The renowned Czech author Milan Kundera once defined our species as "man, the cow parasite" -- for good reason. After all, we humans gnaw on their dead flesh, suck them dry of milk and parade around in their skins. Parasitic indeed.
Roy Lee '00 ["Beef: It's What's for Dinner," The Dartmouth, Feb. 26] seems to take pride in this parasitic status in his flippant, callous article on the joys of being a carnivore. I would love for him to spend a few days living in a cage with the animals he so loves to eat, perhaps then he'd reconsider the humor of the situation.
Most people don't want to think about how that juicy steak made it to their table. If they do, they may think of animals roaming around freely on a bucolic farm like the ones in Vermont. But don't kid yourself: only a small percentage of animals enjoy such conditions. Farming is as mechanized as any other industry. Most animals are raised in huge factory farms where they are treated as "products" to be fattened up, slaughtered and transported as quickly and efficiently as possible.
To speed this process, all kinds of atrocities are perpetuated. Animals are crammed together in vast feedlots where there is often no room to even turn around. The overcrowding and discomfort lead to aggression, but the clever farm managers have that figured out; they simply chop off the beaks of chickens, without the benefit of anesthesia. Similarly, pigs get their tails cut off to prevent the tail-biting provoked by the horrendous stress they're under. The stench of the excrement is overpowering, and the filthy conditions necessitate the use of antibiotics. Still, many animals die before they reach the slaughterhouse. At this moment, millions of animals are suffering such torture.
The abuse of animals is the gaping blind spot of our culture. Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." He would not be pleased with us. We think ourselves the lords of creation, free to exploit other species however we choose. Our capriciousness knows no bounds; dogs and cats are sentimentalized and protected from abuse by law, whereas pigs and cows can be subjected to any sort of mistreatment. Their suffering is distasteful to most people, but not enough to deter them from that juicy steak.
Instead of facing up to the suffering caused by the meat industry, proponents of meat-eating often whip out feeble arguments to defend the practice. They wax poetic about the food chain and how eating animals is natural. Other animals do it, so why can't humans? They ignore the fact that carnivorous animals kill their prey quickly; humans, by contrast, are the only species "clever" enough to set up dismal factories for the animals they eat, where the creatures suffer a whole lifetime before being slaughtered. Other people argue that humans are superior to animals and that they are under our dominion. Yet even those who espouse this cocky attitude must concede that there should be limits to what humans can impose on animals, who, after all, have nervous systems similar to ours. The vital question is whether animals can feel pain, and without a doubt, the answer is yes.
It's so easy to view meat neutrally, as just another item on the menu. Your mom told you to eat it; everyone around you eats it, and rarely does anyone express any moral qualms about it. You and I can easily ignore the factory farms; we are not directly confronted by the pain our future dinners endure. Still, I challenge you to visualize the suffering that our carnivorous appetites cause. Is your taste for flesh enough justification for the misery? Can you condone the mistreatment of creatures who are as intelligent -- and have the same capacity for pain -- as the family dog?
If you have any empathy for animals at all -- if you see them as more than just something to be digested -- please eliminate or at least cut down on your consumption of them. Every dollar that goes to the meat industry sends a signal of support. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." This complicity is the shame of us all.
