Garbarino's Limited Argument

In James Garbarino's essay Protecting Children and Animals from Abuse: A Trans-Species Concept of Caring, he essentially argues that the ability to harm animals is the ability to harm children, and vice versa. He states very simply that, "...using the occasion of investigating animal abuse as an opportunity to do an assessment of the quality of care for any children cohabiting with the animals in question" (562).

This assertion is oftentimes validated in every day society. Many serial killers once began with the mutilation of animals as a means towards mutilation of humans. Take for example, Ted Bundy, who was executed in the 1980's for the murders of 22 women. It was discovered in the trial that Bundy had participated in the mutilation of squirrels for fun as a young boy. This had fueled his "blood-thirst" as he matured. This too validates Garbarino's point that "...shame based on the denial of basic human rights is the engine that drives the violence machine" (563).

However much I may agree with Garbarino, I think his assertions are very narrow-minded. Indeed, children and animals exhibit much of the same "innocence" as one another. They both can be easily subjected to tortures and terrors that no grown human would, in the right moral mind, go along with. However, couldn't any human be subjected to the tortures of the sadistic human mind? I believe there are 22 dead women because of one.

What I am suggesting is that Garbarino should broaden the assertion to include the fact that human beings who participate in animal harm are more likely to harm human beings as a whole. Just because children are innocent does not mean that they are the only subjects of this abuse. As Garbarino stated, a denial of basic human rights will fuel the violence machine. There is no limit to where violence begins or ends. It simply is.

Question: Do you think that the abuse of animals, even by those who consume meat from and support CAFOs, is a reflection of a morally degraded society as a whole? Have we become complacent to cruelty?

A Response to Jake

Jake posits the question: What would be the economic ramifications of switching to a hunter-gatherer method?

It's a hard one to answer and I've taken some time to reflect on it. I think it is asked from the point of view of which I have spoken of. The day we moved away from hunter-gatherer, we moved into the capitalist system in which every man and woman fights for himself. This then turned into every man and woman fighting for the gold which humankind made "valuable". And it's never stopped turning then. Economic ramifications were indeed considered in the first switch to agrarian, but only with the mindset of profit. As Billy Joel would say, the fire's burnin' since the (and I'm adding my own artistic abilities here) tiller started churnin'.

So maybe a switch runs a little bit deeper? Sure, Mary will have to find other jobs and continue on in complacent misery. So is the way the system is set up. Maybe I've struck a nerve not just with the food system, but possibly the 'system' as a whole. I believe I suggested in an earlier entry that the food system today is a representation, pure and simple, of the capitalist mind. And if I did not assert it, then here I am. Profit, profit, profit. No matter the cost.

Maybe by considering the economic ramifications of this switch, we are considering the ramifications of a complete economic change. Statistics show that there is enough food in the world to feed its populous, for now. Simply, certain men and women keep it locked up and out of reach of the poor "children". So maybe by tearing down the dam of factory-farming and opening up the flood of hunter-gatherer, you are entering a new age. Maybe it is our way of getting what Marx wanted us to. In order to bring food to all, we have to share that food. And in sharing that food, maybe it will open up new doors to sharing other things. We will possibly enter that utopian socialist republic we never should have stopped seeking.

I suppose this entry might seem idealistic, but that is truly my question: Is a push toward the hunter-gatherer system not just a change in the way we eat, but in the way we think and live? Is it a final abandonment of capitalist ideals and a push to Utopian socialism?

Response to Bryan A

Bryan asked, "What is the most practical way to get people to experience the actual process of getting meat to the dinner table?...Do you think this would change people’s attitudes towards eating meat?". I think he answers his question a bit in his own post and I have answered it in a previous. However, I think his answer was arrived at a bit differently.

I say this because I truly do wonder if humanity would have as much "trouble" killing an animal as they would actual trouble. Let me clarify this otherwise coded little statement. I believe that the United States is a society based on aggressiveness and violence. Our television shows, video games, movies, our international policies, and even our very own food system reflect this. It is obvious that we as a people have no problem killing things. However, we would have trouble actually learning how to track down and kill an animal. Therein lies your "trouble". There are a very small percentage of people who would actually know how to gather the meat they desire. And the few people who did would dominate. This couples with my assertion that a return to hunter-gatherer system would create a whole new feudal system.

I don't make this assertion blindly. Anyone who has read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemna would realize this to be true. The whole point of his book is not just to point out corruptions in the food system, but also to examine if it is possible to create a meal through "hunter-gatherer" methods. He spends a significant amount of time in the hills of Northern California trying to hunt wild boards and finds it to be more than just a challenge: it's near impossible, even for his hunting companion who has been doing so for several years. On top of this, he cannot gather the mushrooms or yeast for the rest of his meal. If my memory serves me right (though please correct me if wrong), he had to buy things from a store to complete the meal for his guests. Thus, proving my assertions in literature.

So in short, there really is no 'practical' way to get back to hunter-gatherer methods. And even if there were, I think you would see people eat less and less meat by far. Slowly, the factory farm system may even collapse on itself.

Thus, I raise the question of if it is possible to incrementally eliminate the factory food system with the slow push of the hunter-gatherer method? Should we teach this to our children instead of grocery bought foods? Or is it too late? Several questions here, but I'd really like to see the discussion and thoughts because it's something I have given a lot of thought to.

My Argument for Hunting

I know, shocking, right? Coming from a newly devout vegetarian and strong animal rights advocate, this must seem quite the shocker. However, this section on hunting has broadened my perspectives on something and helped me adapt a few others. First off, I think it's important for me to mention that I have no problem whatsoever with people who eat meat. That is a choice you must reconcile, or not, with yourself. Though I do have a problem with the way in which the meat was produced (referring here to the dominance of CAFOs as our meat source), I do not hold anyone who consumes it at fault.

That said, I will state simply that I believe subsistence hunting is the only defensible type of hunting. I will explain this assertion.

First, we discussed the bushmen who rely on gorilla meat as the only source of food in their area. How can we tell them there are other alternatives when there clearly are not? In more advanced societies like the one we live our daily lives in, there are indeed other ways to obtain all the necessary nutrients to survive. But this is not true of say, as Alex brought up, people living in the Himalayas who will without a doubt have to consume a yak's meat, drink its milk, and use its fur for warmth in order to survive. Thus, you cannot tell these people their actions are wrong or immoral. There is a justification of survival here for humans that exists just so much so for animals. An animal would kill to survive, so I justify it here on that basis.

The second reason I justify subsistence hunting is because it was a practice which naturally regulated our ecosystem in the, what now seems, long-distant past. I stated today in class that "By not interfering, you are interfering"; and I stand by this statement 110%. What I mean by it is that when humans do not hunt animals, as was necessary like mentioned above, they do become "overpopulated" and tend to eventually trample on one another. Example: There are too many coyotes and not enough food; not only will the food source be forced towards extinction, but the coyotes will also as they cannot feed their lot.

It's really a common sense concept. And I suppose I will have to go against my own statement that saying "animal overpopulation" is a human interest, because I just proposed it was an animal one too. In the same right, humans lived with wild animal populations in complete peace for thousands of years. This was done so by subsistence hunting which kept everything completely in check.

Concepts around respect or morality seem to bog down a conversation which could otherwise be solved relatively easily. And I believe I just have resolved it. As for trophy hunting, it is out of the question simply because it serves no purpose except to satisfy a cruel and vile human interest. There is no point and it should not continue.

Hunting As Capitalist Embodiment

In my class Native American Peoples, we discussed the use of animals and ecosystem by past Native peoples. You might ask what would make such a conversation so relevant or exciting? In turn, I would answer that it is fascinating because Native Peoples behaved in this area completely different then we do now. They held nature to be the same as and one with them. Every tree they cut, they knew would come back around in the circle of things. To consume animal flesh was to join the forces of life. And not only did they know this, but they respected this. Every kill was a clean one. Every piece of meat was a used one. And never was an animal hunted for sport or for 'economic reasons'; because there was no need to. In a sense, they were our first socialists, long before Marx or Engels changed political discourse.

Well now those people are unfortunately mostly gone, due to our own little version of hunting on them. But when we drove them out, we also drove the notion of hunting for need out with them. And instead, we turned hunting into a capitalist venture. The North American continent was not fought over  for ideas or for glory. It was fought over money, resources, and raw power. The French fur trade dominated, and also destroyed, ecosystems across the continent. But it made money! So it was justifiable. Right?

Well now we've taken it one step farther: we tax and charge for the slaughter of animals. And our politicians justify it by saying that this money is being used to conserve the forest or to send your kids to college. Here in the United States, I think we know this to be absolutely false. In FY 2009, the United States committed 20% of GDP to military and "defense" spending. Do you know how much went to education and infrastructure? Combined, a total of 6%. 6%! How interesting.

The point here is that I believe hunting used to be something good and understood. And no doubt, bushmen and what Natives there are left understand and practice this. But as a whole, society has completely forgotten what it is like to "hunt", and I mean truly hunt, an animal. And therein is the moral justification for not doing so.

Question: Do you believe that hunter-gatherer methods could even be perverted to capitalist ends? Or is it a socialistic practice by definition?

Response to Becca

I am responding to Becca's question: "What do you think the world would be like if, in order to eat meat, everyone was required to hunt and kill the animal themselves?"

It almost correlates with a blog I did earlier about the slow scaling back of the factory farm system.  I asserted that one could have an absolutist view of eliminating it because of the chaos that would ensue. I believe the same is likely if we forced the kind of change Becca is suggesting.

I read a scholarly article the other day asserting that the move away from the hunter-gatherer food system destroyed our society more than helped. Most people say that the move to an agrarian society made food plentiful, freed up more leisure time, and in general made us a more "civilized" society. This is simply not true. Farmers are treated abysmally by the government and the people that eat their food. They often do not make enough food (ironically) or money to survive, while being forced to produce more and more. They are essentially the proletariat while we are all unknowingly the bourgeoisie.

However, the main assertion of the article was that agrarian society created the hierarchies, governments, and inequalities we have today. Farms meant more urbanization. And urbanization meant farms. The two became intertwined. And thus, cities propagated disease, leadership struggles, and wars.

So, as answer to the question, I believe we would see an extremely different world and possibly a much uglier one. Maybe only a select few would know how to kill and prepare an animal. Maybe some would be better hunter's then all. With all the greed that is so much a part of our society, it is likely we would transfer it back to the hunter-gatherer system. At the heart of such a system was the idea that all would be shared and all would prosper. Today, humanity is too oriented on the self to believe it anymore. And thus, a new sort of chaos would arise.

Question: Do you think the agrarian system could be improved to reflect the values of the hunter-gatherer system?

A Response to Skyla AND Jenna

I actually read Jenna's blog entry on animal hunting first and then moved on to Skyla's response to it. However, I think both had some real substance in them that I would like to address.

First, Jenna discusses the issue of animal hunting and animal consumption through the means of the factory farm (CAFO). It appears that she believes that killing an animal through hunting would be more morally justifiable then eating one from the store. This is because hunting is a "clean kill" and the animal is consumed with understanding. Meat bought from a store is the result of years and years of pain and suffering in a factory farm. Not to mention, the inhumane methods of slaughter.

Now, I think she makes very valid points here, however, I think I would agree with her on a different level. I say this because my justifications for being a vegetarian is that I myself could not kill an animal. I do not have the strength or willpower to take another life. Thus, I do not deserve to partake in the flesh. Therefore, I believe that buying meat from the store perpetuates this sort of disconnection from our food sources. And the fact of the matter is that most people who buy and consume this meat probably couldn't kill the animal either. Thus, I believe meat froma store is morally unjustifiable. Hunting for food is.

Skyla seems to take on a sort of similar perspective, though she does assert that killing animals in any capacity is morally wrong. However, it was the question she poised that intrigued me. She asked whether or not there was a real difference between factory farming and local farms. And in addition, she asked if factory farming could possibly be justified in our society.

First, there is a significant difference between factory farming and local farms. I frequently visit Cricket Creek Farm in Williamstown, MA, and I have seen firsthand the conditions which these animals are cared for. They roam free in pastures. They have more than enough to eat. They have names and relationships with their owners. And when it comes time to slaughter, it is done so quickly and clean, just as if they were hunted in the wild. There is a respect for their moral status as a person on these farms. Something like this can not, and never will be, found on a factory farm. So yes, there is a huge difference.

And as for justifying the factory farms, I find this question to be most difficult. The way that the food system has built up around these CAFO's has made the system almost interdependent. If you were to take away the farms, then it is likely you would see prices skyrocket, meat become scarce, and maybe even riots start. It would be absolute madness. In addition, we have become so distanced from and contaminated our wild food supplies so much that even eating them would be difficult. Therefore, I am a huge supporter of an incremental approach. I do not justify the factory farms, but I understand them and their unfortunate concrete existence in our society.