Verdict

“It’s crazy that the idea of animal rights seems crazy to anyone. We live in a world in which it’s conventional to treat an animal like a hunk of wood and extreme to treat an animal like an animal”…

I finished reading “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer about two weeks ago. Possibly the best non-fiction book I’ve ever read, definitely the toughest book I’ve ever read. Whichever way you approach it, a book about eating animals is never going to be an easy read and I often had to force myself to pick it up again- it would have been exceedingly easy to put it down for good. The book is well written, well researched and well thought out- as was to be expected. What surprised me however, was the multiplicity of viewpoints, philosophies and practical approaches raised for and against, eating animals. I like to think that I’m pretty well-versed with the state of animal farming in South Africa and abroad- factually I am- but I’d never really considered the philosophy and motive(s) behind it all, other than having a strong (but vaguely articulated) aversion to equating animals with goods. This book was an education and a revelation.

To be honest, I’m still undecided as to whether I’m opposed to the use of animals for food in and of itself or whether I’m opposed to the epidemic of commercial animal factory “farms” which are the antithesis of traditional (read: practically extinct) farming and animal husbandry methods- the arguments voiced for both positions are really convincing. One case study is that of a vegan (yes vegan) beef farmer whose primary concern is for the welfare of animals during their lifetime, her reasoning being that she would rather be part of the animal husbandry process, by providing an alternative to factory farming, than opt-out altogether and allow corporations to proliferate their torture and abuse. Then you get the animal rights (as opposed to welfare) argument which opposes the exploitation of animals for any purpose whatsoever.

Foer doesn’t impose any view on you. I was simultaneously relieved and challenged by this- he gives you the facts but the decision is your own, which is a lot of responsibility. In the end, that’s what the book is about. Taking responsibility. I have a friend who has said on numerous occasions that the real test for a vegetarian is whether or not they eat “meat” flavoured chips. I’d never quite understood the logic of such a “test” but my friend has always propounded this theory with such confidence and conviction that I thought there had to be a grain of truth in it. When asked why I don’t eat meat, my standard response has always been that I’ve never really liked it. It’s amazing how quickly this will suffice for a valid answer. During the course of reading the book I realized that I’ve used this answer as a means of avoiding confrontation and the underlying topic. In its own way, it shirked responsibility from me in that I never really “decided” not to eat meat, I just didn’t “like” the taste of it. What I realized is that eating meat is a choice that people make each day between complicity and responsibility. Between two different types of gratification - immediate (read: I feel like a burger) versus delayed (read: even though I feel like a burger and miss the taste of meat a fuck-load, I refuse to ignore and shirk responsibility for what happened to this animal before it became a patty on a burger).

I feel that everyone should be duty-bound to read this book regardless of whether they are vegan, vegetarian or a meat-eater. This book isn’t a sermon. It’s an education.

P 90 Eating Animals:

            “The first time I was exposed to farming issues was when a friend showed me some films of cows being slaughtered. We were teenagers, and it was just gross-out shit, like those “faces of Death” videos. He wasn’t a vegetarian-no one was vegetarian- and he wasn’t trying to make me one. It was for a laugh.

            We had drumsticks for dinner that night, and I couldn’t eat mine. When I held the bone in my hand, it didn’t feel like chicken, but a chicken. I always knew I was eating an individual, I suppose, but it never hit me before. My dad asked me what was wrong, and I told him about the video. At that point in my life, I took whatever he said to be the truth, and I was sure he could explain everything. But the best he could come up with was something like “It’s unpleasant stuff”. If he’d left it there, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you now. But then he made a joke about it. The same joke everyone makes. I’ve heard it a million times since. He pretended he was a crying animal. It was revealing to me, and infuriating. I decided then and there never to become someone who told jokes when explanations were impossible.”

P92 Eating Animals:

            “These factory farmers calculate how close to death they can keep the animals without killing them. That’s the business model. How quickly can they be made to grow, how tightly can they be packed, how much or little can they eat, how sick can they get without dying.

            This isn’t animal experimentation, where you can imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Tell me something: Why is taste, the crudest of our senses, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses? If you stop and think about it, it’s crazy. Why doesn’t a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it? It’s easy to dismiss that question but hard to respond to it. And how would you judge an artist who mutilated animals in a gallery because it was visually arresting? How riveting would the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it that badly? Try to imagine any other end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals.”