from the sun, cannot go around and do some shopping. It simply has not enough energy to do so. It stays in the same spot, it grows and changes very slowly, and gathers the sun's energy in fruits, leaves, etc. If moving animals should exist they must take way this stored energy and consume it. In this way they will be able to build brains, and eyes, etc. Eating other animals follows the same principle and, because any species that gets too numerous, will become a feast, no single species can become too numerous for a long period of time, because some other species (a parasite, a disease, a predator) will take advantage. If no one appears in time, than that species will likely drive itself to extinction by consuming all the available resources (like a grasshoper plague). So there is nothing wrong with being born and diying, with eating and getting eaten, if, and this is a very big if, it is done because there is simply no other choice. But not only do humans have many choices, they treat animals as things, sometimes even taking pleasure on their pain and humiliation. We go to the supermarket and we look at the pieces of limbs as if they were something else and we ignore the suffering that is being done to the animals.
The same happens with landscapes. Under the "subjective is unreal" dogma we can't really say if a polluted landscape is objectively less worthy than a mountain. But if we trust our inner sense of beauty, we have to say that something elevated is lost, when it is replaced by sewers and pollutants.
Another topic in which I disagree with my fellow citizens is in the way we teach children. We condemn pedophilia, but there are many other forms of violence, both subtle and gross, which occur everyday and are condoned by society. Kids are ordered and bossed around, their dreams are ripped to pieces, they are bought and sold by publicity stunts which sell them video games and all sorts of addictive pastimes. Where is creativity and science in the lives of kids? Where is the respect we own them, as the future generation, regarding their choices in everything, from what they dress, the way they act, what and how they want to study and so on.
But no, we give them addictions and then we say that they are unbalaced, that they can't control themselves. And the same concerned parents that condemn pedophilia strangle them in many other ways. Even if parents don't then society will. Schools are a great way to destroy the ability of kids to think by themselves, and to transform the natural search for knowledge into an abhorrence of "study", which is identified with reading large and boring books, not because they want to, but because it is stipulated in some "educational program". when, in the process of educating the kinds, have we forgot that "all we need is love?"
So, letting myself be guided by my aesthetical experience puts me largely at odds, in these and many other respects, with the society that created my mind and that nourishes my body. For instance, I don't understand, how having so many machines and technological power, we, humanity, seem to be working more and more, to buy more and more useless and expensive stuff. We have to have the latest cars, even though most jobs could be done in the comfort of our homes, we could all make shifts cleaning our streets, driving buses, maintaining the hardware and software that runs our society. But no, instead most jobs are ways of trying to convince people to buy what they don't need for prices that allow the useless jobs to remain in place. My society is worried with unemployment. I'm worried with the lack of happiness and the excessive employment people seem to be obessessed with, to compensate for their frustrations.
It is not strange for me, therefore, that most people pretend that this aesthetical side does not exist or is simply "subjective", worthless, except for their intimacy sake. It leads to too bothersome perspectives, in light of what our present society defends.