Stray Thoughts on the Consumption of Friends and Companions
Noah asks a good question, and I wish I could answer it more adequately than I will.
One distinction that immediately leaps to mind is that between keeping a pet in and around the house just as a loosely attached being whose role in the life of the family is viewed by its members as ordered simply toward the provision of meat, and having a pet that is viewed – perhaps absurdly, as some might insist, though obviously these things come in degrees – as a part of the family, as “one of us”. The latter model is of course the one that predominates in American households, and I can imagine that e.g. Rod might have had a good deal more trouble serving up the dumplings with that hen who turned out to be a rooster if he’d given it a name and allowed it to curl up with him on the couch; by contrast, I recall a friend from Kansas describing a family who’d bought a calf and straightaway named it “Meatball”, just so the kids wouldn’t get any illusions. (Perhaps the person who really ought to be taking on this question is Caleb Stegall.) Hence the relevant question would be: When e.g. a South Korean family has a dog around the house that they plan to put into a stew, do they view and treat it in the same sorts of ways that most Americans treat their pets? The bonds of attachment and affection that such treatment naturally engenders would, it seems to me, make it a great deal more difficult to go in for the kill.
But on the more general question of the relative merits and demerits of knowing where your food comes from versus, well, knowing your food, it strikes me as perfectly reasonable for the ethically-concerned meat eater to think that the second alternative is the superior one, at least in the abstract. Part of the reason why I prefer, say, buying beef by the whole or half steer instead of a cut at a time is that it enables the focusing of one’s attention on the distinctive sort of sacrifice that meat-eating requires; the family members can direct their gratitude toward the life of the particular animal whose death made their sustenance possible. And such an attitude is likely to be further strengthened when the animal was one with which the family had some real contact, not to mention the memory of a time during which they sustained it in much the same way that it is now sustaining them.
None of this is to deny that a close and personal relationship to the sources of one’s steaks is the sort of thing that would make the average meat eater, myself very much included, unpleasantly troubled by what that luxury requires. Then again, a bit more such discomfort might not be a bad thing at all. Raising, slaughtering, and consuming our fellow animals are activities fraught with mystery and a good deal of darkness, and it’s at our peril that we drive those qualities too thoroughly from our conscious minds.
“Raising, slaughtering, and consuming our fellow animals are activities fraught with mystery and a good deal of darkness….”
That is why I only eat wild urban game.
— cw · Jul 8, 03:53 AM · #
Arrgghhhh, a life on the sea is long and hard, but at least there’s a clarity er purpose. Namely: survive or die. With that in mind we carried crated farm creatures on long voyages. Yer pig, yer sheep, yer bunies. An often on a long voyage, where a man gets to missin the warmer, softer comanionship available shoreward, he will turn to god’s gentle creatures. Now I’m not talkin aboot intercorse here. It’s just cuddlin and an occasional making use er a warm fuzzy ear. And I don’t mean that in a sexual way. Stop yer flanks a quiverin. I mean that sometimes a sheep or a bunny makes a good listener, especially when ye consider the likes er the average colleuge on the vessels I crew on. Stupid, bitter, and syphilitic are three prominant qualities that crowd immediately to mind regarding me fellow crew. No the type ye want to confesse yer fears and dreams to.
But anyway, out there on the mother sea, weeks from shore with provisions runnin short, yer called to do horrbile things. Things ye wouldn’t do except yer so damn hungry. (Have any of ye eaten a gull? Their flesh is blue and taste like something Satan created in an attempt to mock God.) SO ye turn yer head and do the deed that needs doin an forbid to yer consciousness that portion er the mind that contains the images er big soft brown eyes…
An what is the lesson here? It is the same lesson mother sea been forever teachin: DONT BE WEAK. Keep yer need to wimper and cuddle to yerself an don’t make friends with the animals yer goin to eat. At the very least ye’ll spare the poor critters the confusion and feelins er betrayal engendered by havin their throats slit by the big blubblery chap they thought were their friend.
— old one eye · Jul 8, 04:22 AM · #
My dad was emotionally involved with his car, talked about it and treated it like it was part of the family. It lasted three generations of Sargents and was finally sold for $1000 when my family needed money. My dad was legitimately upset when he found out the new owner had totaled it.
Unless there’s a genetic advantage, it’s called transference. Humans excel at it, mindlessly.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jul 9, 12:09 AM · #
Barbara at Tigers and Strawberries has a couple good posts on the subject—and they would reflect my experience in raising and butchering animals pretty well.
Butchering
Meat from pet animals
— SamChevre · Jul 9, 05:02 PM · #