Flesh, Castration, and Unbridled Capitalism

There was once a time when I could casually drive my fork into one of John Jay’s steaks and then slice it swiftly with my knife—without wincing. I haven’t become a vegetarian, but my relationship with the steak in front of me has changed greatly within the last month. I eat it with a strong subconscious sense of awareness. Those cows have suffered for us! They’ve sacrificed their lives! But for most of us, they are still little more than juicy meat with a hit of protein.

There is something inherently barbaric about this attitude—can we genuinely enjoy the piece of meat before us when the animal has either had its beak cut off to prevent it from injuring other livestock, was branded for identification, or was battered with a hammer until rendered unconscious? What about the practice of castrating livestock on the basis that they are easier to handle and put on more weight? The following description from the U.S. Department of Agriculture made me squeal like a pig (pun intended): “Pin the animal down, take a knife and slit the scrotum, exposing the testicles. You then grab each testicle in turn and pull on it, breaking the cord that attaches it; on older animals it may be necessary to cut the cord.” An article in the British magazine Pig Farming went so far as to say that “castration itself is a beastly business, even to the hardened commercial pig man.” This is where it all makes sense—it comes down to the commercial pig man and all the other Big Kahunas sitting in their big leather chairs with a big moose head mounted on their walls. Distorted notions of capitalism have been the impetus for our complete apathy towards the issue of animal rights. We see it as meat, not flesh; we see it as Donald Duck, not the beakless animal that died from noise distress and claustrophobia; we see it as just another meal, not the senseless murder of a real, living creature.

What is essentially wrong about this is that we’ve allowed capitalism to turn a blind eye to moral and ethical considerations, and it has hit the ground running for profit. Australian philosopher Peter Singer goes so far as to say that the “tyranny has caused and today is still causing an amount of pain and suffering that can only be compared with that which resulted from the centuries of tyranny by white humans over black humans” and that “practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable come to be seen as the result of unjustifiable prejudice.” This comparison hit me with quite some serious oomph, and I was immediately skeptical and offended. But as I read the rest of his thesis, I found it difficult to ignore some of its principle-based truths. History did see the persecution of black humans as “natural and inevitable”, what makes us think that this twisted mindset doesn’t apply to other so-called “natural” relationships?

Why then are we complacent with our current situation? Why have we attached wayward connotations of “hippiness” to anything related to animal rights? We have left it, at the moment, to the animal rights activists. They are the only ones blowing whistles, and I must confess, committing acts of public nuisance in sheer frustration. We simply cannot leave the burden on these groups—we have to make a conscientious effort to induce some sort of societal paradigm shift; otherwise this issue will continue to be left in relative obscurity. For some of us, this may mean becoming a vegetarian; for others, it may mean a conscious effort to eat animals that were killed in “humane” conditions. I don’t believe medical science has offered practical, non-meat alternatives, so I’m going to settle with the latter group and maybe work my way up.

On the issue of humane methods of killing, there has been a greater push here: some slaughter-houses stun the animals before killing them, while others take the kosher approach. If we want to be forerunners on the path of winning animal rights, we have to start somewhere: Columbia’s food outlets. This means ensuring that the meat (or flesh) used to prepare our meals has been subject to humane forms of killing that minimize suffering and pain. The publicity created could necessitate a response from other institutions, and the effect could be potentially widespread. I call upon the Columbia Students for Animal Protection and any other related groups to organize a forum with Housing and Dining and other movers-and-shakers in order to come to some sort of compromise. CSAP’s recent efforts to lobby Dining Services into using humane-certified, free-range eggs were nothing less than lackluster with no more than 70 signatures out of the thousands of passers-by. Some have debated whether the cost of buying free-range (or cage-free) is worth it. Frankly, you either care about animal rights or you don’t. Any benefit that does not directly promote self-interest is bound to come out of your pocket some way or another.

Further reflecting on Singer’s ideas, if we are so moved as to denounce racism, sexism, homophobia, and other abhorrent forms of thought, should we not pay equal consideration to the cruel violation of animal rights, which some have called “speciesism”? Next time you eat somewhere on campus, or even off-campus, maybe the right question to ask is whether the animal was killed under humane and pain-minimizing conditions. Or just take up vegetarianism. Whichever choice you make, it’s a big win for the animals, a win for the refinement of the idea of capitalism, and a win for your conscience. It’s a win-win-win situation—except maybe for the corporate Big Kahunas and the owner of John Jay Dining Hall’s kitchen. So raise your glasses, be merry, and find the hippie in you.

The author is a Columbia College first-year.