10.15.2012

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?






2 comments:

  1. well, i'm not ok with it, but i certainly feel helpless about it...

    someone lay out for me my options and tell me which is the better (more moral) option and i'll choose it, but nobody is doing that...

    it seems to me, if there were just a voice of conscience that said "eschew mcdonald's for burger king (because of this minor difference)" and that would have real effect, then shortly mcdonald's would adapt (change that minor difference for the better) and the voice of conscience might say "eschew burger king for mcdonald's" and we could get in a bidding war amongst restaurants and fast food establishments for the "conscientious eater".

    okay, so today obviously neither are anywhere close to conscientious, but boycotting all fast food does nothing to encourage a fast food company to change... it seems to me the answer is a conscientious bidding war betwixt offenders that eventually results in significant improvements in all participants.

    build a coalition of the lazy who will all commit to only buying fast food from the "best" fast food place each month, and let there be an evaluation each month of each place and send it on... if there were a million customers who committed to this sort of thing, that'd certainly convince some change of behavior in fast food restaurants, no?

    but what do i know, i'm drunk...

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    Replies
    1. You are an amazingly coherent drunk! You must be unstoppable when sober.

      To answer your first question, it's easy to know the moral option, but difficult to follow. Herein lies the complication. The moral option is to know where your food comes from. To eat less meat, and to know how the meat that you do eat is raised. To support local farms to the extent possible. Easy to say. Hard to do.

      You've presented interesting options for the fast food industry. On an individual level, we must all eat less meat. Factory farms have created an expectation that we should be eating meat at every meal, but this is simply not sustainable. So I think the thing that might actually have the most impact here is for individuals to ask for more meatless options at fast food restaurants. That would have a tremendous environmental impact.

      As each of us opens our awareness to the problem, and begins to accept our personal responsibility for the way we eat, more of us will have the courage to make these difficult choices. To choose not to eat fast food. To pay a little more for the meat we do eat. To go without, in some cases. These are not easy choices, but when we keep in mind the consequences at stake, I think they become a bit easier to make...

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