A professor of the “politics and philosophy of food,” named Chad Levin, advocates for vegetarianism in a distinctly political advocacy paper in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Ironically, given what he writes, he claims that his vegetarianism is not “political.” You be the judge. From”The Vegetarian Lesson:”
But is vegetarianism political? Even though my abstinence from meat is motivated by a set of core principles about the treatment of animals, workers, and the environment, it does not necessarily follow that abstaining from meat constitutes a political position. Indeed, the decision not to eat meat does not necessarily enter the terrain of politics (often defined as the decisions over who gets what, when, and how), nor does it engage significantly with the question of power.
He’s right. Merely being a vegetarian is not necessarily a political act. But Levin’s vegetarianism is very political, as is the rest of his article. He decries that writers like Peter Singer reduce vegetarianism to an issue of “choice,” and then writes about having to respond when student ask why he is vegetarian (how would they know if he didn’t tell them?):
The very question—inquiring about the values that guide my consumer choices—seems biased against a political response, predicated as it is on the assumption that how or what we eat is primarily an issue of individual choice. Imagine the alternative, rarely posed, question: “Why are most Americans not vegetarian?” One would have to be an ideologue of the highest order to hear that as a question about dietary choice. Surely that question invites a discussion of agricultural subsidies, USDA regulations, public-school financing, and corporate lobbying.
Today, I can imagine two responsible replies to my students, and each comes with its own tragic irony. The first answer is partly a protest against having my personal life dragged into the arena of classroom spectacle, but more fundamentally a refusal to engage in a discourse that so readily slides from a consideration of the political economy of meat into one of individual dietary choice. The irony of this answer—something on the order of “That’s none of your business” or “Figure it out for yourself”—is that in order to resist having opposition to the slaughter of animals reduced to a solitary ethical position, I invoke a zone of privacy or an ideal of self-reliance that is literally immune to politics. In other words, in pursuit of a political vocabulary for vegetarianism, I refuse to participate in politics.
In other words, Leven wants it to be political, but is frustrated because, in his view, it isn’t due to an insufficiently political lexicon around the subject, a problem caused by the primary advocates such as Singer, reducing the issue to one of choice–which again, in Levin’s view, is insufficiently political:
The second answer, the one I prefer (at least right now), betrays a deep cynicism about the very possibility of politics in this consumerist age. The answer reflects a resignation to the sense that what passes for politics today is really just the sum total of consumer choices, and to the fact that ethical reasoning is inadequate for confronting such institutionally entrenched cultural norms as the torture of animals or the squandering of fossil fuels. It is this answer, however, that gestures toward the lesson of the class: that a vibrant food politics would focus less on what we choose to eat and more on how the production, distribution, and consumption of food affords us—as individuals, societies, and a species—both power and privilege over others.
Gee, I’ll bet his class is really even-handed.
But here’s the thing: The meme that vegetarianism is “cruelty free” is phony-baloney, unless one restricts his diet to oranges or something. The mice, snakes, birds,lizards, and other small animals torn to pieces in combines, the rats and mice poisoned in silos, and the animals burned in fields, don’t go gently into that good night. They die in more terror and agony than any steer or pig killed at a slaughter house.
This isn’t to say that food animals could not be treated better. I think improving animal welfare is a good and noble cause. But it is to say, that vegetarians also have animal blood and pain on their own hands. Not that they are bad for so having: It is just that we can’t live without killing animals–no matter the political choices we make around food.
August 15th, 2011 | 4:25 pm
For the sake of all that is good and decent, please, nobody tell these people where soap comes from!
August 15th, 2011 | 5:05 pm
[...] FROM: Is Vegetarianism a Political Act? » Secondhand Smoke | A First … [...]
August 15th, 2011 | 6:26 pm
Where soap comes from:
Kiss My Face Soap Pure Olive Oil
INGREDIENTS: Saponified Olive Oil, Water, Matricaria Extract (Chamomile), Sodium Chloride, Fragrance This moisturizing bar was created without animal ingredients, artificial colors, unnecessary chemicals or animal testing.
While it’s true that many animals are run over by farm equipment, the deaths of those animals are a problem we can attempt to solve, rather than the entire objective, as it is in raising animals for meat. Furthermore, many of those very grains that involve animals being run over are then FED to animals destined for slaughter, which means a vegetarian diet still entails killing fewer animals.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 15th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
Funny I don’t see demonstrartion against mechanized plant ag or poisoning rats. But the point isn’t which diet kills more animals. The point is planmt ag kills more cruelly. At the very least there is no such thing as a “cruelty free” diet-unless all you eat is pinapples.
padraig Reply:
August 16th, 2011 at 11:43 am
@Wesley J. Smith, fruit tree agriculture often involves a LOT of pesticides.
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
August 18th, 2011 at 1:50 am
@Wesley J. Smith, Just because we cannot “perfectly” protect animals doesn’t mean that animals do not have rights. It just means we live in a complicated and flawed world, where those rights are always protected. But they still exist.
I believe that, by using our intelligence, we can reduce the “collateral damage”, if you will, of the mice, snakes, and other animals killed, if not eliminate it.
But what is the better view, being able to protect some animals, but not all; or, concluding that, because we cannot protect all of them, we shouldn’t support animal rights at all?
Obviously, protecting some animals right to life, is better than not protecting any.
But certainly the deaths of “food animals” is hardly painless, as I know that you know, Wesley. And I’m glad to see that you support improving animal welfare, even referring to the this improvement as “good and noble.”
Perhaps the best improvement of all would be that we don’t kill them, and let them live their lives? It’s no skin off our noses, if they do, except, of course, for those in the meat industry that make tons of money.
August 17th, 2011 | 12:40 pm
Thanks for this post. Your commentary on the article raises a number of very interesting claims that I’d love to hear more about if you have the time to revisit them.
I couldn’t agree more that the term “cruelty-free” is both ideologically freighted and ultimately misleading. But I’m curious as to why you’re willing to admit the possibility that a citrus diet might make the grade. Wouldn’t the same sorts of considerations concerning the externalities of raising grains apply to those of raising citrus and other fruit? One must clear the land to raise the orchard, spray the trees to keep the fruit, destroy indigenous animals who would eat the harvest, etc., all of which, evidence seems to suggest, plays into–directly or indirectly–the unfolding of various causal processes that result in the suffering and death of individual animals. As such, I’m confused as to why you would choose a crop as resource-intensive as citrus in particular as the notable exception to your general line of argument.
I’m also puzzled by the following passage:
>>The mice, snakes, birds, lizards, and other small animals torn to pieces in combines, the rats and mice poisoned in silos, and the animals burned in fields, don’t go gently into that good night. They die in more terror and agony than any steer or pig killed at a slaughter house.<<
As far as I can tell, you don't provide any argumentative support for the weight-bearing claim here: "[Animals killed in fields and silos, etc.] die in more terror and agony than any steer or pig killed at a slaughter house." But without the aid of further explanation, it is difficult to see what would warrant one's belief that free-living animals who happen into a more-or-less instantaneous death by combine experience more "terror and agony" than confined animals killed in a slaughter plant. Confined animals, after all, must stand in line, often for a considerable amount of time given the stress of the circumstances, amidst the sights and sounds of their fellow creatures being killed–and all of this after lives in which they have been conditioned, through various confinement and handling procedures, to be apprehensive of their immediate circumstances. (Anyone who doubts that the slaughter process is very stressful for animals may simply consult the industry's own manuals, textbooks, and checkbooks which spill a great deal of ink and money in pursuit of strategies for reducing stress, which among other things, makes animals much harder to handle.) Given the foregoing, it seems intuitively plausible to suggest that confined animals would be decidedly more susceptible to the subjective states of "terror and agony" than the free-living field mouse would be. In any case, it isn't clear from what you've written here what reasons there might be for accepting your assertion.
Another curious feature of your analysis is that it seems to grant the point, without raising the slightest objection, that animals as low in the order of things as mice and lizards can experience "terror and agony", and indeed, even "more terror and agony" under less stressful, free-living conditions than is experienced by animals as intelligent as confinement pigs when they are facing slaughter. Whether you mean to grant this claim (or would reassert it upon reflection) I can't say, but you do seem to grant it here: "They die in more terror and agony than any steer or pig killed at a slaughter house." It looks to me like you have framed this sentence as a statement of fact, and as far as I can tell, if it is *in fact* the case that "mice, snakes, birds, lizards, and other small animals" "die in more terror and agony than any pig or steer", then it follows that *it is possible* for "mice, snakes, birds, lizards, and other small animals" to experience "terror and agony".
The fact that you so readily grant this point is surprising to me for two reasons.
First, "terror and agony" describe subjective states that would seem to require relatively complex reflective capacities of the sort that many people would be stingy about granting to these animals. It is one thing to be "afraid" or "in pain", after all, and quite another to be "terrified" or "in agony". Am I wrong that the experiences of being terrified and being in agony seem to require a much more sophisticated apprehension of the potential risks and rewards of existence (and thus at least a minimal sense of one's interests, one's persistence through time, and one's having or not having a future) than the experiences of being afraid or being in pain? I wouldn't have guessed that a human exceptionalist would so unguardedly admit the experiences of "terror and agony" into the capacities of beings such as these.
Second, once one admits that such creatures are capable of experiencing things as nasty as "terror and agony", one must confront the moral seriousness of being party to the infliction of such grave harms in circumstances that don't necessitate it. I suspect that most Christians (at least those who have taken a careful look at the Bible) would take a pretty low view of inflicting or supporting the infliction of "terror and agony" on *any* of God's animal creatures unless its infliction were necessary–that is, unless there were some pressing theological/moral reason for doing so. But if one grants this point, then it is hard to see how one could remain unproblematically committed to the standard American diet, the staples of which are typically confinement produced meat and animal products that are exceedingly and increasingly difficult to defend as long-term sustainable for human flourishing, much less than as necessary for human flourishing.
Thanks again for a thought-provoking post! I haven't been lured into the bloggosphere for quite some time. :)
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
August 18th, 2011 at 11:01 am
@Matt Halteman, I sure hope you contribute more! You’ve provided intelligent, nuanced insights, that we all can learn from. I think especially with regard to pigs, their suffering is especially disturbing. The reason being that they’re highly intelligent, and can therefore anticipate the degree of horror to come.
It’s my hope that, just as we can take pragmatic steps to end, say, partial birth abortions, without needing to end all abortions, we can stop the confining nightmare that pigs and cows go through before their deaths. This is a disgrace that any civilized society would tolerate this, just as it’s a disgrace that any civilized society would tolerate partial birth abortions.
Regarless of one’s views on abortion or the meat industries, in general, can’t we at least have common ground on the need to ban partail birth abortions and the confinement of pigs and cows, prior to their deaths?
August 19th, 2011 | 11:53 am
Just because we cannot “perfectly” protect animals doesn’t mean that animals do not have rights.
Sure they have rights.
But you’re talking about taking a huge (and, at least right now, necessary) chunk of the food chain out of operation.
That’s not “moral” unless you can do one of two things: either argue how that chunk of the food chain will be restored/substituted/accounted for elsewhere, so that you are not arguing in favor of redistributing resources away from human beings and toward animals, or demonstrate that animals should be accounted morally equivalent to humans – which implies that if a person is driving a car and has the choice to either strike a pedestrian or strike three deer, the “moral” choice would be to strike the pedestrian.
I don’t think vegetarians can do either yet. I don’t mean to interfere with one’s right to be vegetarian – I’m not out to get the Buddhists; I actually have a lot of respect for them. But I don’t think vegetarianism will be at all sustainable on a wide scale until we’ve broken the outer space boundary – enabling people to create new spaces and new resources in currently unusable spaces – because until then the only way you can argue in favor of an expanded “right to life” for animals is to argue simultaneously for a diminished “right to life” for people.
I could be wrong: I have not tallied up how much we could squeeze out of saving what is currently wasted – I have heard that the scraps kids throw away in lunchrooms could feed enough pigs to feed the world, but that still does not answer the question of where the pigs would live if they’re not going to feed the world. I suppose you might be able to solve the land problem via earth-sheltered housing : it might not be very helpful in the cities, but in suburban and rural areas you could theoretically plant gardens or pastures on top of houses and thus gain a lot of actual green space for both vegetables and animals (as well as other uses – play spaces and ornamental gardens, etc.)
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
August 20th, 2011 at 3:01 am
@Blake, you have provided some great insights, and questions, Blake. I think that we must think these things through, very carefully. To not have contingent plans set up, would be foolhardy, indeed. We must have a good plan in place, for how/where humans will get their (our) non animal food, if we protect the rights of animals, and therefore don’t use them as food sources. Also, what about those animals (e.g., dogs, cats) that exclusively eat meat?
Clearly, we have to work these things out in a way that, in no way harms humans, or other sentient animals.
I believe that probably an incremental, step by step approach, may be the wisest. This will not please those who argue that, since sentient animals have rights, the only moral approach, is to advocate and implement, as soon as possible abolition. We must stop all animal deaths. I wholeheartedly agree that abolition is the proper moral goal. We should not consider our work done, until every sentient animal has rights, protected in our laws.
But this cannot be realistically done, all at once. We have to convince people that sentient animals have rights, and not everyone, or even most people, agree with this. This in no way implies that those who disagree with animal rights are uncaring, unkind, or immoral. Not at all. There are very well intentioned, good hearted people, such as Wesley Smith, who disagree with animal rights, for, among other reasons, he genuinely believes that giving animals rights, could harm humans. His views, and the views of others, who disagree with animal rights, should be respected, because they deserve to be. We on the animal rights side, have an obligation to show why the objections, on the other side, can be shown either false, on closer examination, or can be remedied, so that humans are not harmed, by giving animals rights.
So, I believe that, through rational arguments, we can convince others to change, but this will be a very slow process. My guess is, and I certainly hope it’s sooner, that sentient animals will not be fully protected in law, for many, many more years.
What we must do, is take small steps, toward protecting animals, while at the same time, using our intelligence to find ways that we humans can successfully cope with having to use non animal sources, in food, and otherwise. “slow and steady wins the race”, as the saying goes.
We need to, through respectful dialogue, with those on the other side, come up with some compromise positions.
August 19th, 2011 | 11:55 am
But certainly the deaths of “food animals” is hardly painless
Neither is death by roadkill, which is happening frequently around here (and will stop happening when hunting season comes round).
However we do have it within our power to raise the standards by which animals are killed. It is possible to zap an animal in the head and kill it in what might be the quickest, most painless death available – certainly kinder than most deaths in nature.
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
August 20th, 2011 at 3:04 am
@Blake, Certainly, if animals are going to be killed, doing it in the most painless way possible, is an essential goal. And I would support doing this.
However, it’s merely an interim step. The ultimate goal, is to respect other sentient animals right to life. It’s still wrong to kill them, even when done painlessly, because it deprives them of their future life, although it’s certainly better than killing them in a painful way.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 20th, 2011 at 9:26 am
Then you better give up your cereal.. countless animals died painful deaths that you might have it at an affordable price .
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
August 20th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, As I said, we need to proceed slowly, so we can properly adapt. But I would be willing to pay more, to ensure that animals are protected.
August 19th, 2011 | 11:58 am
I think my comment disappeared into the spam filter?
re: what I believe vegetarians have to do in order to establish the points they want accepted (1st: are they going to provide for animals or are they going to argue redistribution away from humans toward animals? 2nd: options for providing for animals: breaking into new frontiers/expanding resources through growth; expanding resources through waste recovery/food; expanding land through earth sheltered housing).
was hoping for Bret Lythgoe’s comments on my comments :D
If that comment is not lost please delete this one? thx
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
August 20th, 2011 at 3:15 am
@Blake, Thanks for your thoughtful points! It’s great talking with you, about these important matters. You always give me important things to think about, thanks!
My hope is that we don’t redistribute food away from humans toward animals. I believe that, by taking some steps toward animal improvement, we can adapt, so that eventually, all sentient life can live peacefully, or as peacefully as possible (consider that all humans have rights, but, sadly, we still have those who harm others, but at least we have a legal system to help deter those who do. When all sentient animals have rights, there will still be those who harm animals, but at least they will encounter legal ramifications for it, which may deter them from harming other animals in the future, as well as deter those humans, who may consider harming animals, but choose not to, in order to avoid the punishment of those they see punished).
I think we need to be as creative as we can, in trying to solve the problem of how humans and other sentient animals can live in peace, and flourish, even though we have limited resources.
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
August 20th, 2011 at 3:19 am
@Blake, you also have a great idea, in using earth sheltered housing, and the other options you listed. I don’t know much about them, right now. Thanks so much for providing them.
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