introduction to carnism
DESCRIPTION
A critical review of the book "Why we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows: an introduction to carnism" by Natalie Gilbert - Tags: vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, carnivore, diet, eating habitsTRANSCRIPT
1
Critical Review Natalie Gilbert
Why we Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, the Belief System that Enables us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others by Melanie Joy, Ph.D.
2
“It is striking how an entire society of rational people can maintain such irrational patterns of thought without catching
on to the gaping holes in the logic,” (Joy, 2010: 129).
Why we Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows is only for the bravest of meat eaters.
The book acts as a mirror, held up to our beliefs about why we eat and enjoy meat –
Is it Normal? Is it Natural? Is it Necessary? (Joy, 2010). Joy eloquently, and without
sentimental cliché, informs her audience about an invisible belief system, which she
calls Carnism. At the heart of this belief system is what she calls a Matrix, where
meat eaters are “passive consumers, not active citizens,” (Joy, 2010: 116).
In order to make decisions about meat of your own free will it is first important to
step outside the Matrix to be able to see Carnism and, as Joy calls it, ‘bear witness’
to its existence. Reading this book is a first step to understanding the System, but Joy
acknowledges it will probably only be read by those who are troubled by the pieces
of information they already have. Finding the courage to face up to an all‐
encompassing belief system and potentially challenge it calls for the “highest
qualities of our species, qualities such as conviction, integrity, empathy and
compassion. It is easier by far to retain the attributes of carnistic culture: apathy,
complacency, self‐interest and “blissful” ignorance” (Joy, 2010: 149).
3
Witnessing
Uncovering the truth about a belief system that you have been influenced to behold
– truths that have previously been invisible to you, can invoke powerful feelings:
“anger at the injustice and deception of the system; despair at the enormity of the
problem; fear that trusted authorities and institutions are, in fact, untrustworthy;
and guilt for having contributed to the problem,” (Joy, 2010: 142). In light of this, the
author goes to great lengths to help her reader process such comprehensive
information in the hope that they can begin to act freely within their own moral
framework and not Carnism. A brief look here at two of the key theories within the
Matrix: The Cognitive Trio and The Three Ns, gives us some insight into her methods.
The Cognitive Trio: Objectification, Deindividualization and Dichotomization
In order that we can continue to eat some animals, but never others we must
objectify the ones we slaughter. For example, in America and the UK, pigs are bacon
and cows are beef, so it is the meat – the object, that we think of and not the animal.
Dogs, on the other hand, are beloved pets and they are given names. We do not
name our farmed animals and so they are not individuals; they are not offered an
identity. This allows us to distance ourselves from their suffering, since this suffering,
as a mass, is too great for us to either comprehend or act upon. By treating this
enormous mass of farmed animals as objects to be bought and sold, not allowing
them an identity beyond this, we can easily dichotomize edible and inedible animals:
Rover, Buddy and Sadie never end up on a plate, yet Beef does. As Joy calmly states,
our codes of ethics are absurd and inconsistent (Joy, 2010: 133).
4
The Three Ns: Normal, Natural, and Necessary
From childhood, for most people, “meat eating is considered a given, not a choice,”
(Joy, 2010: 106). When breaking away from this tradition, vegetarians can
experience hostility because of their choice, since their alternative belief system
challenges what is considered Normal and therefore justified. This tendency to stick
to what we have been taught, without question, sits firmly within other belief
systems too: eating meat, we are told, is ‘part of the food chain’ and therefore
biologically correct and Natural; it is claimed to align with the ‘laws of nature’, which
are ruled by God; and since we can remember nothing outside of this belief system,
historically it is also considered to be ‘true’ and therefore Natural. Despite the fact
that countless vegetarians live without meat protein, eating meat is also considered
to be Necessary to our wellbeing.
However, if meat eating – and selective meat eating at that – is so Normal, Natural,
and Necessary why do we feel the need to distance ourselves from our own
behaviour? Joy documents her interviews with those who refuse to eat the heart of
an animal because it reminds them too much of human heart; she talks to those who
regularly eat meat, yet can’t face the sight of pig trotters hanging up in a butcher’s
shop because it disgusts them. Similarly, the idea of eating a Labrador or a Cocker
Spaniel fills us with this same disgust. All of these things remind us that we care
about animal suffering (no matter how discriminatory) – a mantra that Joy repeats
throughout the book – not to beat you over the head, but to open your eyes:
5
“It is absurd that we eat pigs and love dogs and don’t even know why,”
(Joy, 2010: 28).
The idea of distancing ourselves from the animals we do eat is not a new one, but
the System has remained robust in its long‐standing anonymity. Dr Adrian Franklin,
more than one decade ago, included the theory in his history of ‘Animals in the
Human Diet’ – one of the chapters in his acclaimed sociology book, Animals and
Modern Culture. He notes how meat became less about animal bodies and much
more about becoming like any other food stuff, neatly packaged and clean – free
from all suggestion of slaughter: “in butcher’s shops, carcasses are less frequently
hung on view and neat trays of smaller, leaner cuts dominate,” (Franklin, 1999: 155).
Like Joy, he talks about language and the disappearing use of words like ‘butcher’
and ‘slaughter’, he talks about concealment of the abattoir – the then, newly
favoured word for killing – obscuring and sanitizing processes to make the animal
edible (Franklin, 1999):
“Altogether, these changes distance the consumer from all connections with
the animal of origin and reduce meat to a more abstract notion of animal
protein. These changes have also progressively distanced the consumer from
those who butcher, cut and serve meat (Walsh 1989). This abstraction is
possible in part because the business of killing animals for meat has been
removed not only from residential and industrial areas, but increasingly from
attention,” (Franklin, 1999: 155).
6
Invisibility
It’s overwhelming to have the System revealed in full, but Joy is adept at explaining
incredibly complex theories in a language that anyone can understand – without
sanctimony. Not only this, but she teaches us that we can already learn from past
events that operated within such Systems, like the Holocaust or the slave trade.
In Chapter One, Joy sets out her proposal: “It is the process of learning to not feel
that is the focus of this book,” (Joy, 2010: 19). What Joy explicitly writes about is the
absence of disgust at the fact that we eat some animals. Disgust only forms when we
think about eating what we class as an inedible animal like a dog, for example, but
this dichotomy that Joy speaks of: edible and inedible animals, is learned and not
innate. It is this kind of behaviour that forms the invisible belief system. The first
chapter is hard‐hitting and direct, but not in an aggressive manner – it stands face to
face with you, challenging you – can you read on? Many, I’m sure, would choose not
to and continue to take what Joy would call ‘the path of least resistance’.
The idea of Carnism is introduced in Chapter Two. The idea houses many complex
theories, but Joy manages to compartmentalize each section and explain it with
understanding and grace, not to mention absolute determinism. Slowly, she begins
to unveil the invisibility of the System. If billions of farmed animals are consumed as
food every year, why do we never see these animals being farmed? As Joy so rightly
asks, where are they all? We might believe we’ve seen them, through the very
occasional news report or from charity videos or imagery, but we certainly don’t see
7
this as part of our everyday lives.
Joy begins to answer her own questions in Chapters Three and Four, starting with a
chilling quote from Adolf Hitler: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and
eventually they will believe it,” (Joy, 2010: 37). The lies at the heart of Carnism are
profound for it is not only the slaughter that is invisible, and this is the part that can
be hard to concede: It is our lie to ourselves that is the biggest lie of all. It results in
us, “the human animals,” (Joy, 2010: 73) becoming the victims of our own
complacency:
“The factory workers, the residents who live near polluting CAFOs [Confined
Animal Feeding Operations, or slaughter houses to you and I], the meat
consumers, the taxpayers. We are the collateral damage of carnism; we pay for
it with our health, our environment, and our taxes ‐ $7.64 billion a year, to be
exact,” (ibid.)
It is made clear; it is not only animals that suffer, it is also the slaughter house
workers, and the residents who live near these enclosures who have suffered
spontaneous abortion, birth defects, respiratory problems and headaches. The
environment suffers, since air and water pollution is rife around slaughter houses.
Joy, in her astounding fortitude, relentlessly takes us through every pig’s trotter and
every beating heart of animal slaughter with dignity, in the hope that we can
understand “why the system works so diligently to remain unseen,” (Joy, 2010: 93).
The book is not a gruesome read – far from it. In fact, once you’re informed, Joy
8
insists it is not necessary to then repeatedly upset ourselves with traumatizing
imagery or literature – it is enough to know, and to remain informed in to the future.
Chapters Five and Six are the aides to coming clean – it’s time to question your
behaviour. Have you ever been to a petting farm and then gone home to a Sunday
Roast? Did your parents, teachers, doctors or politicians ever question your choice to
eat meat? Did you know that animal byproducts are found in wallpaper, tennis balls
and adhesive bandages? Do you know more about celebrities in the news than you
do about the animals you eat? These are some of the questions tackled by Joy, but
not in attack. The question is not how can you do this; the question is why do you?
And the answer is Carnism.
The Human Condition
Hal Herzog, one of the world’s leading authorities in human‐animal relations recently
published a book called Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why it's So
Hard to Think Straight About Animals, which also tackles issues around eating
animals and what could easily be called our hypocrisy. However, the Professor gave
an interview to NPR (National Public Radio) in America not long after the publication
and said “I stopped using the word hypocrisy while I was writing this book. I think of
it now as the human condition and I think these issues really transcend our relations
with animals, they apply to so much of human, moral life," (Author Interviews,
2010).
9
Joy’s book is labeled an introduction to Carnism – the first naming of the invisible
belief system. This alone is a huge step forward to understanding how our behaviour
and our values became so out of sync. Joy talks about important choices – ones we
should at least consider. The most difficult is to adapt your behaviour (meat eating)
to bring it in line with your values (caring about animal suffering), which means you
stop eating meat altogether. The second is easy: continue to sit complacently within
the Matrix so that your own behaviour becomes invisible within the System. Or the
third, most positive step for most people is to step outside the Matrix and find a
solution to suit you, not the System. Herzog, as a fine example, says: “I've made my
peace with meat. I try to eat responsibly, I'm willing to pay more for meat that I feel
is humanely raised, I eat less meat than I used to ... people are going to make their
peace with these issues in different ways,” (Author Interviews, 2010).
Joy helps us untangle ourselves from a web of distortion, dissociation and distancing
– from a Matrix that is very much of our own making. She states that “mass
witnessing is the single greatest threat to carnism,” (Joy, 2010: 139) and she is right.
As long as Carnism is invisible, the longer we all suffer.
10
References
Joy, M (2010). Why we Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, the Belief System that Enables us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others. San Francisco: Conari Press, an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Franklin, A (1999). Animals & Modern Cultures: A Sociology of Human‐Animal Relations in Modernity. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Author Interviews. Dog Food, Or Dogs as Food? Depends Where You Are. NPR.org. 31 October 2010. http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=130892795&m=130959230