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Flesh, Castration, and Unbridled Capitalism
By Vesal Yazdi
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 19, 2007
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.
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It is exactly these sentiments that have prompted me to be both pro-vegetarianism and anti-abortion. It strikes me as fundamentally unreasonable to care so much for the pain and suffering of animals and nothing for fetal humans.
rofl... for Columbian cynics, some people trolling around on spectator online care far too much. The guy below me sounds like the other sarcastic idiot who posted a comment on another of Vesal Yazdi's articles. Instead of having a discussion about the topic at hand, we resort to petty, convoluted attacks on freshmen. Sounds like the good ol' days.
Rarely have I read such a brilliant first step of acknowledgement by someone on any subject involving oppression of another. The author is to be congratulated for over the course of one month informing himself about a problem (which just so happens to be the greatest moral problem of our time), seeing how it manifests itself around him and then articulating his feelings so well. As anyone who has wrestled with solving a personal problem knows, this is the required first step. Oh, sure, cynics can throw stones at one sentence or another, but overall I found the piece to be refreshing and hopeful. Let me offer two comments: First, the author is especially perceptive in pointing out the strong affect that capitalism --- and its singular emphasis on profits --- as one of the principal causes for the increase in animal suffering today, but it is only in a matter of degree (exponential degree at that). As history has shown, capitalism has no monopoly on cruelty to animals, or to other humans for that matter. Second, that author states "Frankly, you either care about animal rights or you don’t." He is so right, and that's the reason why, if the author continues to be thoughtful about this matter, he will become first a vegetarian and then eventually a vegan. (Any vegetarian who has seen how male chicks are dispatched on egg-producing "farms" or how a male calf at milk-producing facility is ripped from his mother's side at birth --- without so much as a lick or look from her --- and shipped off to a veal factory for four months of hell on earth finds it quite easy to take that final step.) And then he will learn how to apply his consistent ethical framework to other aspects of his life. In the process, he will learn how easy it is to take that path and how satisfied he will feel about his ethical life. Congratulations, Vesal, you moved to the head of your class in one month. Let me tell you something, I envy you.
Er... I don't think supporting animal rights means being a vegetarian. In fact, if we all become vegetarian, more animals will die then than now.
Ah, you naive little Conservative idiot.
Re:
“First of all, saying that "Donald Duck" is part of the problem is exactly opposite of the truth -- the personification of animals in cartoons is one of the main reasons that younger people feel the way the author feels about animals.”
I think it is insulting to argue that college students’ beliefs are influenced by cartoons. It is not cartoons that influence such thinking about non-human animals but science. Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection proved that human beings evolve according to the same evolutionary dynamics as non-human animals. Darwin showed that the difference between non-human and human animals is one of degree, not of kind. Through evolutionary theory, genetics, and neurophysiology, many scientists are providing strong evidence that non-human animals feel and think in ways similar to ours, and that they are capable of experiencing not only simple emotions such as fear, but far more subtle and complex emotions such as love, grief, joy, pride, shame and loneliness.
Re:
“In older times, yes, there was more respect for animals -- but the great thing about capitalism is that you can vote with your dollar and only buy products that treat animals humanely.”
The problem with here is that a very small minority can (and does) create a great deal of suffering for animals. Examples include hunting, circuses, and fur. It is not enough to boycott these activities and products. We must democratically abolish such exploitation of non-human animals, or else the few are going to keep the rest of society in moral dark ages.
Re:
“Secondly, people are going to feel differently about their animals just like they do any property. Michael Vick is a case in point. We've ruined his career because of his views on property. Who is guilty of speciesism in this case?”
Non-human animals are sentient beings. They have interests and rights. Under the law they should not be considered property but persons.
Re:
“Finally, anyone who's ever worked on a farm would know that the description of castration found in this article is completely ridiculous. NOBODY pins down an animal and slices the scrotum. Farmers and veterinarians have very sophisticated, painless tools that, gasp, were not available before the advent of capitalism.”
It does not matter how sophisticated the tools of exploitation are. Exploitation is still exploitation.
Barbara I. Biel
I do not understand why, if you support Singer's view, you are not a vegetarian. I think that complaining about the cruel treatment while sticking a fork in your filet mignon is a little hypocritical. If you're going to do something, do it all the way, but the way you argue "they rip out their testicles, blah, blah, blah, I'm still going to eat meat but just those animals killed in a humane manner" does not give you a lot of credibility and it just nulls your whole argument. If Singer argues that pain is pain no matter who suffers it, and animal pain is just the same as human pain, why does the method used to kill them make a difference? You should just turn your back to the meat industry, and not eat meat at all. Buying "free-range" or whatever will only make you feel good about yourself, but it still is killing animals in order to put them on your plate, and killing is suffering no matter how you put it.
Ah, you naive little Ivy League freshmen.
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”?
Valuable question. But one hopes that does not mean accepting a gentler kind of racial or sexist or homophobic killing.
If one is seriously asking what to do about species bias, perhaps it's best to look to Donald Watson, who founded the Vegan Society more than three decades before Singer started writing about animals. Whereas Singer indeed does take the view that a gentler death row is a reasonable answer to species bias, Watson became a conscientious objector to animal use.
Lee Hall
Friends of Animals
www.friendsofanimals.org
Become a vegetarian or STFU.
Someone said:
"Farmers and veterinarians have very sophisticated, painless tools that, gasp, were not available before the advent of capitalism."
Unfortunately, the author has described perfectly how castration is done. And there is no such thing as "painless tools". What are "painless tools anyway"? Knives are not painless and neither is yanking somone's testicles off. Of course they could use anaesthetic, but they don't because it costs a few pennies extra, which takes away from the bottom line. Whoever said they have "painless tools" needs to do some more research.
This is a good article. Support CSAP. I also support the attempts of this freshman to bring our attention to an issue that is sometimes a bit too cliche.
The idea about "subconscious self-awareness" doesn't seem to parody the essence of the argument. I think the author is trying to find some balance between eating meat without being too "inhumane" etc. Your argument on the other hand is a cacophony of verbal excess, shallow sarcasm and inflated speech.
The Donald Duck idea I think is meant to say that we've marginalized animals to the point where we don't really see the real thing. We see some fictional representation. "Awww I love Donald Duck" is not really a central reason for fighting for animal rights.
Animals are not property so to speak, are they?
"Even for Ivy League freshman" - Yes, Almighty Upperclassman. The author ought to bow down before you. Get a reality check, kid.
I remember being an ignorant, plagiarizing, soft-headed, feel-good dunce of a freshman, too.
Ah, such sweet, innocent times.
Yes, right on. And here's another example of how the animals are just treated as commodities:
RECTITE
"PoultryPress Vol 5, No 3, Summer/Fall 1995 reported on a proposed product
called RECTITE. Pacer Technology seeks government approval of this product
for use in slaughter plants to glue shut the rectal cavities of turkeys and
chickens to prevent the birds from reflexively excreting fecal material at
the time of death (Food Chemical News April 24, 1995, p. 12). UPC's Freedom
of Information Act request to the USDA Food Safety & Inspection Service
yielded the following information dated Feb. 8, 1996, concerning "an
adhesive variant of super glue or cyanoacrylate adhesive (CA) to seal the
vents of poultry during the slaughter process to prevent salmonella
contamination."
There is something grossly wrong with a society that invents Rectite! Probably
the same people who want to breed chickens without feathers, so they can
eliminate the costly process of defeathering. Rectite says it all!
This piece is a parody of itself. As trite and inane as could be, even for Ivy League freshmen. A "strong subconscious sense of awareness" - if presumed to make sense, which it doesn't - is a fairly unconvincing exculpation of what the writer loathes as "barbaric" in the rest of this predatory, Kapitalist Great Satan of ours. It seems to me that once you excuse the part involving killing and digesting the animals in question - with whatever subconscious medley of thoughts you mean to describe - all the hand-wringing over the event's prelude is really a little silly. And foisting the blame for the author's moral confusion on - wait for it - capitalist alienation(!) is too predictably idiotic. Marx would chortle.
First of all, saying that "Donald Duck" is part of the problem is exactly opposite of the truth -- the personification of animals in cartoons is one of the main reasons that younger people feel the way the author feels about animals. In older times, yes, there was more respect for animals -- but the great thing about capitalism is that you can vote with your dollar and only buy products that treat animals humanely.
Secondly, people are going to feel differently about their animals just like they do any property. Michael Vick is a case in point. We've ruined his career because of his views on property. Who is guilty of speciesism in this case?
Finally, anyone who's ever worked on a farm would know that the description of castration found in this article is completely ridiculous. NOBODY pins down an animal and slices the scrotum. Farmers and veterinarians have very sophisticated, painless tools that, gasp, were not available before the advent of capitalism.
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