I, as many others who are concerned about animal welfare, have compared the livestock in factory farms to the elephant that is poached for ivory and the dolphin caught in fishing nets (nevermind the fact that there are tuna caught in there too). But, it would probably be better for the elephants and dolphins not to bind them in any argument with the doomed livestock who command next to no sympathy from us.
The mink and the fox will eventually get a fair hearing if the point is pressed. After all, they are coveted only by a small market of affluent people who see in a fur coat a symbol of their economic status. But the pig and the cow are coveted by us all, creating this casual willingness to subject suffering upon billions.
We condemn Michael Vick for dog fighting and call cock fighting a blood sport, but how is this any different than harvesting chickens in spaces smaller than your computer screen for the sole purpose of slaughter? Your chicken nuggets came from an animal treated far worse than any champion rooster.
Why is it that in the case of cruelty to livestock, we push the harsh reality out of our minds? We shrug it off, believing somehow that it is all warranted by need, or that it is just part of the natural order. And after all, everyone else is doing it, so what’s the big deal? (Only a few kooks question the morals of it all.)
What’s even more baffling is that we get all sentimental over movies like Babe and Charlotte’s Web. “What happened to Babe’s mother?” kids ask. Of course the movie can’t show Babe’s mom shackled by one leg, hanging upside down and squealing in agony, or children, as well as adults, would be mortified.
Not important, we tell ourselves. We continue to ignore it, to omit the brutal truth from movies, from our minds. We conveniently forget about reality, sometimes even laugh it off, and we avoid discussing the obvious moral evil so sickening and gruesome that it would leave us horrified if we understood the scale of it. All this so we can have our accustomed steak, or fried chicken, or hot dog.
Even among people who cannot imagine ever deliberately harming any animal, there seems to remain some sort of mental block, an utter inability to see how their very own actions might contribute to the suffering of billions of creatures.
It is time we stop this pattern of selective ignorance, avoidance, and apathy. It is time we think about this again.
“If you could walk all of humanity through one of these places, 90 percent would never touch meat again. We would leave the place retching and gasping for air. We cringe at the thought of it, and that cringe is to our credit.” – Matthew Scully, author of Dominion
It is time we think about that cringe, talk about it, and most importantly, do something about it.
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Breakfast: Freshly cut pineapple
Lunch: Black bean and guacamole burrito from Baja Fresh
Dinner: Homemade pizza with arthichoke hearts, olives, and soy cheese
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Thoughts & Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Wonderful blog, Angie. If you haven’t already, you might want to look into the activities of the Humane Society. I think they’re doing great work: http://www.humanesociety.org/
Thanks Judi! Yes, I am a big supporter of the Humane Society, what they do and stand for. (As a matter of fact, I’ve perused their site for job postings a few – or a few dozen – times because I’d love to help support their mission full-time. Don’t tell my boss!) I am also a big fan of Compassion Over Killing, another group working to end animal abuse: http://www.cok.net/.
I appreciate you mentioning the Humane Soceity because this made me realize that I should provide a link to them from my site so that readers will be aware of their work as well. Thanks again!