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Happy Meals: Animals, Nature, and the Myth of Consent A HAPPY MEALS: ANIMALS, NATURE, AND THE MYTH OF CONSENT A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF MODERN THOUGHT AND LITERATURE AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Vasile Stanescu May 2014 © 2014 by Vasile Stanescu. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/ph312vx3092 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Shelley Fishkin, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Ursula Heise, Co-Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Matthew Kohrman Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost for Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii iv Abstract In describing man as an “animal rationale,” Aristotle argued for a “myth of consent,” i.e. that slaves, barbarians, women, and animals have all “agreed” to be owned and controlled by Greek male citizens for their own “protection.” Therefore, there are two main themes in Aristotelian thought in the original definition of man, which became inscribed in later thinkers. The first is that the exclusion of the slave, and later of the colonized, as biological inferiors is rendered possible in part because of these pre- existing caesuras in politics, ethics, and philosophy which exclude animals, women, and slaves, based on their shared equation with the human body and supposed lack of reason. And second, this domination is justified via a rhetoric of care and benevolent protection. These two points should not be seen as two separate ideas but as a single unified argument. In other words, for Aristotle it is because certain classes of living entities (animals, women, children, barbarians, and slaves) are all seen as less rational that it is necessary for them to be “protected” by the Greek male ruling over them, even if this “protection” by unfortunate necessity entails an inevitable degree of violence, control and domination. We can, therefore, see in Aristotle two very different visions of nature. On the one hand, nature represents a loss of control, the absence of the human, and an unbounded wildness and freedom. On the other hand, there is a description of nature as a “preserving” and “protecting” nature, which is a vision of complete control in which every aspect of life is forced to conform to the “natural” order of masters over slaves, men over women, mind over body, and humans over animals. Based on a critique of this “myth of consent,” in the first half of the dissertation I argue that the practices of “locavorism,” “humane slaughter,” and being a v “compassionate carnivore” obscure the reality of the death and suffering that such practices entail. I argue that the effect of the so-called “humane farming” movement is not a critique of anthropocentric privilege, but instead the restatement and re- entrenchment of the most basic claims of the factory farm system. The claims that the animals “want” to be there; they choose to be there, and, therefore, they, in some sense, agree to their treatment, and hence their death becomes the ultimate expression of their protection. It is, in fact, not the case that animal agribusiness renders the animal as “voiceless,” but instead that the voice is only allowed one answer: always, already, and irrevocably “Yes.” In the second half of the dissertation, I explore the “myth of consent” for marginalized populations which have been oppressed, in part, based on a supposed belief in the need to “protect” them (even when this “protection” involves their death) as well as a belief in their supposed “animalistic” nature. I demonstrate the material reality of this dynamic by focusing on the display of colonized peoples from around the world in zoos and zoo-like settings throughout the United States and Europe; the abuse of colonized populations in the Philippians and prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the extermination of victims of the Holocaust, and the stigmatization of people from my family’s homeland of Maramureș, Romania. Underlying all of these arguments, I argue that that the question “what is man?” (as opposed to the animal) is not a question philosophy should attempt to answer, but a power dynamic that we should, instead, seek to critique. vi Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Matthew Kohrman. It was his class on biopolitics that first ignited my interest in the topic. I still remember it fondly as one of the very best courses I have ever taken. I would like to thank Shelley Fisher Fishkin. Her decision to serve as my advisor after Ursula accepted a new position helped to save my academic career. However, more than just an advisor in name only, she has grown to be a friend and mentor. And, most of all, I would like to thank Ursula Heise. She is a friend, a mentor, and an inspiration. She was the one who first suggested that I study locavorism and first encouraged and supported me to work on critical animal studies at a time when no one had ever heard of it. I could not have asked for a better advisor. vii A Brief Note on Numbers: Depending on when an individual chapter was written or the specific source cited, the estimates in the total number of animals killed worldwide range from 55 billion to 70 billion. However, this is not because there is any confusion about the approximate number of animals killed a year. In 2006 the United Nations pegged the total number of land animals killed for human consumptions at approximately 55 billion. Current estimates suggest that total number of land animals killed for human consumption is at over 60 billion. If non-land animals are included in those estimates, that number rises to approximately 70 billion. In all cases these numbers include only animals directly killed for human consumption (for food) and exclude additional animals killed for entertainment, research, fashion, or developments. Additionally, the number I cite for the amount of greenhouse emissions released (18%) is the most conservative (and most widely accepted) estimate currently available. The actual percentage may well be much, much higher. For example, researchers Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang calculate that farmed animals could account for as high as 50%1. In either case, there is no question that the rate of greenhouse gas emissions for farmed animals is quite significant (and growing). 1 Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang“ Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key actors in climate change are...cows, pigs, and chickens?” World Watch Magazine, November/December, Volume 22, No. viii ix Table of Contents Introduction: New Weapons ................................................................................................ 1 The Compassionate Carnivore (and Other Oxymorons) ................................................................ 6 Locavores and the Commodity Fetish .................................................................................................... 9 “Happy Cows” and Biopolitics ................................................................................................................ 12 Deleuze and the “Happy” Farm .............................................................................................................. 15 Engaged Veganism and Subjecthood ................................................................................................... 18 Part I: Green Eggs and Ham ......................................................................................................... 26 Cowgate: Livestock’s Long Shadow and the Rise of “Meat Eating Denial” ................... 27 Livestock and Climate Change ................................................................................................................ 28 Comparing “Apples and Oranges” ......................................................................................................... 31 “Proactively” Shaping the Debate ......................................................................................................... 40 World Hunger and Factory Farms as an Environmental “Model” .......................................... 45 Climate Change Denial by Environmentalists .................................................................................. 54 You Can’t Be a Meat-Eating Environmentalist ................................................................................. 61 “Green” Eggs and Ham? The Myth of Sustainable Meat and the Danger of Locavorism ....................................................................................................................................... 63 “The Vegan Utopia” ...................................................................................................................................... 66 Lack of Land ...................................................................................................................................................
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