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.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

There is a point where limited scope of the situation is a real distortion to the reality of the situation, but I guess I never actually knew just how pervasive this problem of families eating only fast food really was. I even worked in the fast food industry for four years and I never realized how bad it really was. Had I suspected? Oh yeah. I knew that my friends' families usually ate out or, at the very least, did not actually sit down for a dinner together. It was every man for himself, usually.

I certainly remember the diet craze that swept the country, but I also do not remember my grocery stores actually changing all that much. My parents tried to partake in the craze, but my brother and I remained aloof. My mom usually cooks dinner at night and although my parents would pick and choose what things they ate, everything was still made and my brother's and my habits never changed.

I definitely remember the videos that had come out about the fast food industry that was meant to show incriminating evidence about how bad the food was and my reaction was, "What? People didn't already know this? Of course it's not good for you!"

And, as I stated in a previous post, it can drain your wallet fast.

Now, the actual book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. I like how he starts off with how ridiculous these diet crazes have gone when he says, "Somehow this most elemental of activities - figuring out what to eat - has come to require a remarkable amount of expert help. How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the dinner menu?"

Yeah, I don't know either, Mr. Pollan. Although, you could take this several different ways. Forget what has actually led us to this point, you decided to focus on actually telling people what to eat. Well, that is nice and practical. Hopefully it will actually make families healthy, but I'm going to go ahead and say that there is actually a social problem at work here.

It all starts with the beginning of the century, when women stayed home and did the chores and the men worked. Man would come home to a nice dinner made by his wife. Well, now the women work and now they're tired when they come home too, but still, somehow, the dominant mindset is that the woman should still cook the dinner. Why can't Mr. Man do it? Or why can't they just pitch in together to create a healthy meal?

I will fully admit that my mom cooks the majority of the meals at our house (that's mostly because she's the best cook), but my dad occasionally cooks, mostly grills. Since my Freshman college year when I had to survive on horrible, horrible dorm food, I have craved home-cooked meals and I actually bothered to start cooking myself. So, this winter, when I'm working on my portfolio and not going to Dairy Queen, I'll probably end up cooking quite a few of the meals. Why not? I'm fully grown, I wont' be carrying a job, and I'm staying under their roof, ergo I have the time and the obligation to cook.

There is one more thing I would like to address that he finished his introduction with:

"Many people today seem perfectly content eating at the end of an industrial food chain, without a thought in the world; this book is probably not for them."

I am not ashamed to say I am one of those people, simply because I just don't care. I really don't. When these dieting crazes and shocking videos of what's really behind the fast food industry came out, I made sure not to bother with them. I had no interest and, as stated above, was actually surprised people weren't already suspecting at least some of the dirty secrets behind the fast food industry.

At the moment, there are far more pressing issues going through my mind like, "Will I get a job? Where am I going to apply? Crap, I need to do this paper! Shiiit, I could lose my scholarship if I don't make the grade in this class!" When you're a poor college student, who doesn't have anything close to a kitchen (no, microwaves don't count) then how you're going to eat a healthy meal just doesn't factor into your daily thoughts.

I probably think of the future and what lies there far more than most people do in a life time, but when it really comes down to it, that's the future. I'm in the present and all I can really do is live in the present. Maybe once my metabolism slows down, I will actually take greater care in what I eat, but until then...I will worry about what readings I have due for classes tomorrow and the day after that.

Thankfully, I do have the added bonus that I have spent the majority of my life eating home-cooked meals, a luxury that it appears most people have not had the opportunity to do and I feel sorry for them.