Animal Liberation

We finally get down to my favorite chapter of the book: Is it moral to eat animals. For these past several weeks, I have been unashamed to say that I eat meat. So, what about this chapter where Pollan cited the writers for animal liberation and the near perfection of their argument? Have I ultimately decided that vegetarianism is the way?

No.

No, I have not. But thanks in part to Michael Pollan, I now have the tools to melt the wax of at least some of the animal liberation follower's wings. It all starts with that word liberation.

The animal liberation movement wants animals to be free and live happy lives. Now, who doesn't want this? Of course, we omnivorous humans do, but we at least recognize it for what it is: fantasy. To want animals to be free means that you expect them to not kill each other. Seeing as how evolution has made this chain of herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores so that this utopian ideal is impossible.

So, what about the case for at least releasing domestic animals? Well, why don't we focus on an animal that these animal liberation followers should loathe: a cat.

Look at that boy. Isn't he handsome? Doesn't he look healthy and happy? Animal Liberation would ban the owning of pets to prevent them from being slaves to our whim. Aside from the obvious reason that cats, in fact, own us, the majority of feral cats do no live more than 3 or 4 years, if they are lucky. The cat pictured at the side here, which is obviously mine, was a geriatric 13 or 14 years old when that was taken. Now, he is 15 or 16. As a result of being my pet, his life has seen what would otherwise be an unprecedented extension and even then he's not rooting through the garbage for scraps or expending the energy to hunt his own food. His quality of life is a hundred times better than it would be in the wild. And, as far as I know, he hasn't killed a single creature ever. has he hunted? Yes, but the family is pretty certain he has ADD. He cannot stay focused. On the very rare occasion he actually catches something, he bats it around for a little while before, again, losing interest.

Can't say the same for the other cat. She's murdered virtually every species smaller than her. The rabbits in our yard should consider themselves lucky she's 18-years-old and can't get around like she used to.

Both of those cats are very much loved and care for by the family. It would be difficult to argue that all cats everywhere would be happier scraping by, fighting for territory, mates, and even food.

Cats also happen to be pure carnivores. There is a protein they get from their meat that they need to survive. No exceptions. To try and make cats eat vegetarian is nothing short of animal abuse. Michael Pollan mentions a protein supplement for cats but I will unabashedly call it animal abuse, regardless. There are people who are forcing an innocent creature who does not care, let alone understand, their morals, to eat something its body wasn't made to process. How is this any different from the meat-packing industry and their feeding livestock corn? It is not. No matter how pretty you might pain it, this is an abuse to the cats and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Which moves us beyond cats and to address the animal kingdom as a whole. Michael Pollan wrote of how the very basics of the food chain and ecology work, saying of animal rights groups: "A deep current of Puritanism runs through the writings of the animal philosophers, an abiding discomfort not just with our animality, but with the animals' animality" (321). Animals eat each other. Obviously this is where the animal liberation movement began tripping over themselves in trying to think of a way to prevent this from happening, but it is here that shows they do not love animals anymore than the rest of us. In fact, I would argue they love animals even less than they claim they do. Much less.

It's very telling, in fact, when in their argument where omnivores argue, "Well, animals kill each other, so why shouldn't we be able to eat them?" And, of course, their return argument is, "Do you really want to base your moral code on the natural order?" Yes, animals do murder and rape each other, but they never do it without a good reason. Now, before I'm accused of anthropomorphizing animals, just hear me out. Evolution is all about survival of the fittest and the goals of most species is to find food and reproduce, but to even think this whole idea that the wilderness is some type of free for all means that these people for the liberation of animals, don't have any respect for animals at all. If they did, they wouldn't force their cats to be vegetarian, they would recognize the evolutionary advantage of domestication-driven relationships, and, most importantly, they would recognize that many species that live in groups and form societies show very little in the way of rape and murder, at least in their own communities, but balance.

The Earth's system is about balancing these herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores. The survival of the species, or in many cases, small communities means that murder and rape are not likely to be a tolerated crimes. So, in an animals' own way, they do have a moral code it's merely embedded in their DNA that killing or hurting each other of the same species is simply not conducive to their survival. Humans recognize this too.

So no, animal liberation supporters, you're not morally better than the common man in your attempt to put animals and humans on some unearthly pedestal. In fact, you're right there with your own enemies, the meat-packing industry, in the way that you refuse to see all of us for what we are: animals. And that recognition doesn't meant we automatically have to fall into chaos and anarchy in order to embrace our animalness. That is a false dichotomy.