An excerpt adopted from "Fast Food Nation," by Eric Schlosser.
Two things I want to say:
1- When you have to over compensate for doing something it should be clear that the original thing is probably the result of ridiculously tortured thinking, and a better and more efficient solution is out there: exhibit A here, you need to add chemicals to processed foods to make them taste like real food (or, for that matter, to keep them from decomposing.) Solution: eat real food. Food that needs chemicals to taste like food is not, in the first place food. This is entirely different from spicing, which you'll surely notice if you read the article.
exhibit B, an example from Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma:" waste products at factory farms. Where waste used to be used as fertilizer, it is now too far from farms to be used as such, and, in the gigantic quantities that you accumulate when your feedlot consists of tens of thousands of animals, is poisoning the water supplies for hundreds of miles. In addition, chemical fertilizers must be used to replace the nutrients in the soil no longer naturally replaced by "waste."
This is not just silliness, it is indicative of a way of thinking that is destroying the very things humans need for their survival. Five hundred years ago, there was no such thing as waste. When there is only so much on the planet to make waste out of, isn't there a predestined end to that?
2- If you want to know what you're eating (say, if you're vegan, vegetarian, keep kosher, halal, etc., simply conscientious) it's impractical if not entirely impossible to do this and eat any processed foods. As an example: I bet you didn't know (if you hadn't read this book or the article) that you've ingested parts of thousands if not millions of bugs called "Dactylopius coccus Costa" whose dessicated shells are used as red and pink coloring in such obviously meat laden products as pink-grapefruit juice and Dannon Strawberry Yoghurt.
Oh yeah, not to mention that we really have no clue what most of the thousands of chemicals the average person ingests on any given day actually do to the long-term health of the human body.
Things aren't this complicated, and there's hope on the horizon. People are finally starting to realize, in large numbers, that things aren't this complicated in the real world.
We just make it that way.
Showing posts with label Vegetarian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vegetarian. Show all posts
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Notes on comments from "Eatin' Meat" and Tantra.
Two good comments, much more thoughtful than I was expecting. If you have not read them you can read them under the post "Eatin' Meat."
From nlv, the main thing that I was hearing was the "why is this so repugnant to people?" problem. Why does it bother people so much that others choose to be vegetarians? As nlv said, "Why on earth do people feel so threatened by someone cutting meat out of their diet? Who can i possibly be hurting by this decision?"
I think there are many reasons why people feel so threatened by others' choosing to become vegetarians, but they all revolve around identification. People are creatures of habit, and their habits, and activities, become mistaken for who they are. For just a gross simplification, think of somebody who always goes out with his friends for beers after work. If he stops drinking, or even if he finds a new activity, or a girlfriend, say, his relationship with those people can change drastically. He may find that he was friends with them more out of circumstance than anything else, and they may resent him for this. Again, this is a drastic simplification, but think about how people answer the question, "who are you?" Beyond age, sex, and nationality (still not a real determiner of who a person is,) isn't it most often with a list of activities? I am a mother, I am a soccer player, I am a restaurateur. The work one is probably the answer given most. Who are you? I am a television ad-man, I am a teacher, I am a window-washer. Now, most people won't answer "I am a meat-eater," but they don't have to (see below,) and the point is just that people often mistake what they do for what they are, so when somebody else chooses to do something that seems opposed to one of their activities, they feel like they are being attacked, because, on some level, they're taking it personally.
But with meat-eating especially, because this isn't even a conscious choice. It's so embedded in people's activities, and in the culture, that it seems one-hundred percent natural. That someone would choose to go against this is an affront. (What could be more American than a hamburger with cheese?) And so that somebody else has gone through the conscious process of rejecting this makes it feel (feel being very important, it is an emotional reaction, not a rational one) as if someone has consciously deliberated and debated and come to the decision that yes, you, meat eater you, are wrong as a person. Especially if somebody is close to you, or if you are part of a group with a set of associated characteristics, meat-eating being one of them (I'm thinking, like, a sports-team of manly men big boys beer drinking meat eaters, perhaps, or a frat house...or pig farmers,) your decision to forgo meat could make them feel uncomfortable. You were on their side, they trusted you, and now suddenly, "I don't even know you anymore, man."
There's often a defensiveness in this as well. Your conscious decision, even if it's not paraded in someone's face, can make others guilty, especially if they haven't themselves done the thinking necessary to justify their choices to themselves. You're making them look a little like a slob. I'm not suggesting that most people have thought out their meat-eating, quite the contrary, they haven't, and this might also make them uneasy.
As nlv says, "But what really bothers me about everything is not that i get embarrassed or even harassed for my choices, i can deal with that no problem, it's that i see a cruelty expressed by people when something appears against their own traditions. It has been made so clear and tangible because they are allowed to make fun of me, and their initial reactions aren't suppressed because it's not a big deal to make fun of a vegetarian." This sums up what I've been saying nicely, I think. Why is there a word "vegetarian" but there's no word "omnivoritarian?" Or "carnivorarian?" (Despite the fact that a diet of eating only meat would be ridiculously damaging to one's health I think most omnivores in america would contend in vain against a vegetarian that they were carnivores until the mistake was pointed out to them.) It's groupthink, the tendency to just go with what seems normal, without ever trying to figure out where or why something is normal. What's normal never needs to be defended, it's assumed, which is why there's no word for the "ideology" of one who decides to eat meat, though there is vegetarian "-ism."
I think the feeling of loathing one feels as a meat-eater for vegetarians that I noted in the post comes from this, and is a projection. You feel, as a meat-eater, that vegetarians are attacking you irrationally, because, of course, there's nothing wrong with what you're doing. They're attacking not only one thing, but all the things that you stand for in your life (again, what could be more American than eating a cheeseburger, so someone who loves america and associates america with cheeseburgers is going to feel as if you're trying to change what america is with your transgression of ridiculously "not-eating-cheeseburgers-as-an-american.")
Obviously, I'm not saying that any vegetarians are actually attacking meat-eaters when they become vegetarians, quite the contrary, but that's the point: the identification is a mistake. You can eat meat, but that is not who you are. The more emotionally mature and stable somebody is the less likely they are to be offended what you decide, but, then, perhaps most of the population is not extremely emotionally mature. Fortunately our society is less coercive than most of the societies in history, even if it can still be difficult to make the choices, or, as nlv says later, be the type of person that lives necessarily on the outskirts of mainstream society.
And the other thing is that most people, excepting those close to you, and those who are truly idiots, and those who are partisan for one reason or another, probably don't care that much if you're a vegetarian, even if they might make fun of vegetarians behind their backs, or feel vaguely threatened by it. But, of course, the people who are loud get all the attention. Few vegetarians are militantly so, but those are the ones you remember. Something like being Christian and being constantly identified with Jerry Falwell.
As for Cary's comments:
One word she mentions is "sacrifices," and actually, though I understand what she's saying, I would have to disagree with the word. I think when people make "sacrifices," they're usually making a mistake, or trying to jump into a decision before they're ready for it, or they are simply blaming something else for making them miserable.
An example would be if somebody had a child early, and they feel as if they are sacrificing their youth and fun to take care of the kid. They are always working, and they dislike this, they bitch about it, etc. etc. They feel as if they are forced into it by something, or by themselves, and they end up seriously resenting the kid. But, they are not being honest with themselves, or at least not open with themselves. They are making a choice, and though the circumstances may have forced them to make a choice they wouldn't have wanted to deal with originally, they do have a choice. They are working for their baby. They are not forced to do this. They could desert the child, or give it up for adoption, but they have chosen not to do this. I am not suggesting that they are all good choices, merely pointing out that when you feel forced to do something, you are usually just leaving some possible choices out of the framework. But, by doing this, you are denying the part you play in making the choice. It doesn't make work any better, perhaps, but at least there's the recognition that you have chosen to do this, that, given the circumstances, which you cannot change, it is what you want to do. (yes I am aware of the grammatical problems with the subjects in this paragraph and I don't care.)
Fortunately, no one is going to force you to be a vegetarian, and you shouldn't force yourself to do it either. "I think the biggest issue for me, and I think for others in my boat, is how daunting it seems to take this whole thing on fully." There's a Japanese concept from a mashing of two words that mean "good," and "change," and it's Kaizen, which means, basically, small, constant, incremental change, which takes active engagement with your life. As Cary says, conscious consumerism, or let's say, for here, living a conscious life, demands your attention, but there's no reason you should force yourself to sacrifice anything you don't want to, and that's the point.
Tantra, which in the west is usually associated most with freaky sex, unfortunately, is this kind of active conscious lifestyle. All it asks is attention, and everything else is permissible. So, instead of forcing yourself not to eat that piece of steak, etc. etc., you say, okay, I want to eat this piece of steak, though I feel a conflict as well, I will pay attention to what I'm doing, I will use this steak as a vehicle for awareness. Two things happen. One, you find that your conflicts become less and less, internally, that you stop being so hard on yourself, and Two, that the changes you want to make come anyway, naturally. Let's say you're really paying attention while you're eating this steak. You may come to notice externally (and there's nothing wrong if you don't) that, actually, it's kind of gross, maybe you can see a vein or maybe paying attention to it brings associations (like the bones of the steak with the bones of a living animal or roadkill you just saw) you don't want to make when you're eating, or internally, that actually your desire to eat the steak was coming more from outside expectations or environments than it was coming from the steak itself. These are hasty examples, but the basic idea is that with attention, internal and external, you will less and less desire those things you had before. This is in contrast to the Yogic mindset, which says "This is WRONG, I WILL not do it," detrimental for two reasons. One, how do you know it's wrong if you've never really investigated it yourself, might these ideas of wrongness be received as well, just from another side of the debate? And Two, you're strengthening your ego in this process, in the long run aiding its games and your own helplessness to its whims.
So actually, what you call half-assed vegetarianism, is actually not such a bad thing, provided that you are active in your investigation, and constantly thinking and watching, even if you still want to or occasionally eat meat. Half-assed vegetarianism is terrible, of course, if that means you never think about it and just use it as a way to feel better about yourself relative to other people.
Any ideology is mistaken, the only best thing to do is to think and investigate for yourself. Get to the bottom of it, and when you do, dig deeper. So, do what you can now, and it will seem less daunting to you, but do it with one-hundred percent of your heart and attention. You will find, I think, that if you do this, and continue to do this, and continue to do this, you will get far much more accomplished than you ever felt possible.
By the way, the "conscious," part of "conscious consumerism/ capitalism" is a word that rankles me as much as "vegetarian" used to when I was a teenager, because I think it makes a lot of people feel better than those around them. I am conscious, I am awake, I know, I am right, and everyone else is a jackass. In a way, part of this is correct, someone actively engaged with their life and not just drifting is, in a sense, more alive, and yet this is no license for superiority, because there is none. So I prefer the word "tantra," though I am looking for a better one, if anyone has any suggestions, wrapped up as tantra is with hairy-people sex.
And, of course, this doesn't mean that you don't try, it means that you try as hard as you can to pay attention to everything going on in and outside of you, which, if you do, you will find making everything else around you falling into place naturally, and it will seem as if it all just happened. Do what you can. Those who try and do too much at one time almost always end up making things worse. Either they ruin their cause, or they turn others against it. The Soviet Union tried to force a feudalist society towards communism in strokes of the clock, which was totally missing the historical argument of communism. They were trying to make an infant graduate from college, and those that try and make huge life changes instantly usually relapse in a week, stealing from themselves the motivation and confidence to make further improvements.
Further:
"We don't realize the costs that this mentality and these expectations have on everything". Nope. We don't. But we will. There is no free lunch.
"And until it's easy for people to do the right thing, they probably won't."
That's basically the whole idea of conscious capitalism, and, actually, capitalism isn't that far away from this at its heart, though it gets crapped on by people who don't understand it. (And I wouldn't say the U.S. is a pure capitalist country, just as it isn't an actual democracy.) It's the most efficient way to allocate resources, and I think that we'll find, as this goes on, should it start to succeed, is that we'll see that the fair way of doing things for everyone is also, actually, the most efficient way, like how automakers, who all complained they wouldn't be able to make money if mpg standards were raised in the seventies, all saw their profits increase when they were implemented.
But any way, the moral of the story is pay attention to what you're doing, and don't be willfully blind, because, at the end of the day, there is no universally right thing to do. Just keep plugging.
You are unlikely to change a lot of people's minds, especially in your generation or of those older than you. Those that agree with you were likely predisposed towards your viewpoint anyway, but push on. The differences you make may seem small, but they add up.
nlv- "You can eat all the meat you want or not, i don't think you are a worse person for it. For some reason, i don't think the majority of people can say the same thing." Hopefully one day they will, and people won't find themselves the focal point of the hatred of others for their conscious choices, or, nlv says, simply "because they are different."
Make Connections.
From nlv, the main thing that I was hearing was the "why is this so repugnant to people?" problem. Why does it bother people so much that others choose to be vegetarians? As nlv said, "Why on earth do people feel so threatened by someone cutting meat out of their diet? Who can i possibly be hurting by this decision?"
I think there are many reasons why people feel so threatened by others' choosing to become vegetarians, but they all revolve around identification. People are creatures of habit, and their habits, and activities, become mistaken for who they are. For just a gross simplification, think of somebody who always goes out with his friends for beers after work. If he stops drinking, or even if he finds a new activity, or a girlfriend, say, his relationship with those people can change drastically. He may find that he was friends with them more out of circumstance than anything else, and they may resent him for this. Again, this is a drastic simplification, but think about how people answer the question, "who are you?" Beyond age, sex, and nationality (still not a real determiner of who a person is,) isn't it most often with a list of activities? I am a mother, I am a soccer player, I am a restaurateur. The work one is probably the answer given most. Who are you? I am a television ad-man, I am a teacher, I am a window-washer. Now, most people won't answer "I am a meat-eater," but they don't have to (see below,) and the point is just that people often mistake what they do for what they are, so when somebody else chooses to do something that seems opposed to one of their activities, they feel like they are being attacked, because, on some level, they're taking it personally.
But with meat-eating especially, because this isn't even a conscious choice. It's so embedded in people's activities, and in the culture, that it seems one-hundred percent natural. That someone would choose to go against this is an affront. (What could be more American than a hamburger with cheese?) And so that somebody else has gone through the conscious process of rejecting this makes it feel (feel being very important, it is an emotional reaction, not a rational one) as if someone has consciously deliberated and debated and come to the decision that yes, you, meat eater you, are wrong as a person. Especially if somebody is close to you, or if you are part of a group with a set of associated characteristics, meat-eating being one of them (I'm thinking, like, a sports-team of manly men big boys beer drinking meat eaters, perhaps, or a frat house...or pig farmers,) your decision to forgo meat could make them feel uncomfortable. You were on their side, they trusted you, and now suddenly, "I don't even know you anymore, man."
There's often a defensiveness in this as well. Your conscious decision, even if it's not paraded in someone's face, can make others guilty, especially if they haven't themselves done the thinking necessary to justify their choices to themselves. You're making them look a little like a slob. I'm not suggesting that most people have thought out their meat-eating, quite the contrary, they haven't, and this might also make them uneasy.
As nlv says, "But what really bothers me about everything is not that i get embarrassed or even harassed for my choices, i can deal with that no problem, it's that i see a cruelty expressed by people when something appears against their own traditions. It has been made so clear and tangible because they are allowed to make fun of me, and their initial reactions aren't suppressed because it's not a big deal to make fun of a vegetarian." This sums up what I've been saying nicely, I think. Why is there a word "vegetarian" but there's no word "omnivoritarian?" Or "carnivorarian?" (Despite the fact that a diet of eating only meat would be ridiculously damaging to one's health I think most omnivores in america would contend in vain against a vegetarian that they were carnivores until the mistake was pointed out to them.) It's groupthink, the tendency to just go with what seems normal, without ever trying to figure out where or why something is normal. What's normal never needs to be defended, it's assumed, which is why there's no word for the "ideology" of one who decides to eat meat, though there is vegetarian "-ism."
I think the feeling of loathing one feels as a meat-eater for vegetarians that I noted in the post comes from this, and is a projection. You feel, as a meat-eater, that vegetarians are attacking you irrationally, because, of course, there's nothing wrong with what you're doing. They're attacking not only one thing, but all the things that you stand for in your life (again, what could be more American than eating a cheeseburger, so someone who loves america and associates america with cheeseburgers is going to feel as if you're trying to change what america is with your transgression of ridiculously "not-eating-cheeseburgers-as-an-american.")
Obviously, I'm not saying that any vegetarians are actually attacking meat-eaters when they become vegetarians, quite the contrary, but that's the point: the identification is a mistake. You can eat meat, but that is not who you are. The more emotionally mature and stable somebody is the less likely they are to be offended what you decide, but, then, perhaps most of the population is not extremely emotionally mature. Fortunately our society is less coercive than most of the societies in history, even if it can still be difficult to make the choices, or, as nlv says later, be the type of person that lives necessarily on the outskirts of mainstream society.
And the other thing is that most people, excepting those close to you, and those who are truly idiots, and those who are partisan for one reason or another, probably don't care that much if you're a vegetarian, even if they might make fun of vegetarians behind their backs, or feel vaguely threatened by it. But, of course, the people who are loud get all the attention. Few vegetarians are militantly so, but those are the ones you remember. Something like being Christian and being constantly identified with Jerry Falwell.
As for Cary's comments:
One word she mentions is "sacrifices," and actually, though I understand what she's saying, I would have to disagree with the word. I think when people make "sacrifices," they're usually making a mistake, or trying to jump into a decision before they're ready for it, or they are simply blaming something else for making them miserable.
An example would be if somebody had a child early, and they feel as if they are sacrificing their youth and fun to take care of the kid. They are always working, and they dislike this, they bitch about it, etc. etc. They feel as if they are forced into it by something, or by themselves, and they end up seriously resenting the kid. But, they are not being honest with themselves, or at least not open with themselves. They are making a choice, and though the circumstances may have forced them to make a choice they wouldn't have wanted to deal with originally, they do have a choice. They are working for their baby. They are not forced to do this. They could desert the child, or give it up for adoption, but they have chosen not to do this. I am not suggesting that they are all good choices, merely pointing out that when you feel forced to do something, you are usually just leaving some possible choices out of the framework. But, by doing this, you are denying the part you play in making the choice. It doesn't make work any better, perhaps, but at least there's the recognition that you have chosen to do this, that, given the circumstances, which you cannot change, it is what you want to do. (yes I am aware of the grammatical problems with the subjects in this paragraph and I don't care.)
Fortunately, no one is going to force you to be a vegetarian, and you shouldn't force yourself to do it either. "I think the biggest issue for me, and I think for others in my boat, is how daunting it seems to take this whole thing on fully." There's a Japanese concept from a mashing of two words that mean "good," and "change," and it's Kaizen, which means, basically, small, constant, incremental change, which takes active engagement with your life. As Cary says, conscious consumerism, or let's say, for here, living a conscious life, demands your attention, but there's no reason you should force yourself to sacrifice anything you don't want to, and that's the point.
Tantra, which in the west is usually associated most with freaky sex, unfortunately, is this kind of active conscious lifestyle. All it asks is attention, and everything else is permissible. So, instead of forcing yourself not to eat that piece of steak, etc. etc., you say, okay, I want to eat this piece of steak, though I feel a conflict as well, I will pay attention to what I'm doing, I will use this steak as a vehicle for awareness. Two things happen. One, you find that your conflicts become less and less, internally, that you stop being so hard on yourself, and Two, that the changes you want to make come anyway, naturally. Let's say you're really paying attention while you're eating this steak. You may come to notice externally (and there's nothing wrong if you don't) that, actually, it's kind of gross, maybe you can see a vein or maybe paying attention to it brings associations (like the bones of the steak with the bones of a living animal or roadkill you just saw) you don't want to make when you're eating, or internally, that actually your desire to eat the steak was coming more from outside expectations or environments than it was coming from the steak itself. These are hasty examples, but the basic idea is that with attention, internal and external, you will less and less desire those things you had before. This is in contrast to the Yogic mindset, which says "This is WRONG, I WILL not do it," detrimental for two reasons. One, how do you know it's wrong if you've never really investigated it yourself, might these ideas of wrongness be received as well, just from another side of the debate? And Two, you're strengthening your ego in this process, in the long run aiding its games and your own helplessness to its whims.
So actually, what you call half-assed vegetarianism, is actually not such a bad thing, provided that you are active in your investigation, and constantly thinking and watching, even if you still want to or occasionally eat meat. Half-assed vegetarianism is terrible, of course, if that means you never think about it and just use it as a way to feel better about yourself relative to other people.
Any ideology is mistaken, the only best thing to do is to think and investigate for yourself. Get to the bottom of it, and when you do, dig deeper. So, do what you can now, and it will seem less daunting to you, but do it with one-hundred percent of your heart and attention. You will find, I think, that if you do this, and continue to do this, and continue to do this, you will get far much more accomplished than you ever felt possible.
By the way, the "conscious," part of "conscious consumerism/ capitalism" is a word that rankles me as much as "vegetarian" used to when I was a teenager, because I think it makes a lot of people feel better than those around them. I am conscious, I am awake, I know, I am right, and everyone else is a jackass. In a way, part of this is correct, someone actively engaged with their life and not just drifting is, in a sense, more alive, and yet this is no license for superiority, because there is none. So I prefer the word "tantra," though I am looking for a better one, if anyone has any suggestions, wrapped up as tantra is with hairy-people sex.
And, of course, this doesn't mean that you don't try, it means that you try as hard as you can to pay attention to everything going on in and outside of you, which, if you do, you will find making everything else around you falling into place naturally, and it will seem as if it all just happened. Do what you can. Those who try and do too much at one time almost always end up making things worse. Either they ruin their cause, or they turn others against it. The Soviet Union tried to force a feudalist society towards communism in strokes of the clock, which was totally missing the historical argument of communism. They were trying to make an infant graduate from college, and those that try and make huge life changes instantly usually relapse in a week, stealing from themselves the motivation and confidence to make further improvements.
Further:
"We don't realize the costs that this mentality and these expectations have on everything". Nope. We don't. But we will. There is no free lunch.
"And until it's easy for people to do the right thing, they probably won't."
That's basically the whole idea of conscious capitalism, and, actually, capitalism isn't that far away from this at its heart, though it gets crapped on by people who don't understand it. (And I wouldn't say the U.S. is a pure capitalist country, just as it isn't an actual democracy.) It's the most efficient way to allocate resources, and I think that we'll find, as this goes on, should it start to succeed, is that we'll see that the fair way of doing things for everyone is also, actually, the most efficient way, like how automakers, who all complained they wouldn't be able to make money if mpg standards were raised in the seventies, all saw their profits increase when they were implemented.
But any way, the moral of the story is pay attention to what you're doing, and don't be willfully blind, because, at the end of the day, there is no universally right thing to do. Just keep plugging.
You are unlikely to change a lot of people's minds, especially in your generation or of those older than you. Those that agree with you were likely predisposed towards your viewpoint anyway, but push on. The differences you make may seem small, but they add up.
nlv- "You can eat all the meat you want or not, i don't think you are a worse person for it. For some reason, i don't think the majority of people can say the same thing." Hopefully one day they will, and people won't find themselves the focal point of the hatred of others for their conscious choices, or, nlv says, simply "because they are different."
Make Connections.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Eatin' Meat
I am not a vegetarian, though I have recently sworn meat off again excepting dinners with friends (excluding my girlfriend,) because I am in China, after all (no more than a rationalization) but a recent article in the NYTimes makes the plain case that our meat habits (both growing and eating, which are, of course, connected) are wreaking havoc on just about everything indiscriminately.
To wit:
-"...assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains," leading to "the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests."
-"...an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production," which also "generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation." (Fortunately, with all those gases in the atmosphere, the percentage of land that's ice-free should be growing rather conveniently.)
-"...2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days."
-"More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices." As mentioned later, while this is inconvenient for wealthier countries and people, for the not-so-fortunate this can spell famine.
-"Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams..."
- The "administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people."
-"...grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes."
-"...hog production [yes, 'production'] facilities that resemble prisons more than farms ... pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)" An excised passage provides the technical term for the "manure lagoons."
And this is not even comprehensive, as most of this has nothing to do with how animals are treated in such facilities, or the squeeze rising food prices puts on starving people. (both of which the article and this blog, below, cover.)
Interestingly, the article goes on to say that "[p]erhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production."
I have not seen much of a better explanation of the emerging ethos that is called "conscious capitalism." (Be wary of that label, though; I feel many people who use it may not be particularly "conscious," or "capitalist.") The basic idea is that with an increasingly open information economy, people can choose to support companies whose values they share, even if it means the product is slightly more expensive, basically underwriting one's values. (Buying organic steak is a simple example of this.) In a way, of course, this is a natural extension of capitalism (buy the things you like that you can afford,) adding only a sort of moral sense or duty, and it is already what has been emerging in the last ten to fifteen years, though it is not exactly main-stream. It is still to be seen whether this ethos will have any sort of effect, whether it's a trend of the baby-boomer and post-boomer middle-class generations, or whether the general apathy of people will vote these businesses into bankruptcy with their dollars.
But it shouldn't be surprising that what works extremely poorly for one reason would also be a disaster in every other arena, which is basically what I take from all of this. As I've said, this blog is a way for me to start testing out ideas and to get some feedback on them, to say a few things and ask a number of questions. A friend asked me recently what I believed in, and I replied that it was hard to pin down, but that basically I believed that things are, and that works. There is a basic underlying reality in everything, and everything is an expression of this, and so, as is relevant here, if anything is wrong, it is never wrong for any one reason, but for an infinite amount of reasons, all of which are really only reflections of that thing's "wrongness." This is far from being comprehensive, and I do also believe that ultimately terms like "wrong" are meaningless, but at this level of discussion, on our subjective planet, basically, something that is bad for humans is likely bad for the planet, something bad for the planet is likely bad for humans, something bad for pigs is probably bad for humans, something bad for pigs is probably bad for the economy, (this may need an entire different post to defend if anybody wants to take an easy objection to this) etc, etc. Everyone wins, or everyone loses. With our factory farming, it is clear that everyone is losing.
But there's got to be a reason for factory farming, right? It's economical, and so how would it have become the dominant model unless a) capitalism is terrible, or b) it's just the best way? Somebody's making big.
From the Times article: "factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff [that is, billions of pounds of manure] becomes costly — even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of food production will change dramatically."
Basically, free pollution, not having to concern oneself with the by-products of one's production, is a sort of subsidy for this whole process. On an old farm, or, as the article notes, even 50 years ago in Seacaucus NJ, manure was used as fertilizer for local farms. Here's another chain of problems caused by one broken link: well, if pig farms are centralized and removed from vegetable farms, how will we fertilize vegetable farms? Aha! Dangerous chemicals. And what to do with the manure? Ummm, let it sit! (Not the only broken link, of course, as is well known, antibiotics must be used extensively on pigs b/c the manner in which they are crammed together makes them crazily bite each other's rumps raw, and makes chickens peck each other silly, though the consequences of these reactions are preempted by antibiotics and the removal of the pigs' tails/ soldering of the chickens' beaks, and if you think this is evidence of less intelligence on the animals' parts, imagine what you would do if your whole life you were on an elevator with twenty people. Yeah, it's where you go to the bathroom too. And eat.) Part of the idea above, that everything done wrong (or right) is not simply wrong/right for one reason, but for an infinite number of them, is that, since everything is in this elaborate conjoined dance, anything that disrupts the natural flow of this dance is detrimental. Solve one "problem," cause a thousand far-reaching ones. I do not have the space to write more about this, so let it suffice to say that I am not, however, a back-to naturist (not permanently at least, though someone who doesn't spend some time in forests might not be human,) far from it. Man is not unnatural, though we do some odd things.
Anyway,
There's another and possibly more important reason factory farming is economical, if you don't buy the pollution argument (after all, 50 million tons isn't that much, right? and Iowa's a big state, with lots of farms!) and that's subsidies. Meat is heavily subsidized, as is all agricultural product in possibly every country in the world (I cannot authoritatively say that it is every country) and accounts for 31% of farmers' incomes. Removing subsidies on meat makes all of the extra expenses required for factory farming much less attractive, not to mention that grain subsidies make feed (unnatural food for these animals) more expensive. But if the cows, for example, produced more than just T-bones, it would still make sense (as it always has) to raise them in pastures.
And, in any case, why the hell, if I find the idea of eating a steak morally repugnant, am I paying for a part of yours anyway? Why is that coming out of my (let's assume pleather) wallet? This is a historical relic.
Of course, politically, the odds of removing subsidies are running about even with the odds of having our first atheist anarchist trans-gendered president.
But, as mentioned above, consciousness on these issues may just pull off the end of factory farming anyway (growth from below) along with some other changing circumstances challenging the model.
"'If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.'" An expert is quoted in the article as saying.
Animal cruelty? Well, yes, though only mentioned briefly before, these factory farms are hard on a lot of things, the workers, the environment, our hearts (corn leads to more damaging heart marbled fatty meat than grass, which tastes better anyway,) but probably most of all the animals.
Who cares?
Something of a lucky coincidence that this article appears online at the same time in the Times, an article about eating dog-meat in China. (For my cellphone text messaging the number one collocation for the character 狗，or "dog," is 肉，or, meat. 狗肉。Dogmeat.) If you don't read the article, the point here is, what makes it so cruel to torture a cat or a dog if you can do the same to any number of other animals?
Now, as an ex-avid meat-eater myself (still an occasional meat-eater, just without any of the militarism) who is to say that you shouldn't eat meat? Nobody, and that is another rather important point. Conscious capitalism is the economic equivalent of soft power. As a teenaged meat-eater, I always found vegetarians noxious, a cult of self-satisfied whiners and values snobs. Since I've grown up a bit, I realized that this is only the most militant brand of vegetarianism (emphasis on the -ism) but still, it makes it difficult for vegetarians to have a serious conversation without being branded as these people, like I'd imagine it makes it difficult to identify yourself as "Christian," without being lumped in with Jerry Falwell. But, crusade you must, the manner in which you do it can be much more effective, though. Patience backed by fact is perhaps the strongest tool in the teacher's shed. It may not be as sharp as the hedge pruners, but it's as heavy and inexorable as a sledgehammer, when wielded on the side of what is true and obvious. It takes time for people to accept rational arguments in the face of their emotions, but in time, without shouting, or belittling people (this is an especially strong turn-off) it works.
Of course, it wouldn't work in Soviet Russia, but we don't live there, and this displays a requirement of conscious capitalism: the open and unrestricted flow of information without edit or censorship. Given the facts, people will make the right decisions. This has always terrified governments. We're perhaps not quite there now, though that's a whole other topic, the point is, we're certainly close enough to start moving.
In any case, it's perfectly imaginable that eating meat will be around for as long as there are humans, and no matter how much you hate it, it's not within the scope of your power to change any one else's mind about this without their permission, but with an ideally open society, the concept is that what will naturally happen will be the best for everybody, just as in evolution, what does not work, does not pass, as in economics, if you can do an equivalent service cheaper, your competitor will go out of business, as in everything, what is, is, and that always works. (Maybe not for your perceived benefit, but that's another conversation.)
And finally, for those die-hard meat eaters out there, (you ought to understand that I've got nothing against you as people,) the counter to the age-old protein argument.
"The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources." 'Likely' is almost propaganda here, there are vegan triathletes, for god's sake.
Not to mention that an overload of protein has been linked to higher-rates of cancer. (sorry, but you'll have to search on that page, I'm not so tech-savvy yet.)
So, what's beneficial for you is probably beneficial for everyone else, not in the sense that if a bath is good for Reggie, you need one, but in the sense that if Reggie bathes, you don't have to smell him.
Pay attention.
ALV
P.S. I am planning on writing a number of "Google Knols," since so much of what I think on the small things is wrapped up by what I think on the big issues, so I'd like to get those big issues down as reference, so that I can simply offhandedly refer to one of these upcoming links if somebody would like the reasoning behind the reasoning behind something, and I can just write straightforwardly about the task at hand. I'll keep you updated.
The first article, if you wish to look it up and it's no longer there, was called, "Re-thinking the Meat Guzzler," It's by Mark Bittman, and it first appeared January 27th, 2008.
To wit:
-"...assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains," leading to "the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests."
-"...an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production," which also "generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation." (Fortunately, with all those gases in the atmosphere, the percentage of land that's ice-free should be growing rather conveniently.)
-"...2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days."
-"More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices." As mentioned later, while this is inconvenient for wealthier countries and people, for the not-so-fortunate this can spell famine.
-"Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams..."
- The "administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people."
-"...grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes."
-"...hog production [yes, 'production'] facilities that resemble prisons more than farms ... pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)" An excised passage provides the technical term for the "manure lagoons."
And this is not even comprehensive, as most of this has nothing to do with how animals are treated in such facilities, or the squeeze rising food prices puts on starving people. (both of which the article and this blog, below, cover.)
Interestingly, the article goes on to say that "[p]erhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production."
I have not seen much of a better explanation of the emerging ethos that is called "conscious capitalism." (Be wary of that label, though; I feel many people who use it may not be particularly "conscious," or "capitalist.") The basic idea is that with an increasingly open information economy, people can choose to support companies whose values they share, even if it means the product is slightly more expensive, basically underwriting one's values. (Buying organic steak is a simple example of this.) In a way, of course, this is a natural extension of capitalism (buy the things you like that you can afford,) adding only a sort of moral sense or duty, and it is already what has been emerging in the last ten to fifteen years, though it is not exactly main-stream. It is still to be seen whether this ethos will have any sort of effect, whether it's a trend of the baby-boomer and post-boomer middle-class generations, or whether the general apathy of people will vote these businesses into bankruptcy with their dollars.
But it shouldn't be surprising that what works extremely poorly for one reason would also be a disaster in every other arena, which is basically what I take from all of this. As I've said, this blog is a way for me to start testing out ideas and to get some feedback on them, to say a few things and ask a number of questions. A friend asked me recently what I believed in, and I replied that it was hard to pin down, but that basically I believed that things are, and that works. There is a basic underlying reality in everything, and everything is an expression of this, and so, as is relevant here, if anything is wrong, it is never wrong for any one reason, but for an infinite amount of reasons, all of which are really only reflections of that thing's "wrongness." This is far from being comprehensive, and I do also believe that ultimately terms like "wrong" are meaningless, but at this level of discussion, on our subjective planet, basically, something that is bad for humans is likely bad for the planet, something bad for the planet is likely bad for humans, something bad for pigs is probably bad for humans, something bad for pigs is probably bad for the economy, (this may need an entire different post to defend if anybody wants to take an easy objection to this) etc, etc. Everyone wins, or everyone loses. With our factory farming, it is clear that everyone is losing.
But there's got to be a reason for factory farming, right? It's economical, and so how would it have become the dominant model unless a) capitalism is terrible, or b) it's just the best way? Somebody's making big.
From the Times article: "factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff [that is, billions of pounds of manure] becomes costly — even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of food production will change dramatically."
Basically, free pollution, not having to concern oneself with the by-products of one's production, is a sort of subsidy for this whole process. On an old farm, or, as the article notes, even 50 years ago in Seacaucus NJ, manure was used as fertilizer for local farms. Here's another chain of problems caused by one broken link: well, if pig farms are centralized and removed from vegetable farms, how will we fertilize vegetable farms? Aha! Dangerous chemicals. And what to do with the manure? Ummm, let it sit! (Not the only broken link, of course, as is well known, antibiotics must be used extensively on pigs b/c the manner in which they are crammed together makes them crazily bite each other's rumps raw, and makes chickens peck each other silly, though the consequences of these reactions are preempted by antibiotics and the removal of the pigs' tails/ soldering of the chickens' beaks, and if you think this is evidence of less intelligence on the animals' parts, imagine what you would do if your whole life you were on an elevator with twenty people. Yeah, it's where you go to the bathroom too. And eat.) Part of the idea above, that everything done wrong (or right) is not simply wrong/right for one reason, but for an infinite number of them, is that, since everything is in this elaborate conjoined dance, anything that disrupts the natural flow of this dance is detrimental. Solve one "problem," cause a thousand far-reaching ones. I do not have the space to write more about this, so let it suffice to say that I am not, however, a back-to naturist (not permanently at least, though someone who doesn't spend some time in forests might not be human,) far from it. Man is not unnatural, though we do some odd things.
Anyway,
There's another and possibly more important reason factory farming is economical, if you don't buy the pollution argument (after all, 50 million tons isn't that much, right? and Iowa's a big state, with lots of farms!) and that's subsidies. Meat is heavily subsidized, as is all agricultural product in possibly every country in the world (I cannot authoritatively say that it is every country) and accounts for 31% of farmers' incomes. Removing subsidies on meat makes all of the extra expenses required for factory farming much less attractive, not to mention that grain subsidies make feed (unnatural food for these animals) more expensive. But if the cows, for example, produced more than just T-bones, it would still make sense (as it always has) to raise them in pastures.
And, in any case, why the hell, if I find the idea of eating a steak morally repugnant, am I paying for a part of yours anyway? Why is that coming out of my (let's assume pleather) wallet? This is a historical relic.
Of course, politically, the odds of removing subsidies are running about even with the odds of having our first atheist anarchist trans-gendered president.
But, as mentioned above, consciousness on these issues may just pull off the end of factory farming anyway (growth from below) along with some other changing circumstances challenging the model.
"'If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.'" An expert is quoted in the article as saying.
Animal cruelty? Well, yes, though only mentioned briefly before, these factory farms are hard on a lot of things, the workers, the environment, our hearts (corn leads to more damaging heart marbled fatty meat than grass, which tastes better anyway,) but probably most of all the animals.
Who cares?
Something of a lucky coincidence that this article appears online at the same time in the Times, an article about eating dog-meat in China. (For my cellphone text messaging the number one collocation for the character 狗，or "dog," is 肉，or, meat. 狗肉。Dogmeat.) If you don't read the article, the point here is, what makes it so cruel to torture a cat or a dog if you can do the same to any number of other animals?
Now, as an ex-avid meat-eater myself (still an occasional meat-eater, just without any of the militarism) who is to say that you shouldn't eat meat? Nobody, and that is another rather important point. Conscious capitalism is the economic equivalent of soft power. As a teenaged meat-eater, I always found vegetarians noxious, a cult of self-satisfied whiners and values snobs. Since I've grown up a bit, I realized that this is only the most militant brand of vegetarianism (emphasis on the -ism) but still, it makes it difficult for vegetarians to have a serious conversation without being branded as these people, like I'd imagine it makes it difficult to identify yourself as "Christian," without being lumped in with Jerry Falwell. But, crusade you must, the manner in which you do it can be much more effective, though. Patience backed by fact is perhaps the strongest tool in the teacher's shed. It may not be as sharp as the hedge pruners, but it's as heavy and inexorable as a sledgehammer, when wielded on the side of what is true and obvious. It takes time for people to accept rational arguments in the face of their emotions, but in time, without shouting, or belittling people (this is an especially strong turn-off) it works.
Of course, it wouldn't work in Soviet Russia, but we don't live there, and this displays a requirement of conscious capitalism: the open and unrestricted flow of information without edit or censorship. Given the facts, people will make the right decisions. This has always terrified governments. We're perhaps not quite there now, though that's a whole other topic, the point is, we're certainly close enough to start moving.
In any case, it's perfectly imaginable that eating meat will be around for as long as there are humans, and no matter how much you hate it, it's not within the scope of your power to change any one else's mind about this without their permission, but with an ideally open society, the concept is that what will naturally happen will be the best for everybody, just as in evolution, what does not work, does not pass, as in economics, if you can do an equivalent service cheaper, your competitor will go out of business, as in everything, what is, is, and that always works. (Maybe not for your perceived benefit, but that's another conversation.)
And finally, for those die-hard meat eaters out there, (you ought to understand that I've got nothing against you as people,) the counter to the age-old protein argument.
"The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources." 'Likely' is almost propaganda here, there are vegan triathletes, for god's sake.
Not to mention that an overload of protein has been linked to higher-rates of cancer. (sorry, but you'll have to search on that page, I'm not so tech-savvy yet.)
So, what's beneficial for you is probably beneficial for everyone else, not in the sense that if a bath is good for Reggie, you need one, but in the sense that if Reggie bathes, you don't have to smell him.
Pay attention.
ALV
P.S. I am planning on writing a number of "Google Knols," since so much of what I think on the small things is wrapped up by what I think on the big issues, so I'd like to get those big issues down as reference, so that I can simply offhandedly refer to one of these upcoming links if somebody would like the reasoning behind the reasoning behind something, and I can just write straightforwardly about the task at hand. I'll keep you updated.
The first article, if you wish to look it up and it's no longer there, was called, "Re-thinking the Meat Guzzler," It's by Mark Bittman, and it first appeared January 27th, 2008.
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