Moral Schizophrenia

I was having a conversation with a friend at work and he pointed out this story to me, about a Tundra Swan with an injured left wing who had to be flown back to Alberta, otherwise he might have died.

The friend expressed what I might call outrage that such resources were put into helping one animal. He pointed to another story (which I'm having trouble finding right now) about a deer in New Brunswick (I believe) that was stranded on a lake, injured, and wandering around, obviously suffering. Members of the public were fairly outraged that officials didn't get to the deer more quickly and end its suffering. Meanwhile, probably 100 yards away, there were numerous people... hunting deer:

"Why don't they just hunt that deer instead, put it out of its misery, and everyone just shut up," said my friend.

One local ended up boating out to where the deer was and killing it. The CBC story ended, by the way, with a thankful, "The deer meat did not go to waste."

While I don't necessarily agree with my friend (or CBC's) conclusion on the matter, I do agree there is a serious disconnect between how we treat and view animals in different situations. Why does it matter if a deer suffers if we see no value in the creature's life anyway? Or do we just feel less bad when it's a "quick kill" or when the suffering is done in slaughterhouses, hidden from view?

My experiences have shown me that most people have at least some problem with animal cruelty, though where they draw the line between "cruel" and "acceptable" may be vastly different. Maybe they draw the line with companion animal abuse, cruelty with no purpose or with what goes on in our meat and dairy industries.

I know a number of people who will become irate when hearing about Michael Vick or the Toronto Humane Society, and then turn around and eat a steak. Or people who look down on hunters, but have no problem eating meat from animals that had far less of a fair chance at life, and far less of a pleasurable life. I've even seen someone eat bacon while looking up cute pictures of pigs online. Of course, I dare not bring up that pigs often have their tails chopped off and are castrated at a young age (by hand and with no anesthetic).

Prof. Gary L Francione refers to this as a type of moral schizophrenia, where we place animals in different categories for no logical reason. Animals A, B, and C are our friends; animals D, E, and F are our food. An organization out of Toronto had a great series of ads that showed animals from each category and bluntly asked, "Why love one, but eat the other?"

While there are no simple answers for what we deem cruel and what we deem "the natural order of things," I nonetheless think this is worthy of consideration. Are our instincts to feel bad flawed or wrong? Or should we recognize our moral considerations towards all animals and find ways to incorporate them into our daily lives?

Dream Farm Turns into Slaughterhouse...

Hey all y'all,

Apologies for the lateness of this post. I hope the article to which I'm referring has not been taken down by the time you, dear reader, come across it:

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Swine+turns+dream+farm+into+slaughterhouse/1581664/story.html

I stumbled across this a while ago and, really, it flat-out irritated me. The article is about an Alberta pig farmer who had to quarantine, and eventually kill, 500 pigs because they were infected with H1N1. The article talks about how he came over from Holland and the wonderful life he made for himself in Alberta before the tragedy struck. What I take serious issue with it the definition of "tragedy."

I think the part of the article that most bothers me is the title: Swine flu turns 'dream' farm into slaughterhouse. Because the slaughterhouse is the exact place the pigs would have been sent next if they hadn't come down with swine flu.

The supposed tragedy, then, is not that these pigs were killed--it's that no profit was made from these pigs being killed. I'm sure you could also make an argument for wasted "food," but I obviously take at least some issue with that.

I know picking on a poor farmer who just lost thousands of dollars is not going to make me the most favourable of folks. It certainly doesn't make me happy to hear about Van Ginkel, or any other farmer for that matter, losing large sums of money. But at the end of the day ( I'm paraphrasing a quotation from the movie, Your Mommy Kills Animals here), him making a profit off of those animals would have ensured more animals would have been moved in to take their place. At least now, there's a bit of uncertainty on that.

I would also like to add that there's a lot of speculation that factory farming might have played a major role in creating the Swine flu outbreak:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/swineflufarm/
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/04/30/did-factory-farming-cause-the-swine-flu-outbreak/

For those of you who don't think factory farming is an issue in Alberta, here's one for you:
http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2001/06/factory_farm.html

That is a 2001 article, so that 1/3 number has probably changed. One thing history tells us about factory farms is they grow almost as fast as the sickly animals on their farm.

And on that note, I'm officially going to continue calling it Swine Flu whenever possible.

A Vegan Preamble

Hello anyone who might be listening,

I'm planning on a series of blogs based around my beliefs regarding veganism and animal rights. I just wanted to explain myself before I do for all the people who don't understand that my belief in animal rights doesn't have to coincide with me being a crazy.

I'm not radical... in any real way. I've never really been a contrarian, nor have I ever really wanted to offend anyone. I don't particularly like debating, because I think it's pretty useless for the most part. People don't really listen to you anyway and they're going to believe what they're going to believe.

The reason I do debate, however, is for that rare person who is actually willing to listen or take what was said and think about it and do their own research. If they don't come to my conclusion, fine, but at least they've considered it and are truly better for having given whatever issue a reasonable amount of thought.

I feel the way we eat has become such a mindless process to most people because we're so far removed from the system of production. I obviously think that's dangerous from an animal rights perspective, but also from a health perspective--and what we call the Standard American Diet (SAD). I'm no nutritionist, but I find people's concepts of health have become these vague statements about how we "need a ton of protein" or about how milk "does the body good." The more I read on these subjects, the more I take issue with them.

But I had these same preconceptions and, after reflecting on where they might have come from, the only thing I could come up with is from advertisements. But I digress.

The extent of my "radicalism" can be summed up as follows:

1. I want to minimize suffering in any living being wherever possible.

2. Meat, dairy and egg production--or any production that involves animals--almost invariable results in suffering.

3. It is very much possible to live and thrive without eating or wearing anything that comes from an animal.

I'm not trying to shake the system to its core, nor do I think everyone is going to all of a sudden turn vegan--but if I can make just one person think about the philosophy behind such consumption than I am happy.

Thanks for reading.