For instance, many people like to eat meat, but don't want to know about the lives of the animals involved and the processing entailed before their bodies wind up on dinner plates. Would more people be vegetarian if they had to be directly involved in farming and slaughtering?
Similarly, if people everywhere felt the same thing as relatives of people killed in Iraq or the US Gulf coast, would we still be debating when or if to leave Iraq, or whether to plan for the greatest benefit to those displaced (instead of for the benefit of the companies which received no-bid contracts)?
3 comments:
Your example is a subject very near my heart lately--but in less abstract terms. I have been a meat eater all my life. My best friend grew up (OK, I admit, not near me) on a cattle ranch, bloodied herself to feel as tough as her brothers during the cattle castrations. I am a foodie whose favorite dish usually involves rack of lamb. I am suddenly, in the middle of my life, somewhat seriously considering becoming a vegetarian.
I've always been a(n overly) sensitive person. I've long known, intellectually, that farm practices are cruel.
What has changed? I'd attribute my heightened sensitivity to having fairly recently adopted a very sensitive (and exceedingly lovable) cat. I spent quite a bit of time in animal shelters this past year, both looking for her (Ms. Right) and considering whether to adopt a second (a friend for her, to prevent her from becoming overly neurotic as per the advice of my cat-sitter). The conditions in these shelters were pretty damn crappy (some of them shockingly so--enough to make me write a letter to the entire City Council of Oakland), and some cats and dogs, because of the animal overpopulation, are forced to live (and sometimes die) in these conditions for months on end. Would that I could describe the terror seen in my cat when she stayed at the shelter.
Since then, humane animal shelters have become high on my list of charities. I hesitate to say that this resulted in receiving literature about all types of animal rights issues to which I am now more sensitized.
I've long avoided veal--since seeing photos of calves imprisoned in pens that prevent them from moving. And foi gras (and was glad when it no longer was legal to produce it in California). Did I think that other farm animals lives were much better? No, but I didn't want to think about it much. I tried to stick to free-range meat and poultry, but that goes out the door in most restaurants where I lunch on weekdays. Hell, even 90% of the eggs at Rainbow Grocery were laid by hens who've never seen a day of sunshine in their lives and have parts of their beaks removed to prevent them from pecking each other and grooming themselves. So, now, for the first time ever, I read the chart that the helpful Rainbow staff have created which itemizes such practices by egg producer and have decided that I can only buy Marin Sun or B&B eggs who have none of them. They are over $6/dozen and are never in stock b/c they are so popular with the uber-crunchy Rainbow patrons.
I savor meals of meat and feel like nothing else curbs a big hunger. I'm not sure how I'd give it up permanently; I'm trying to educate myself on the nutritional aspects and limit my meat-eating to only one or two days per week.
OK, if you are still reading...how does this relate to Iraq? I guess my experience tells me that in order to really confront the reality of the horror of the situation, personal experience with someone who is only one degree of separation from it may be necessary. Someone who is human, but doesn't live or look like us or who has different belief systems. Could coming to know that person well, to be their friend and to love them prevent us from repressing the horror of their friends and relatives? To the point of caring about the number of Iraqis (not just US troops) who have died?
Do I sound like a Pollyanna or flower child? Probably.
Even the SPCA recommends against vegetarian food for cats. And Rainbow Grocery sells meat-containing cat food.
As for my vegetarian inclinations, I don't want to see the world like Werner Herzog does...cruel and chaotic. I want to believe it is as the Grizzly Man saw it..gentle and peaceful. But when I look deeply into even my own human heart, I fear and know that the Grizzly Man was wrong.
My understanding is that while dogs actually can survive on a vegetarian diet, cats cannot. My knowledge isn't the best, but what I think now is that while people can survive on a vegetarian diet, our health is better if we eat some meat. If this is correct, those who choose not to eat meat seem to say that the better health from eating meat is not worth the moral cost of killing animals. But then we get into the whole set of questions in the "What's for Dinner" post.
All this fretting is quite socially constructed, too. Whole cultures (most of them, I'd guess) thought nothing of doing to animals whatever suited them best, not to mention doing to people of other cultures whatever suited them best. In our increasing interconnectedness, are we moving to a blurring of us and them among people? How is that related to the blurring of us and them between humans and other animals? Even the tradition of enlightenment, which pretty clearly says that enlightened people don't eat animals, says that humans are privileged in being able to escape the cycle of rebirth.
As for whether the world is cruel and chaotic or gentle and peaceful, I'd argue that it has elements of both, but is fundamentally neither. Those characteristics are our immediate perceptions, which are not fundamentally true. The world is simply what it is, which is who we are.
Yes, that's exactly why the SPCA recommends meat for cats. They need it. I know I'd be healthier eating it, but yes, it's the moral issue.
As for whether it's socially constructed or not, I don't really care. I guess I'm more on the side of absolute good and bad--especially when it comes to life vs death issues--than on the side of cultural relativism. After all, the idea that female circumcision is wrong is also socially constructed (to give just one example).
On your point about the world being chaotic vs. cruel--that was helpful. You are right--it is neither and both.
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