The Greatness of a Nation

That last post was a little vague. Summary: factory farms suck! Perhaps it seems off-topic. (If you think this blog has a topic, please write to me quickly and tell me what it is.) You know how sometimes you have a moment of clarity, and you realize how pure and simple life really is, and how easy it is to make good choices, and your path lies straight and narrow before you and dappled with afternoon sunlight? I was in that moment. I suppose it's worth something to capture it, but probably worth more to admit to you that (like everyone else) that moment of clarity is fleeting, and when it goes it is replaced by fatigue and helplessness.

Factory farms still suck. I hope you know this. I will not take space here to rehash their horrors—you can do this easily on your own if you are so inclined. What I do want to talk about is: Why does it matter? There's the rub. Most of us think it doesn't really matter, otherwise factory farms would be dying out. So let's talk about it.

Eating is incredibly complicated. Every time we place an item in our grocery cart, we enter into a web of relationships of which we know basically nothing. That's enough to cause compassion fatigue in the most resolute activist, and we can throw up our hands right here in the frozen food aisle and say we're damned both ways. I have a hunch this is what most of us do. I know it's what I do. Poor me! Forced to participate in the systemic evils of modern agriculture! Nom nom nom nom....

Sarcasm. Forgive me. I direct it against myself, because I have those exact thoughts all the time. Do you, too? Are we all so calloused?

Here's why it matters: Because how we eat determines how the world is used (Mr. Berry again). That's it. Do we think that, when we eat, we can separate that act from all its consequences? Eating is the most fundamental act of our physical existence. The way we eat has tremendous impact on the  world. Think of this: if everyone in the U.S. ate no meat or cheese one day per week, it would be equivalent to taking 7.6 million cars off the road, or not driving 91 billion miles.

And consider Ghandi's observation: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” What does it say about America that we anthropomorphize our pets and treat our farm animals like machines that can feel no pain?

Consider Immanuel Kant's observation: “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” How do we pass our conscience through this filter? How do we judge our hearts when, knowing that the animals we eat are treated so inhumanely, we choose to look the other way?

I do not have the answer. I still too often choose to look the other way. I do it because it's difficult to do otherwise, because it's inconvenient, because I'm too tired to care. Do you think the current system is justified or justifiable? Do you look at factory farms and industrial agriculture and the whole state of affairs and think I'm okay with this? How?