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Mind what you eat

By Scott MacInnes - posted Friday, 9 June 2017


London is full of chickens on electric spits,
Cooking in windows where the public pass.
This, say the chickens, is their Auschwitz,
And all poultry eaters are psychopaths.

Peter Porter

Whenever I see chickens on spits in take-away shops, I am reminded of Peter Porter's disturbing poem Annotations of Auschwitz.

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I am further reminded of JM Coetzee's novel Elizabeth Costello. The central character, Elizabeth, also draws on the Auschwitz comparison: "Let me say it openly: we are surrounded by an [industrialized food production] enterprise of degradation, cruelty and killing which rivals anything that the Third Reich was capable of."

In his recent Papal Encyclical Pope Francis warns us: "Our indifference or cruelty towards fellow creatures of this world sooner or later affects the treatment we mete out to other human beings. We have only one heart, and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with other people."

Elizabeth Costello says it has already happened: the stockyards showed the way; it was from them that the Nazis learned how to 'process bodies'. Peter Porter could have used the image of the cattle truck to equal effect.

In the novel, JM Coetzee makes sure his central character is justly criticised for her crude, insensitive and offensive comparison. It is a reminder of how careful we need to be in the way we speak of such matters. However, it can be argued that the identification of certain disturbing features in common – if done respectfully - can illuminate both horrors, without in any way suggesting they are morally equivalent, which clearly they are not.

Elizabeth Costello goes on to point out some of the common features of moral failure.

The horror is that the killers [at Auschwitz] refused to think themselves into the place of their victims, as did everyone else…

In other words, they closed their hearts. The heart is the seat of a faculty,sympathy, that allows us to share at times the being of another…

[Let us] return one last time to the places of slaughter [of our factory food animals] to which, in a huge communal effort, we close our hearts. Each day a fresh haulocaust, yet as far as I can see, our moral being is untouched. We do not feel tainted.

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Psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe has argued that this form of disavowal actually comes at a great cost. We see footage of horrendous animal suffering on the news. We know intuitively that something is seriously wrong but feel so overwhelmed that we cannot face the full reality of it or our deepest feelings of shame about it. In disavowing that reality, we create a dislocation in our inner world. We cut ourselves off from that part of us that instinctively does care. We lose our integrity.

Rather than help us deal with this problem, the dominant culture exacerbates it by actively encouraging our denial, avoidance and disavowal. This 'culture of uncare' no longer serves us: it serves the 'business as usual' mentality of those who benefit most from the current system.

Take one, particularly egregious example: last year's ABC 7.30 Report on the live animal export trade. It shows animals suffering in appalling conditions.

What is the justification for this appalling trade, which an overwhelming majority of the public believes should end? There is no moral justification, only an appeal to self-interest. It is in the financial interests of a relatively small number of farmers, transport contractors, shipping companies, workers etc. for the industry to continue, at the lowest possible cost for the maximum profit.

To really take care of these animals would be completely uneconomic, so every effort is made to keep regulation to a minimum. Hence the political lobbying and publicity campaigns to reassure the public. Meanwhile the suffering continues unabated.

So here we face the moral issue squarely. What matters more to us: our moral values or financial interests? Do we believe people are entitled to profit from such cruelty? Is it acceptable to build our lifestyle and economy on such suffering?

In his Encyclical, Pope Francis makes a passionate appeal to us to do the right thing and "care for the animals", following the example of his famous namesake St Francis of Assizi: "Every act of cruelty towards any creature is contrary to human dignity...All creation has an intrinsic value that is independent of its usefulness...Other creatures are not merely resources to be exploited."

Even if you are sceptical about precisely what dignity animals might share, there can be no doubts about their capacity to suffer. Chickens, pigs, cows, sheep all have consciousness, all feel pain and they all have natural lives to enjoy. This arguably is the case for all vertebrates, including fish.

The total number of animals involved is enormous: it has been estimated that some 60 billion farmed animals and somewhere between 1 -3 trillion fish are killed annually to satisfy our appetites. So the scale of suffering is immense and is exceeded only by the scale of our wilful moral blindness or mindless indifference.

The extent and scale of the suffering, according to ethicist Peter Singer, must surely be a matter of deep moral concern to any right-minded, thinking person.

As former High Court Justice Hon. Michael Kirby says:

In our shared sentience, human beings are intimately connected with other animals... Exploited animals cannot protest about their treatment or demand a better life. They are entirely at our mercy. So every decision of animal welfare, whether in Parliament or the supermarket, presents us with a profound test of moral character.

The above example of the live animal export trade provides the clearest opportunity for political action to end one form of unnecessary harm to animals with minimal impact on our lives, as happened in New Zealand.

Political activism to reduce the suffering of animals that we eat ourselves has the more modest - but still important - goal of dramatically improving animal welfare standards, through more stringent regulation of the industry.

At the political level, this might involve little more than contacting our elected representatives to let them know our views, supporting organisations like Animals Australia in their advocacy for change by donating and/or signing petitions, pressuring our local food suppliers to provide more ethically produced products and so on.

Ending the live animal export trade and improving the conditions of animals we eat are moral issues that we should all be able to unite on, whether we are committed meat eaters or vegetarians.

At the personal level, there is enormous scope for meaningful moral action through our considerable power as consumers. We can make our vote count at the check-out.

Peter Singer argues in The Ethics of What We Eat that we should choose food that causes the least suffering to animals, the least environmental damage, the least negative impact on climate change, has the least adverse effect on global poverty and is the most just to workers.

Some food systems cause much more harm than others. The prevailing large scale industrialized factory farming of chickens, turkeys, pigs and dairy cattle is at one extreme. Most supermarkets, groceries, fast-food outlets and restaurants source their food from these. There is an overwhelming moral case for avoiding all such foods.

The small scale, organic, free-range farming of animals, where animal welfare is a priority, is at the other extreme of commercial food production. While still problematic, it is ethically preferable for people who believe it is permissible to eat such products to source them from the best available farms for the animals.

Because some people find it is just too onerous to be constantly researching and monitoring their ethical food choices, they find it easier to choose a vegan or vegetarian diet by default and make occasional decisions to depart from it when they are satisfied that it can be justified. For example, they may sometimes happily eat wild wallaby/kangaroo meat or a chook, pig, sheep or cow that they know has been killed instantly in the paddock after a good life.

For those who believe it is wrong to kill animals for food, choosing a totally vegan diet is clearly the best option. Provided they supplement their diet with vitamin B12, they can lead a perfectly healthy life. Peter Singer sees this as the most ethically defensible diet. However, he recognises that most people won't choose it and so he encourages people to take whatever steps they can to improve the situation.

We could start by eliminating just some of the most problematic meat from our diet, eg. chicken and/or pork, to alleviate their suffering. We could refuse to eat factory farmed eggs, or search for genuinely free-range alternatives, for the same reason. Alternatively, we could choose to start with one or more vegetarian days per week and build up progressively – like those in the "Meat Free Mondays" movement.

There are multiple options available to consumers, depending on their priorities. I know some people who choose to pay more for their dairy products by buying from producers for whom animal welfare is a top priority, because they are concerned about the suffering of the cows and their calves. Others are more concerned about climate change and so concentrate on reducing their consumption of all cattle products. There are those concerned about global poverty who avoid grain-fed animals because they believe the huge quantity of grain involved would be much better used to feed the poor. Coffee drinkers can choose Oxfam's Fair Trade Coffee because they want to reduce exploitation of local workers.

Increasingly, people are choosing to avoid intensively farmed fish, like salmon. This can be because of the suffering (if they agree that fish experience pain), because the fish are fed factory-farmed animal products and unsustainable wild fish, or because of the extreme degradation to the marine environment. Others have decided to reduce significantly or stop eating wild fish. The main reason is the huge by-catch that is wasted and the threat of extinction to so many fish species brought about by commercial fishing operations.

There are many choices open to the conscientious ethical eater who wants not only to experience the pleasures of eating but also to feel good about what they eat. We do not need to build our happiness on the suffering of our fellow creatures. Whatever we do will have moral consequences. Anything we can do to improve the situation will make a difference.

So let's all step up! Let's make a stand on moral principle and commit to making more ethical food choices in the future to reduce animal suffering.

It does not matter how you start, as long as you make a start and keep going. You may have to give up a few pleasurable tastes for the sake of your conscience and alleviating suffering. But you will not starve and you may be surprised at how good the alternatives taste.

It's really up to each of us to confront this glaring and very important moral issue, for the sake of our moral health, the welfare of our fellow creatures and the health of our planet.

This is a difficult moral issue and one that is often painful to discuss, as anyone who has sat through an uncomfortable dinner conversation, where such issues are raised, will testify. So it is important to be tolerant and kind towards the people with whom we disagree. People should not be teased or ridiculed for making ethical food choices or condemned for failing to do so. We are all in this together.

Eating is one of the great pleasures in life. It is important that we can enjoy it to the full. That will depend increasingly on the choice of food we put on the plate. When we say "Bon appetite", we should remember the meaning of the word "bon" and make sure that we can say it with integrity.

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About the Author

Scott MacInnes has a background in teaching, law and conflict resolution. He is now retired and lives in Tasmania.

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