On Human-Nonhuman Relations: Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Meat…

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On Human-Nonhuman Relations A Sociological Exploration of Speciesism.

28.8.07 Total Pageviews 1 3 5 3 7 0 Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Meat…

Those who heard Erik Marcus’ ‘debate’ with Gary Francione will know that the former had not read any of the latter’s books on animal rights theory and the critique of new welfarism. [1] Erik Marcus, like PeTA, favours the utilitarian philosophy of Peter Singer over any theorist who believes that nonhuman animals are rightholders. Being a big fan of happy meats, I thought Erik would be interested in what Peter Singer [with Jim Mason] says about meat from ‘humanely killed animals’ in

their latest book. Visit Animal Rights Zone

It turns out that Singer and Mason’s perspective throws some light on the recent phenomenon of vegetarians returning to flesh consumption once, that is, they decide there are meats ‘happy’ enough for them to eat. Singer and Mason’s position also places a little question mark on Bruce Popular Posts Friedrich’s/Vegan Outreach’s ‘don’t be a fanatical [i.e. consistent] vegan’ perspective. Since this Vegan Education On Public Forums. latter claim is also made by Singer and Mason, there is something of a puzzle to be deconstructed Many animal advocates seem to resist posting on here. Abolitionist animal rightists may also be surprised that they are likely to strongly agree with a public internet forums because they argue that small part of Singer and Mason’s perspective on happy meat, while they will not be surprised by the debate tends to degenerate into name calling ... back-peddling that ultimately goes on. "The Abolitionist Approach" Is Not Fit For Purpose. On page 245 of Eating: What We Eat and Why it Matters, [2] the main text used for this blog entry, In a recent very interesting Facebook discussion, Singer and Mason cite Michael Pollan’s piece from the New York Times Sunday Magazine entitled, Tim Gier wrote (in part, and perhaps it is unfair to “An Animal’s Place” which, they say, is essentially a defense – and a good one at that – of meat extract this out - but I'm gonna anyw... eating.[3] Pollan makes it clear that he is opposed to factory farming and is keen to introduce readers Pete Bethune, Sea Shepherd, Veganism and Animal to ‘Polyface Farm’ which Singer and Mason acknowledge as an ‘often admired’ establishment – Rights. apparently “no farm gets more publicity for its exemplary treatment of animals”. I have written several blog entries about the difficulties caused when animal advocates who do not take a rights-based position on human-... Polyface Farm, in Erik Marcus’ terms, is an open prison, so he’ll be pretty supportive of the way its prisoners are incarcerated. He may even claim that more open prisons like this one is a step on the Podcast No.11 with special guest, Elizabeth Collins. way to the abolition of animal agriculture. Not so, say Singer and Mason. The owner of Polyface, For Podcast 11, I was very happy to be joined by the mighty Elizabeth Collins, vegan animal rights Joel Salatin, imprisons six types of nonhuman animals. These are ‘cattle’, rabbits, chickens, pigs, advocate, abolitionist animal rights stal... turkeys and sheep. Salatin claims that each type is confined in a way that allows them “to fully express [their] physiological distinctiveness”. However, we subsequently discover that the rabbits are Whatever You Do, Don't Do That. held in suspended wire cages and the chickens are placed in crowded wire pens. The rabbits and the In 1995, Julian McAllister Groves published an article in The chickens, because they are not covered by US welfare restrictions, are killed on the farm – on a Sociological Review entitled Saturday morning and the public are apparently invited to watch the show. An Agricultural Learning To Feel: The Neglected Information Service review of the chicken jail noted welfare issues which can lead to ‘pecking Sociology of So... problems’ because less dominant birds cannot easily escape from more dominant ones. Author and Classes Apart. chicken producer Herman Beck-Chenoweth says Salatin’s pens amount to “a confinement system with In 1977, sociologist Paul Willis’ Learning To a grass floor”, better than a broiler unit but a “confinement system just the same”. [4] Labour , a now famous piece of research about “how working class kids get working class jobs”...

As said, the chickens and rabbits are killed on site, and Singer and Mason says that this spares them When Animal Advocates Try to Regulate Atrocities. the ordeal of transportation but not – obviously – the ordeal of being killed. The other nonhumans are Earlier this week, The Guardian newspaper reported sent to commercial slaughterhouses. Singer and Mason reproduce (p. 253) an account of the slaughter that, “a number of supermarket chains are at Polyface Farm which, they say, ‘isn’t reassuring’. Twelve hours before they are murdered, the demanding that CCTV systems be fitted in the... chickens are ‘taken off feed’ in order that their craws will be ‘clear for slaughter’. For these twelve Petitioning PeTA hours, they are put into battery-cage-like crates with seven other birds. Some of these chickens, I have begun an online petition to send to People for Singer and Mason suggest, may be the more aggressive birds that others would attempt to get away the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) from. After twelve hours starvation, they are roughly grabbed from the crate, hung upside down and concerning their claims about Peter Singer’s A... sent into a neck-slicing machine fully conscious. Now, here, Erik Marcus may remind us that we Be With You In A Second.

http://human-nonhuman.blogspot.com/2007/08/happy-happy-happy-happy-meat.html[2/25/12 10:41:11 AM] On Human-Nonhuman Relations: Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Meat…

might hope for the introduction of a chicken gassing machine as a (final) solution to the traditional Many if not most animal advocates will be familiar neck-cutting slaughter technique. Presumably, were this type of execution available, the chickens with this graphic This graphic is (graphically) would still be held and starved in crates for twelve hours before being gassed to death. ticking off the deaths of other anima... A Few Thoughts on Whether Animal Welfare Singer and Mason then proceed to highlight the problems with these attempts to create happy meat. Campaigns—and Many Animal Welfare They say, for example, even in the exemplary Polyface example, “it is economics, more than concern Organisations—are necessary. for animals, that determines how the animals are treated”. Indeed, even the chicken gassing systems What if animal welfare campaigns were not necessary? By welfare campaigns, I mean those that are being sold with the promise that human profits will rise with the use of this method of killing, attempt to make cages bigger, or “push” the an... but Singer and Mason raise an altogether more fundamental issue, one which highlights the social psychological as well as the economic aspects of the situation.

What if, they ask, general standards start to ‘slide’? Podcast Feed

As long as nonhuman animals are viewed as commodities, they state, market forces are always liable to press heavily on any ‘farmer’ producing ‘food animals’; the conflict between the interests of the Subscribe in a reader animal victims and the producers’ economic interests results in constant pressure to ‘cut corners’. For example, we already know that different gas mixes in these trumpeted execution chambers changes how ‘humane’ the killing is thought to be.[5] How long before the cheapest and probably least humane gases are used all the time – except, of course, when welfare inspectors are due for an Blog Archive infrequent visit? And, of course, as the back-to-happy-meat-vegetarians have shown, it is not just the February (3) producers who may slip and slide: “Just as farmers who start by raising animals ‘humanely’ may slide into practices more profitable but less humane, so individuals may slide as well. How humane is January (4) humane enough to eat? The line between what conscientious omnivores can justify eating and what December (1) they cannot justify eating is vague”. We may all have this tendency to slide, they suggest, so the best thing to do is not eat any animal produce at all – be vegan, and stick to it (p. 254). November (1) October (2) For Singer and Mason – as for many animal advocates – it is the worst cases that attracts attention. In this case, factory farming stands out as the most ‘cruel’. Slipping and sliding happy meat eaters, September (2) ex-veggies included, may well slip and slide so much that they begin to support the factory farming August (3) industry all over again. Singer and Mason warn that, “On the plate, ham from a pig who led a happy life looks very much like ham from a factory-farmed pig”. The best thing, they say, is veganism July (8) because it draws the clearest line “by refusing to eat all” animal products. They also say that a vegan June (4) at the dinner table prompts conversation about human-nonhuman relations, a discussion certainly not May (12) prompted by someone tucking into happy meat. Singer and Mason begin the end of this section of their book with a positive line that sounds straight out of the abolitionist animal rightists’ objections- April (4) to-happy-meat book: “Thus the eating habits of the conscientious omnivore are likely to reinforce the March (4) common view that animals are things for us to use and unlikely to influence others to reconsider what they eat”. February (2)

January (5) And then they blow it, as animal welfarism reasserts itself: “Where does all this leave the diet of the concientious omnivore? Perhaps it’s not, all things considered, the best possible diet, but the moral December (4) distance between the food choices made by conscientious omnivores and those made by most of the November (5) population is so great that it seems more appropriate to praise the conscientious omnivores for how far they have come, rather than to criticise them for not having gone further.” How? How does this October (6) final claim follow from the preceding argument? It may be one thing to acknowledge the move August (4) referred to – but the advocate’s job is to keep emphasising the moral baseline position which for animal rightists is veganism. I don’t suppose they would suggest to human rights advocates that they July (3) praise the trafficker, the molester, or the violent perpetrator of domestic violence, for ‘how far June (6) they’ve come’. Animal rightists should react as a human rightist would in such circumstances – I think that acknowledgement is one thing, praise is quite another. In the slip-sliding-away scenario May (2) painted by Singer and Mason, it can be suggested that too much praise could easily prove be April (5) counterproductive. Praise rather than acknowledgement may provoke complacency in the happy meat eater, and that in turn may well induce the sliding Singer and Mason warn about. March (4) February (2) Acknowledgement is not praise and it is not criticism either. However, it does send out a clear signal that there’s further ethical considerations to seriously evaluate. After all, if being vegan - and sticking January (2) to it - is the best option, then that is the option animal advocates should consistently and persistently December (7) advocate. November (5)

October (6) [1] http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/audio/erik-marcus-debates-gary-l-francione/ September (5)

http://human-nonhuman.blogspot.com/2007/08/happy-happy-happy-happy-meat.html[2/25/12 10:41:11 AM] On Human-Nonhuman Relations: Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Meat…

[2] Singer, P. & Mason, J. (2006) Eating: What We Eat and Why it Matters, London: Arrow Books. August (4)

July (6) [3] http://www.nehbc.org/pollan2.html June (4) [4] http://www.free-rangepoultry.com/compare.htm May (3)

[5] http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/diseases/controlmeasures/avian/8_pritchard.pdf April (4)

March (4) Posted by Roger Yates at 8:53 AM February (2)

January (4)

December (4)

2 comments: November (1)

smally lerned said... October (3)

Do you happen to know if there are any replies to Pollan by Singer available online? September (2)

Thanks August (2) May 21, 2009 2:14 AM July (4) June (2) Anonymous said... May (2) 12 hours without food is hardly "starvation." You also mention that chickens and rabbits are killed on-site because they are not protected by the Animal Welfare Act... okay, but March (3) what is the significance of that? The Animal Welfare Act is in support of industrial December (3) farming, not small farming. November (2) April 18, 2010 12:47 PM October (2)