Marc Bekoff,
Psychology Today - Animal Emotions
March 2017
Connecting with nature and other animals does not have to involve killing them.
It's a double-cross to "humanely" raise an animal and then kill her or him for a meal: Would you do it to a dog?
Given that other animals suffer, is there any social good in killing animals for food?
Do we really need to kill other animals to connect with nature and with
ourselves?
A recent essay by
Sierra magazine editor Jason Mark titled "Toward a Moral
Case For Meat Eating" has attracted a lot of attention. My email box has
been "ringing" nonstop about it and, as of this writing, there are 172
comments of which numerous are extremely critical for a wide variety of
reasons. Mr. Mark's essay is available online, so here are a few snippets
that might get you to read the entire piece. I do not know Mr. Mark, and my
comments here focus on what he writes, not on him as a person.
Mr. Mark once experimented with vegetarianism, and now he is a born-again
carnivore (please see, for example, "Dead Cow Walking: The Case Against
Born-Again Carnivorism) who is driven by a belief system that psychologist
Dr. Melanie Joy calls carnism.
While Mr. Mark is not a fan of industrialized agriculture because it is
incredibly abusive, he writes, "But we don’t have to abuse animals in order
to raise them." This claim raised a red flag for me and many who wrote to
me, as well as some of the people who commented on his essay. He also
writes, we can continue eating meat in a way "that honors the sacrifice of
animals and which respects animals’ instincts for a life worth living."
It's a double-cross to "humanely" raise an animal and then kill her or him
for a meal: Would you do it to a dog?
After extolling in eulogy-like fashion the virtues of Dinner Bell Farm where
happy pigs are humanely raised and then killed for food, Mr. Mark writes
that this farm "could be mistaken for an animal sanctuary." However, what a
huge mistake that would be, for the animals don't live there until they die.
Rather they're shipped off to a slaughterhouse in Petaluma, California where
they are killed. Mr. Mark writes:
I’ve never been to the Petaluma slaughterhouse, but I know that it has been certified by Animal Welfare Approved. A couple of times I’ve hung out with the owner, Dave Evans, and I know that he is passionate about animal welfare. From what Paul tells me, the animals that enter there experience no pain upon death. They are dispatched [sic] with what’s called the stun-kill method—a hammer to the head before the knife to the throat, the mind going dark in advance of the bloody work.
The use of the impersonal word "dispatched" is sickening and makes the
animal seem like they're nothing but an unfeeling object, and there is
nothing that rings humane about being killed with "a hammer to the head."
They are not being "killed softly."
Mr. Mark confesses, "For the pig, that’s the end. I imagine it’s horrifying;
every mammal must suffer some fear at the ultimate moment. Yet the
well-treated pig might have it easier than most humans." (my emphasis) So,
because the pigs might have it easier than most humans (and I don't see how
Mr. Mark or anyone really knows this), it's perfectly okay to slaughter them
by beating them over the head for unneeded meals.
Recall Mr. Mark writes, " ...we don’t have to abuse animals in order to
raise them." While this might be true, how about killing them by hammering
and slicing them to death? Isn't this abusive?
Furthermore, just because a killing facility is Animal Welfare Approved
means very little about how the animals are actually treated, for it's well
known that numerous such death traps have been found guilty of egregious
violations of the few and minimal standards to which they are supposed to
comply. Big Macs supposedly are humanely raised, transported, and killed.
And, is this sort of death really "humane?" Would you do it to a dog? I
would like to believe that just about everyone, including meat eaters,
wouldn't ever tolerate a dog or other companion animal beings treated in
such a violent way. Of course, food animals are no less sentient nor do they
suffer less than the animals with whom we share our homes. Dogs wouldn't
like being beaten to death and neither do other animals.
Given that other animals suffer, is there any social good in killing animals
for food?
Mr. Mark agrees that meat eating causes animals to suffer, so he wonders,
"Might the suffering that animals experience in the course of being
sacrificed for human food contribute to some other social good?" His answer
is "a conditional yes." And, in these two paragraphs, he offers what could
be called an apology to the animals.
By eating animals, we can remind ourselves of our animal natures. That
recognition of our corporeal reality—the fact that we are flesh and blood
and bones and skin, each of us ever on the way to very likely an unpleasant
end—can, like few other things, keep us connected to the living earth.
Surely such a connection is vital in an age of increasing dislocation
between human civilization and non-human nature. When we kill other animals
for our sustenance—as long as we do so with careful moral consideration— it
can reinforce our interdependence with other species, linking humans to the
rest of nature. And that linkage is a social as well as a trans-species
good.
By taking another animal’s life, we can attune ourselves to the laws of
ecology, and the laws of the animal world of which we, as animals, are a
part. Those laws state that everything is connected, and that there can be a
harmonious balance in a natural food chain. Mindful meat eating plugs us
into that chain, and connects us to the fates of other living beings.
Paradoxical as it might sound, the conscientious carnivore can reestablish
our moral obligations to the other species with whom we share this planet.
Meat eating can be an ecological good insofar as the act reaffirms an
environmental ethics that places other species’ interests alongside human
interests.
I find this justification to be all too anthropocentric, although Mr. Mark
tries to weave in the nonhuman animals into this discourse. He also uses the
word "we" as if he's speaking for all or most of humankind. He surely is not
speaking for me or for just about everyone I know, carnivores, vegetarians,
and vegans alike.
The last sentence, "Meat eating can be an ecological good insofar as the act
reaffirms an environmental ethics that places other species’ interests
alongside human interests" is far too fast and glib for me. Are other
animals really interested in being raised and then killed for human food? In
his comment on this essay, art historian Stephen Eisenman aptly asks, "How
many apologists does it take to turn an evil into a good?"
At the end of his essay Mr. Mark writes:
As for animal rights versus animal welfare, I would argue that while every
creature deserves the respect of a humane death, no animal has the right to
live forever. Humans included. We, too, will end up as worm-food, the cycle
of life and death turning once more. I can’t imagine a better end than
having my ashes dumped in the compost pile, so that my bones might feed the
soil that helps feed my family.
If you find such a thought uncomfortable, then good. Mindful meat eating
forces us to remember that we too—despite all of our rational powers and
moral capacities—will eventually pass away. Through the commonality of
death, we reaffirm our kinship with the other animals on Earth.
Of course, one could write volumes on these two paragraphs as they could do
on Mr. Mark's essay, but here I just want to note that Mr. Mark having his
"ashes dumped in the compost pile, so that my bones might feed the soil that
helps feed my family" is far different from being hammered to death in a
slaughterhouse. And, is the trip to a slaughterhouse and time spent there,
where an individual waits to be beaten to death, really humane? No, they're
not.
The thought, "Through the commonality of death, we reaffirm our kinship with
the other animals on Earth" leaves me hanging, so to speak. Surely, there
are many ways other than violently slaughtering animals to reaffirm this
kinship.
We do not need to kill other animals to connect with nature and ourselves
I hope you will read Mr. Mark's essay and come to your own conclusions. I am
utterly unconvinced that eating other animals plays any role in reminding
"ourselves of our animal natures" or attuning "ourselves to the laws of
ecology, and the laws of the animal world." It would be very useful for
conservation psychologists and anthrozoologists to study these suggested
relationships. And, what a misleading lesson for youngsters -- killing leads
to connecting.
No matter how humanely raised they are, the lives of nonhuman animals raised
for food can be cashed out simply as "dead cow/pig/chicken walking." Whom we
choose to eat is a matter of life and death. I think of the animals'
manifesto as "Leave us alone. Don't bring us into the world if you're just
going to kill us to satisfy your tastes."
We do not need to harm and kill other animals to connect with nature and
ourselves. We can easily connect and rewild our hearts in numerous
non-violent ways. So, let's get on with it and stop killing other animals.
Marc Bekoff’s latest books are Jasper’s Story: Saving Moon Bears (with Jill Robinson), Ignoring Nature No More: The Case for Compassionate Conservation, Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed: The Fascinating Science of Animal Intelligence, Emotions, Friendship, and Conservation, Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence, and The Jane Effect: Celebrating Jane Goodall (edited with Dale Peterson). The Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age (with Jessica Pierce) will be published in April 2017 and Canine Confidential: An Insider’s Guide to the Best Lives For Dogs and Us will be published in early 2018. His homepage is marcbekoff.comtext
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