My answer: No.
Unless we’re talking about eating them.
I didn’t ask this question.
It came to me via the Tumblr blog for “Animal Place,” a farm sanctuary.
The author of the post used to comment on this blog, but I guess my ethics that celebrate meat consumption and our hunter-gatherer heritage are a bit much.
She makes the following claims about those of us who love dogs but eat pigs:
We stand by our belief that animal slaughter programs [4-H animal husbandry projects] in school teach nothing but disconnection and betrayal. Replace “pig” with “dog”, and many 4H/FFA apologists would be horrified. Teaching children to love dogs, then slaughter them? Unacceptable!
This is because we have arbitrarily decided that in this country, dogs = companion animals, pigs = food.
This is a human-created distinction, not a reflection of the inherent value of the animal himself.
It does not take into consideration how similar dogs are to pigs. Or that pigs are smarter, more emotional, and more gregarious than dogs. They love being touched more than dogs too! They are dogs enhanced – bigger, bolder.
Even if they were not, even if they were paler versions of their canine friends – they feel. They suffer. We inflict great pain on them for nothing more than a moment of gustatory pleasure. We steal their most prized and cherished possession – their life.
For all the reasons we love dogs, we should love pigs more so!
And yet we don’t. It’s surreal.
The reason why we love dogs is that they co-evolved with us.
They date to a time when humans relied upon wild meat to survive, and dogs were an asset in the procurement of that meat.
Humans and dogs are much more similar to each other than we are to pigs. We are capable of cooperatively hunting together. Dogs respond amazingly well to our body language.
And whatever smarts pigs might have, they haven’t been proven to have these abilities.
They might have some abilities with abstract thinking, but as a whole, I question whether we can say that pigs are smarter than dogs.
Humans have been hunting pigs since we became humans. I bet we regularly feasted on warthogs, red river hogs, and bushpigs when we first evolved in Africa.
When we came into Eurasia and North Africa, we hunted the wild boar. Later on, we discovered that these wild boar were easy to domesticate. They could eat garbage much more effectively than dogs could, and what’s more, pigs could convert refuse into very tasty protein and fat much more efficiently than dogs could.
Pigs were also of use in maintaining the fertility of farm fields, and for much of the world’s population, they were the main red meat that was available. A serf could fatten hogs at his cottage, and a factory worker could raise them in his backyard. One didn’t need vast acreages to produce pork.
One merely needed an area set aside for a sty and refuse to feed it.
My species didn’t co-evolve with pigs. It co-evolved with dogs.
I don’t care if pigs are smarter than dolphins or chimps.
The contract we have with them– the one in which they have been able to expand in vast numbers all over the world– is one in which humans raise them for slaughter.
It’s not a bad deal for them as a species, and because humans kill them, we get to be humane about it.
All a pig has to do eat, mate, and have piglets.
When the end comes, it has no idea what’s coming, and it suffers very little.
And then the question of factory farming comes up.
Well, how is a pig supposed to know that it’s supposed to live outside?
I bet those pigs don’t miss the outside at all.
They don’t miss it because they don’t know it.
Just like I don’t miss playing football.
I’m not necessarily saying that these mass production facilities are the best system, but the notion that they are somehow cruel to the pigs is a bit much to accept.
Erich Fromm, the great psychologist and social theorist, once argued that serfs were better off than people living in free societies. Serfs never had to worry about what they were to become. Their destiny was already set the day the were born. We modern people have to worry all the time about what we’re supposed to be, and we spend most of youth engaged in this dismal struggle.
Pigs are likely the same way.
I doubt that those in factory farms sit around thinking about rooting through acorns or fighting to gain status in sounders.
Their lot in life is to produce meat or piglets or inseminate the sows that give piglets.
It’s been this way for thousands of years.
If we enjoy bacon or pork of any sort, we must be willing to accept that pigs must die to produce it.
The most cost effective way is mass production. If we don’t want that sort of mass production, then we have to change our consumer choices.
But if we were to give up eating meat, the pig would actually wind up suffering more.
My guess is that pig numbers would drop off to just tiny relict numbers. The only pigs in existence would be those bred for the show ring and, of course, the smaller breeds that exist for the pet market.
Being raised for slaughter is the contract that humans and pigs have signed, and it has allowed pigs to blossom and expand all over the world. There are now a billion of them. Almost all of them are being raised for food.
If we were to stop eating them, the contract would be revoked.
And the pig as a species would begin to disappear.
Animal rights fanaticism is really about hate.
It’s not about respecting the animals. It’s about hating other people.
It’s just as bad as the religious right.
The only difference up to now is that animal rights fanatics had very little political power.
But now I see a party– my party, the Democratic Party– associating itself with such fanaticism.
Just remember why the Republican Party failed in 2008.
It took its marching orders from the religious fanatics.
I can see exactly the same thing happening if mainstream Democrats don’t denounce the radical animal rights movement.
It may not happen this election cycle.
But it will happen at some point.
These people aren’t about maintaining civil society. They are about spreading hatred towards other Americans.
Don’t vote for hate.
Hate is the road to ruin.
AR is nihilism, basically. That’s why PETA and such wax poetic about how beautiful and preferable death is for animals rather than to have them live with or be used in any way by humans.
Its part and parcel of the commonly held view that we humans somehow stand apart from nature rather than being part of it. The AR people are just as bad as those who would destroy the biosphere in the name of quarterly dividends or to hasten the “Rapture.” Nutz is nutz!
Pigs is pigs, and Nutz is nutz
Pigs and humans signed a contract? I don’t recall the pigs agreeing to this factory farm life. Pigs cannot even hold pens! ;)
I’ve never been a PETA fan and there are SOME AR extremes that get screwy, but factory farming is about a lot more than not seeing the sunlight. And BTW even if you never knew the sun, you can suffer w/o it if you are an animal evolved to make use of it and need it for some reason, be it psychological, hormonal, what have you. Would you raise a puppy w/o the sun, in a dark cage, cramped, unable to turn around? Sort of like one of those puppy mill hells we always hear about, isn’t it?
You don’t need to be an AR freak to understand why the way a lot of these mass produced animals are treated is wrong. It also creates unhealthy conditions which can not POSSIBLY be great for the quality of the meat. Most of my family never went vegetarian as I did for 17 years but they are all quick to say that what I pick up from the smaller farmers tastes a whole lot better than what you get at most grocery stores today.
I’m sure the pigs are not consciously thinking about what they COULD be doing, were they outside. I also don’t think the individual pigs are aware of what their sheer numbers are in the world, nor do they care. They only know what is happening to them at the moment. And if it causes some level of animal nuttiness from boredom, leading to chewing tails of the one in the cage next door IF they can turn around, or chewing ears, or, if they cannot really even move, atrophy and stiffness of muscles, and all the frustration that comes with isolation and denial of any natural behaviors, then that’s inhumane.
I have nothing against eating pigs. But I honestly think living the life one evolved to live, like a wild boar, is far worse than what some of the factory pigs go through. Doesn’t matter if they are conscious of it or not as people are. There are other forms of suffering.
Or let’s continue breeding dogs with flat faces, short legs and other malformities for amusement. Those dogs never knew what it was to have regular breathing and the joy of running like the wind anyway.
Simply recognizing unnatural suffering and having compassion does not automatically make one an extremist.
We make contracts with all animals. All our relationships are contracts.
I’ve heard that term thrown around fairly recently. It seems to have been adopted as “evolution speak” but it was never used when I was going to grad school and taking evolution courses. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t being used anyway. I just never heard it much until recently. Even bio lingo has “hot” terms; flavors of the week, stuff that was always there but suddenly gets said a lot more than before.
A contract is an agreement entered into voluntarily by two parties.
The Social Contract is not.
The contract we have with our government isn’t one you agreed to, but it is a contract.
Well lord knows our system of representation for entry into such contracts sucks.
You have, however, agreed to abide by the result of the electoral process, even if you don`t like the result.
Unless you`re planning revolution…..
Elizabeth
I’d like to start by TPing the white house!
“Simply recognizing unnatural suffering and having compassion does not automatically make one an extremist.”
I completely agree. But I HATE that vegans think they have the market cornered on compassion or ethics. I think a lot about where my food comes from, and it’s relative impact on the lives of other people and animals, and make many choices every day to lessen that impact. Yet, because I kill my own wild game and buy small-farm-raised lamps and kill them myself, I’m “unethical”.
Was away for weekend and sick but meant to reply to this earlier. I hate it too. Pompous superiority complexes never make a good case for any mindset. I was never vegan, but I was ovo-lacto veg for 17 years and happily joined friends at steakhouses and such. I wasn’t about to be the one to bring the party down. I didn’t want to be the annoying vegetarian in the group. I made do with salads and bloomin’ onions if i had to. That was my choice and I didn’t want friends to suffer for it.
If anything, THEY were the ones who made a big fuss over me. I never said a word. THEY acted self conscious when eating steak in front of me. THEY made fun of me sometimes for not eating meat, or read the menu for me looking for things I could eat. I would roll my eyes to myself, laughing. “Hey! I’m veg, not blind or illiterate, but thank you.” I mean, it was annoying but well intentioned.
As I got older still, I rethought things yet again. Someone asked me if I would eat meat if it was raised outside, humanely, eating grass, building a leaner body with a good omega fatty acid ratio, and killed quickly. Then I also realized that while we have a long intestinal tract and don’t have the stomach acides of a carnivore, we also don’t have the RIDICULOUSLY long tract of say, a gorilla, with extended stomachs to accomodate it ( beer guts don’t count here), nor anything like the extra stomachs of ruminants. So I had pause again, then looked at the chart of zinc sources and how low they were in vegetation, plus CoQ10, etc, and decided to let some flesh back into my life!
Now I’m considering doing a full 180 and following in my late Opa’s footsteps; not just having the organic garden but picking up a rifle and hunting down my dinner. Life’s journey is surprising sometimes.
Excuse me. I have to correct something. I meant living the life one evolved to live, like a wild boar, isn’t HALF AS BAD as what some of the factory pigs go through. Sheesh. G’night!
urbancolliechick wrote: if you never knew the sun, you can suffer w/o it if you are an animal evolved to make use of it and need it for some reason — hm, so one should probably feel that all those humans stuck inside offices all day should be suing their employers for denying them sunlight? Factory farms are interested in production — if the animal doesn’t gain weight and have the desired muscle/fat ratio, they don’t sell as well. I submit that most factory farms are probably as much or more interested in the health and welfare of their animals than most “white collar” employers are about their human employees.
And of course the arguement regarding eating pigs is a bit off. 1. Some cultures DO eat dog. Some cultures ban the eating of pig and pig products. Some ban eating cattle. Or horses. Others have no such problem. Humans tend to have odd views on what is/isn’t edible and what is/isn’t sacrosanct. If you presented the “transpose dog for pig” arguement in Korea, they would laugh at you. The French have no problem eating horse.
Horse, pig, dog, what have you, I won’t deny my cultural bias towards one animal or another but i do acknowledge it’s cultural. I also sometimes say “thank heavens” or “God dammit” but that I’m still an atheist. Cultural upbringing instilled in childhood gains a firm foothold early.
As to cubes vs factory farms, I nearly spit out my coffee laughing about the cruelty of employers. I can’t say I haven’t had some jack-arses. But hey, people might not have a choice about having to make money, and they might even have few choices based on circumstance. You might be born with a silver spoon, with ample funds and a Harvard education within your grasp, complete with membership to the skull”n’bones society. Or, you might be born in Flint Michigan to uneducated parents, maybe even ABUSIVE parents hooked on smack from poverty and depression, and being raised by them and feeling obliged to bring home the bacon ( pig pun?) because if you don’t, they will die, and they’re your shitty parents but you don’t want them to DIE.
BUT…….whatever the limitations, technically, you CAN skip skull’n’bones if you have some crazy childhood dream of being say, a garbage man. And you CAN save pennies and leave your shitty parents in Flint, and hop a bus for the next town over, maybe getting online at a local library to hit the U of Phoenix, while picking fruit and such somewhere. THere are stories every day of people who changed their own lives.
That is what choice over one’s life is. We, at least in America, which birthed the Factory Farm, HAVE that. Pigs do not. Yes, pigs don’t make choices the way humans do so I would not go letting them all free. But making some of the inhumane practices that do go on in these farms the only other option sounds a lot like might-makes-right. I’d like to think we can do better than that with the unique ability to empathize that our species has.
I don’t feel any better about seeing dogs crammed in cages at Asian restaurants. It’s not the eating of them that bugs me…much. It’s the cramming in, the shitty shape they always seem to be in, the looks on the faces of the dogs in that situation, the videos of people hanging dogs and beating them because of the old belief that pain and fear makes the meat taste better. I can recognize misery on a dog face, pig, horse, or human in the cube.
I work for the USDA now. I am at a cube sometimes but I can get out also. I am still quite miserable with the boredom and monotony of the job, the stupidity of some of the co workers, etc. There are far worse situations though. I have the ability to reflect on that and manage my own stress.
I also may not be an actual farmer but working here helps me truly understand that the USDA cares about the health of it’s animals only as far as saleability goes, and to an extent, due to politics. It’s not about true health so much as getting them to market w/o coming down with some serious form of flu, parasites, or other problem. So basically it’s a borderline concern.
The thing is you can tell those dogs are suffering greatly in those East Asian market cages.
You can see it in their eyes.
You really can’t tell it in pigs, and if they were really harmed by it they would have real problems putting on fat and generally growing in such environments.
I admit that’s kind of true. KIND of. But I’ve seen pics of pigs where some of the expressions I read do seem hauntingly familiar, and not so happy. There must be some amazing photographers out there sneaking this footage in.
I also know a hell of a lotta people who seem oblivious to the emotional states of their dogs when they are afraid of something, stressed, confused, etc.
Sometimes I think it’s a question of just how observant a person is. And to be observant, one has to take an INTEREST in the creature in front of him/her.
I decided to go to McConnell’s blog for the heck of it and found this. I’m not up for purchasing new books right now but maybe my local library can order it.
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals (P.S.)
This one is interesting, but the thesis is almost a tautology.
Of course we treat other animals differently.
Dogs are much the same way. They usually consider humans, cats, and other dogs as part of their social group. Those that live on farms leave the livestock alone.
But the same dogs will chase squirrels and rabbits.
Not all animals should be treated the same.
I have issues with keeping cetaceans and elephants in captivity, but I’m less concerned about pigs living in gestation crates.
Am I a hypocrite?
No.
Because I recognize that elephants and cetaceans are real wild animals that evolved to travel over a vast distances. They clearly do suffer in captivity. Pigs have evolved over the past few centuries to deal well with confinement. If they didn’t deal with it well, they wouldn’t fatten at all. There would be lots of disease in those farms.
As much as I oppose keeping cetaceans in captivity, I am not opposed to a limited and regulated harvest of them, such as what exists in the Faroes. The Faroese have developed humane slaughter protocols, and they kill the pilot whales humanely.
But it would be wrong to raise pilot whales like pigs for that purpose.
If pigs were not domestic animals that had been selected for confinement, these practices would be inherently cruel, but it’s really hard to make the case that gestation and farrowing crates are torture.
Yeah, I can see the tautology issue; stating the obvious. I just found it curious. Would not know what to say until I read it. I went to the few 1 star comments and read one by Sara Bellum ( if you’ve ever watched The Powerpuff Girls you’ll get that one). It was an interesting viewpoint.
Dogs, like people, have very varied interspecies skills, for different reasons of course. A lot of dogs won’t chase ANYTHING and others can not be trusted around the livestock, nor will they ever see any animal other than human as part of the unit; maybe not even another dog. Many won’t see more than one or two HUMANS as anything worth socializing with.
You aren’t a hypocrite so long as you are expressing your honest thoughts and beliefs on the subject, which you most certainly are. It IS a complicated subject.
I don’t know about that idea that pigs would not fatten w/o having evolved to deal with confinement. There IS lots of disease because of the crowding conditions. The Organics Standards newsletter put out by APHIS. speaks regularly of when to exempt animals from antibiotic use for this very reason. As to fattening up, and what could make you fatter than being rendered immobile?
To be fair, I am sure you’ve seen situations where the crates were not as bad as not allowing animals to move at all. There is a variety of conditions these animals are raised in. Some are better than others. It’s a matter of which are employed and for what reasons.
Even if selection was that big of a factor, where does the line get drawn? I read two separate NY Times articles in the Tuesday science section about experimentation with pigs. One had to do with making pigs glow green using chromatophores and other cells from naturally bio-luminescent marine animals. I forget what the purpose of this was for, but it was freakish. The other article was about the attempt by some to breed pigs that had no anus and no need to defecate, in attempts to solve the pork industry’s fecal sewage overload in North Carolina. Um………….
I most certainly agree that wild cetaceans and elephants should NOT be captive and that it affects them most horrendously. My empathy sort of winces at the idea of harvesting them at all, admittedly, because of their relatively high intelligence and social ties with their kin. But I get your meaning.
If the human population levels were what they were in say, 1900, there wouldn’t be a need for factory farming or AgBiz. The key problem here lies in the sheer numbers of people to be fed. Small scale farmers can no longer keep up w/ the demand from the millions of non-farming humans. I personally prefer grass-fed beef or bison, free range fowl and eggs, non-GMO grain and vegetables, etc.( I also pay a premium for the privilege.) Many can’t or won’t.
Having said that, there is no reason to feed corn (the modern version of which requires a huge amount of TLC and petroleum extracts to grow), to cows. (Hell, their gut bacteria can convert the cellulose in shredded newspaper into beef!) I think that there’s plenty that factory farmers could do to tweak the system in such a way as to make things more comfortable for the critters while improving profit margin. But first we have to get rid of all the subsidies Uncle Sugar provides them not to.
As for it being unfair for us to eat pigs–really? Is it unfair for Sunderbans tigers or Nile crocs to eat people? Is it unfair for lions to eat wildebeest? Is it unfair for a man to swat a malaria-bearing mosquito? Is it unfair for a cow to eat the seeds that the grass produced to continue its species? Do you really want to go there? We, like all animals, eat to survive. What we eat is dependent on our evolution, our dentition, our digestive tract and our dietary needs and traditions.
Again, it’s not the eating of them in and of itself, it’s the way we do it today; the conditions they are raised in. I’d rather go back to hunting wild boar. It seems a closer analogy anyway to lions eating wilebeest.
I think pigs are quite smart and we hunt with them too… just for truffles, not game lol.
I’m not going to stop eating pork simply because it’s healthy and it tastes good, but I try to choose locally grown animals vs. factory farmed.
I don’t think it’s fair to deprive an animal of it’s basic needs just to fill out bellies, and pigs born into factory farms are deprived, big time.
The fact they have no space, no fresh air, no sunshine and no entertainment is appauling to me.
I think it’s fine to eat animals.. I just think we should treat them with respect and give them the best life possible, since they sacrifice theirs for our own.
Someone also trained a pig to point birds.
The thing is if we decide that we want all pigs to be given more space to roam, we’re going to have to accept that pork prices (which are likely to get high very soon because of the drought) are going to be higher.
Also, I don’t know if we’ve looked at how much selection pressures of being bred and raised for generations in those mass production facilities have changed pigs in terms of their behavior and phenotype. They might not have the same foraging or parenting skills as their ancestors did. Holstein cattle are terrible mothers because being bred as milk producers has led to a selection pressure for bad maternal behavior. Cattle that strongly bond to their calves won’t produce milk as well when their calves are taken from them, but cattle that don’t will be better producers.
It used to be that many city dwellers kept pigs in the backyard. If you read Youatt’s The Pig, in the nineteenth century, pig keeping was a survival skill. Pigs were seen as a way of improving the lives of working people by giving them access to cheap protein and fat, and for getting rid of waste, including the waste that comes from dairy production.
Maybe we should return to something like that.
I don’t know.
All I know is that the average person can’t keep a pig right now. They just don’t have the skills.
But I wouldn’t say the same about dogs. Dogs are an animal meant for us.
“Dogs are an animal meant for us.” so very true!
Interesting thought regarding the cattle. It makes total sense! I really do wonder how factory farmed pigs would get on if suddenly given freedom?
I’d love to keep a pig or two.. and I hope to once we have some acreage. I’ll start with chickens first though… LOL
If you’re keeping any species for food– and I know you have two small children– you’re going to have to explain to them why they can’t get very emotionally attached to the animals.
I don’t worry about explaining it to the kids… it’s the husband I fear will become too attached!
There is an episode of The Simpsons where Homer buys a baby lobster and fattens it up in order to “eat the profits.” LOL.
But he gets really attached to it. He takes it for walks on the beach.
And one day the lobster gets dirty, and he gives him a really hot bath.
Which cooks him.
The final scene is Homer sobbing like wild as he eats his dear Pinchie.
Haha! Yes, I remeber that episode. Poor Homer. R.I.P. Pinchie.
XD
“All I know is that the average person can’t keep a pig right now. They just don’t have the skills.”
And they aren’t zoned for it.
Yeah there’s that problem.
They aren’t even zoned to keep potbellies LOL.
The answer to backyard livestock (where its is zoned) is land races. The various trusts that foster the retention of the old farm breeds are a great source of animals bred to thrive in a small farm environment. Trying to farm your standard factory-type pig or cow is like trying to grow those square commercial tomatoes–a waste of time and energy.
My father used to sing “they kept the pig in the parlor ’cause it was Irish, too”. (My mother would shoot back about the high incidence of polydactyly in his home town.) But, anyway, my grandfather kept a pig in the back yard. And he gave it a bath every week, too, because he didn’t want a dirty pig!
I have heard the argument that puppy mills aren’t cruel because the dogs know nothing else: “If you leave the cage door open the dog doesn’t know it can go out. It’s lived its whole life in there. It doesn’t miss the outside world.” Same goes for lots of animals kept in poor conditions. But the animals will often still act abnormally and show signs of stress.
I love pork and other meats, and will always eat meat. But certain animal husbandry practices are cruel, if they cause undue stress to the animal.
I don’t know if the stresses on these pigs have been quanitified in any peer-reviewed studies that have a large sample size. The best way to test this would be coritsol levels in hogs in mass production facilities. I’ve not seen anything on that. A similar study was performed on dogs that were regularly given shocks from shock collars, and it did find that it stresses them a lot.
The purpose of pig production is to feed people.
The purpose of puppy production is to produce a companion animal. I’m opposed to those facilities for dogs because they fail miserably at the goal of producing companion animals that are of any use.
I can’t really say that about pork.
Do I care that the animal lived in a pen all its life?
Does it make the meat taste worse?
I readily admit that I am a species-ist. A pig will never be a dog.
I’ve actually been in several of these facilities for swine production. It really wasn’t that bad. The sows were in farrowing crates that have sides that swing out. The reason why they have those crates is because sows are notorious for lying down on their piglets and crushing them.
The environmental risks, including the potential for breeding up epidemics, are a lot worse than any welfare issues.
Yep, especially w/ the wide-spread use of antibiotics as a prophylaxis and growth stimulator.
I quibble with the way you are (somewhat) dismissing the horrors of most factory farms. It’s not just that they’re “in a pen their whole life”, it’s that they can’t turn around, they have no mental stimulation, and, while there may not be studies on their cortisol levels, there’s ample evidence that they’re stressed more than needed: chewing on each other, repetitive behaviors, self-mutilation, etc.
It’s even worse for chickens.
And like you mentioned, the environmental effects are currently unacceptable. Any way you slice it, we’re going to have to pay more for meat in the future, we might as well start planning for it now and start being nicer to the pigs in the process.
I’ve actually been in these farms on several occasions. I can’t say there were “horrors” there.
This is one of those things you must see for yourself.
There is a lot of bad propaganda about them.
I’ve not seen anything like what’s been described or usually gets promoted in PETA and HSUS films.
Good read here:
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/the-omnivore2019s-delusion-against-the-agri-intellectuals/
I watched a 4-H show. The kids obviously liked their animals but the winning animals were auctioned off, bought by local supermarket chains and slaughtered within hours. So I asked a farmer about the psychology of this. He said kids are given to understand that the animal was born to die and that its death is necessary to the survival of the kid himself and his family. I’m still baffled. I can’t get my head around this idea. But my bafflement is self-contradictory, since I eat meat, including pork. If I were moving to a farm I’d send my kid to live with a farm family for awhile to be indoctrinated.
Maybe all it takes is a little indoctrination. I grew up in a family that hunts and buys meat from local farmers. I saw my first pig slaughtered by a local when I was 6, I shot my first deer (and then took it home and cleaned and butchered it) when I was 13. I helped my dad kill moles and gophers that threatened our vegetable garden.
It’s not that I wasn’t bothered to varying degrees, but I’ve always known, deep in my soul, that food=death, whether it’s meat or vegetables. Most people in modern society have the luxury of pretending this isn’t true, and I feel sorry for them (and enraged when those same people call me “unethical”).
The disconnect so many people have now between meat and what it takes to get it reminds me of this poem:
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/grace-to-be-said-at-the-supermarket
The disconnect between people and nature overall is what dismays me. And its getting worse not better.
You can say THAT again!
Opa used to take sides of pig down to the cellar and up would come sausages hours later! He also shot strangely, acting racoons right in front of me, and would carry them proudly, by the leg, the body blown wide open with intestines dripping bloodily down. One time a baby bird was lame and he killed it by squishing it behind the head, and I saw the eyes bulge out the front.
That last one bugged me a tiny bit, but he explained it was really a quick death and that it was needed.
He also fed the deer and black bears and we would watch them from the back porch with binoculars. To this day I feel like I’m the only woman in NYC who doesn’t get surprised when she hears about a bear that wandered into someone’s yard in NJ or PA. And I never understand what all the fuss is about.
Ranchers and farmers sometimes say vegans and vegetarians have their own kind of disconnect because it’s assumed they don’t understand we are ALL “Born to Die.” And many times that’s true. Extremes come from both sides and it would serve animals better if we dealt in a fair reality and not Disney-thoughts.
LOL. That’s for me. Dead animals wrapped in cellophane – Yum!
of course we dont have to care about pigs more than dogs…but still pigs are very intelligent animal..some say even more than a dog…so its a nice idea to adopt a pig as a pet in addition to a dog..
I used to know more about this! I remember the story as a bet – when out shooting one man claimed that the other`s dog was so inept at pointing and retrieving that he could teach a pig to do better, and of course a bet was laid at once…..and the result was Slut.
Elizabeth
Oh man, and I thought those old pictures of dogs with hilariously racist names was bad!
My daughter nixed this post as a weak argument. Oh, well, best I can do.
“Dogs are an animal meant for us.” Well put! A lot of our problems stem from the language. The language with 500K – 750K words doesn’t have enough to cover all the uses of such terms as “domesticated”, “pet”, “feral”, “social contract”, “dog”, even, so we are continually shoe-horning our concepts into the selection of terms available and re-purposing our few words to fit new concepts. We really should take up the venerable English habit of using qualifiers. But I digress. What I wanted to say is that you have pointed out an important distinction, that the dog is not “domesticated” in the same sense as is the pig, cow, etc. The dog is unique in his mode of domestication. I believe that that is not just a western notion because even where they eat dogs they distinguish between food dogs and pet dogs. They recognize man’s best friend and can’t eat him, so a new category of food dog had to be created. And raised on a farm off somewhere and in some places eaten for their medicinal properties. Pigs are not eaten by some people because they are beneath edible and by others because they are above edible, but the dog is not eaten because he’s “The Dog”. Consistent with Derr, maybe we had dog the companion hunter long before it occurred to anyone to domesticate a food animal.
How would this fit the horse? Mankind has a long history with the horse, but in some cultures he is food, while in mine he is not, and is looked on as a friend to men, like the dog. Mind you, it`s not that far back in history that a horse goddess was worshiped in this island, and I have learned that the Dutch still refer to us sometimes as “the horse people”.
Elizabeth
Oh, shucks. Can horse be the exception that proves the rule? So much for my weak argument. I believe the camel is so regarded, also, come to think of it.
Except prehistoric man have been surplus-killing horses and reindeer for eons before their numbers were severely reduced; driving people to hunt red deer, boar and bison instead.
So, the fact the English revere the horses in their culture is a relatively new in our evolutionary history.