I imagine the majority of us in this class eat meals that almost always contain meat, whether chicken, beef, pork, etc. Maybe most of you differ from me in this regards, but I have never given animal cruelty such as in factory farming much consideration. This section of the book was very eye opening to me and made me question my prior beliefs on animal treatment. Kohak, in The Green Halo, makes animal exploitation pretty hard to ignore and his logic defends his points very well.
Kohak says that most humans believe they are superior to other animals. The reason most humans believe they are superior is due to our ability to reason and communicate in a spoken, complex language. So our superiority lies in the fact that we are different than other animals. If superiority lies in being different and better at something, then a well spoken surgeon would be superior than an illiterate homeless person, but in the eyes of the law that is not true. So it is hard to justify animal cruelty based on the fact that we are superior because we are different.
I am not a big advocate of animal rights. Kohak dismisses many of my arguments with a logic that is hard to refute. I have used the term “nature lover” to dismiss someone who argues for nature and animal rights. Kohak brings this point up and reveals it as “the easiest way of dismissing uncomfortable ecological objections” (p.34). I have even used the words “only animals” before to defend the “betterment of humanity” at the cost of harming nature. Kohak’s continually referencing to Singer’s views on “biotic equality” (p.39) makes it hard keep viewing animals as inferior. The injustices done to animals in factory farms is brought up in this section, and it is made clear that the only reason such places exist is for efficiency, maximum profit for the companies, and money saved by the consumer. Kohak’s portrayal of this has made me question whether the treatment of the animals is worth the abundance of meat available in our meals.
I think that the largescale detachment that most of us in industrialized countries have to our foodsources is a major contributor to the persistance of the type of practices that are deemed cruel to animals. One walks into a grocery store and only sees the neatly cellophane-packaged steak and its price. So, we respond to proce and let suppliers know that we want it lower -that is our priorirty. The suppliers respond accordingly, cutting costs by implementing practices that don't usually make it a better deal to the animals slaughtered. We've expressed our desires for low proces, but the cheapest ways of raising animals for slaughter are not the most humane ways. I think that, if more people saw what happened beyond the finished product, our attitudes toward food might be different. The largescale objection to inhumane practices might also be less easily suppressed, if the industry wouldn't make it so eay to look the other way and pretend it didn't happen that way.
ReplyDelete