Anglophone Animal Angst

By Lauren KaplanSpectator Staff Writer

When I registered for Domestic Animals in Human History with Professor Richard Bulliet, all of my friends laughed at me. I do admit that I expected that the class would be ridiculous, esoteric, and possibly the least useful history course I would take at Columbia. To my great surprise, attending Domestic Animals quickly became one of my favorite parts of the week. I never guessed that the class would provide me with such amusing conversation fodder, and that the information we would cover would be not only useful but also intriguing. After four months, I've decided that Bulliet's ideas and opinions are some of the most creative ones I've heard during my time at Columbia.

Bulliet is known as a specialist on the Middle East, but his true passion is the study of human-animal interactions. At the moment, Bulliet is trying publish his manuscript entitled 'The Wild, the Tame, and the Disney: Human-Animal Relations from Separation to Postdomesticity', but he is having a difficult time, as his ideas are unusual and he is working in the largely uncharted territory of the postdomestic mind.

"Postdomestic" refers to a society that has emerged from close proximity to domestic animals to a state where people consume animal products in abundance, but lack much contact with the animals themselves. Today, most developed nations are in a postdomestic state. Bulliet's argues that in a postdomestic society, "members experience feelings of guilt, shame, and disgust when they think about how domestic animals are rendered into products and how those products come to market." One of the ways in which this guilt manifests itself is in elective vegetarianism or veganism.

I personally don't have any vegan friends, but I have one strict vegetarian friend who has not eaten a bite of meat, fish, or poultry since she turned six. When asked why she became a vegetarian, she said that initially she didn't like the taste of red meat so she stopped eating it. Then once she was old enough to understand what chicken and fish actually are, she became so revolted by the idea of eating something that was once alive that she completely cut them from her diet. She won't even eat a piece of vegetarian pizza that touched a slice with pepperoni on it.

This concept of not eating something that was once living fits neatly into Bulliet's scheme: because she is no longer in direct contact with live chicken, my friend ascribes a greater significance to their lives and deaths than she would if she lived on a farm and saw chickens slaughtered on a regular basis. In addition, because the animals with which she is most familiar are heavily anthropomorphized cartoon characters or animal characters in books and movies, she thinks of animals as having the same needs, feelings, and emotions as people.

Many cultures have existed for centuries as partly or mostly vegetarian, mainly because it is less costly to eat only vegetable and grain products. But when a member of a society who is wealthy enough to afford frequent meat consumption decides to abstain from eating meat, this reflects a moral decision influenced by the postdomestic mindset. Some stop eating red meat for health reasons, but it is highly unlikely that a person will not eat any source of animal protein, including seafood, based on those same considerations. It is difficult to receive enough protein as a vegetarian, and this often results in a less healthy diet than one containing lean meat. Although it is difficult to historically trace the prominence of elective vegetarianism throughout the world, it is seen as an American phenomenon.

It is much easier to track down the etiology of veganism, an outgrowth of elective vegetarianism, which prohibits the use of any animal products, including milk, eggs, and leather. Often associated with environmentalism and political activism, veganism officially began in London in 1944 with the establishment of the Royal Vegan Society. Founded by Donald Watson and Else Shrigley, the society has grown from six to over one million members in Britain alone. Today, there are somewhere between half a million and a million vegans in the US. Veganism really took off during the tumultuous 1960s, and to this day it remains a mainly Anglophone practice.

Bulliet attributes veganism to postdomesticity even more than vegetarianism. Donald Watson recounted that witnessing the slaughter of a pig was what turned him off to the whole practice of consuming animal products. Watson's choice was compelled by revulsion and remorse, and this may be the case with many other vegans today. On the official Web site of the Vegan Society, the use of animal products is called an "inhumane and unsustainable practice for a much less enlightened age."

Although I doubt that the beliefs of the Vegan Society, or the ideas of Professor Bulliet, will ever be widely accepted, hearing them this semester has certainly given me something to chew on.