Culture: Changeable and Not an Excuse for Eating Animals

A reader posted a comment on the Your Dog versus Your Dinner post that I've decided to address in an entirely new post rather than in that comment thread:

I personally think that this comment is based on a fallacious premise: by asking rhetorically if "pigs (and cows and chickens) are truly that different from domestic cats and dogs in any way except how we think of and treat them" it ignores that it is precisely the way in which we think and act what makes up culture, and ours was built upon agriculture and the domestication of animals, both for nurturing and  as company and labor. Originally there were none of the horrors of modern-day meat and dairy industry, where the moral strife resides. But to pet a dog while munching a 2lb rib eye steak is not a cognitive dissonance, unless being sons of our context is. The problem, industrial meat and dairy, belongs to a broader discussion involving the very nature of the system in which we reproduce.

Needless to say, given my original post (go ahead and read it now if you haven't already, so that we'll all be on the same page here), I disagree with the notion that there is no cognitive dissonance in killing and eating one animal and pampering and petting another. I do agree with the reader, however, that our own thoughts and behavior determine our culture and that our current culture is very much entrenched in certain ways of living, including raising and killing animals for food.

But here's the great thing about ways of thinking and behaving—they can be changed. I'm not ignoring the fact that "the way[s] in which we think and act" make up our culture; I'm saying that doesn't change anything. That has no impact whatsoever on who animals are, on what kind of life they deserve, or on how they do or do not differ. Our culture and history play a role in people's cognitive dissonance—they don't render the cognitive dissonance nonexistent—and the idea that group 1's perception of group 2 must define group 2, and that this perception makes whatever group 1 wants to do to group 2 just fine, is preposterous.

You'll find what I'm about to say scattered across dozens of blogs and books: the "this is our culture; this is how we've always done it" argument—or in this case, the "we are 'sons of our context'" argument—doesn't hold water. History is full of people continuing behaviors because that's how their parents and grandparents and ancestors did things. Slaves were slaves in the United States because white Americans decided that's what they should be and because white Americans perceived themselves to be superior. Women were considered inferior to men, denied the same rights as men, and treated as men's property for centuries because men decided women were inferior.

The exploiters create the categories that suit them. And so Americans enslaved Africans and Africans' descendants for generations, and men held superiority and control over women for generations—and those in the position of power believed it was OK. This was part of their culture, their history. Can you imagine saying today that slavery is acceptable because that's our culture, and slaves are now meant to be slaves because that's how we built a society or maintain a certain industry? How about saying that women should not be allowed to vote or hold jobs outside the home or can be committed to mental hospitals at the evidenceless bidding of their husbands and fathers when they disobey or disappoint, all because they are naturally inferior to men? These were real arguments once. "That's how we've been doing it" is not a justification for continuing to do something.

And the problem and "moral strife" lie not solely, as the reader suggests, in "industrial meat and dairy." This may be the problem as perceived by humans who want to kill and eat animals and not feel guilty about it, but it is not the problem from the animals' perspective. Setting aside for a moment the fact that animals on nonindustrial farms usually suffer immensely too, whatever treatment the animals receive, they are still killed, brutally, at a far younger age than they would have naturally reached. Their lives are still taken.

I leave you with some other animal rights advocates' thoughts on this topic:
Gary Francione:

Every form of discrimination in the history of humankind has been defended as “traditional.” Sexism is routinely justified on the ground that it is traditional for women to be subservient to men: “A woman’s place is in the home.” Human slavery has been a tradition in most cultures at some times. The fact that some behavior can be described as traditional has nothing to do with whether the behavior is or is not morally acceptable.

Mary Martin:

Slavery was once part of our culture. Culture should never be an excuse to act without concern for the lives of sentient beings. And yet culture is often the only excuse we provide.

Dan Cudahy:

So when the herd engages in atrocities, most of us are all too willing to go along, or at least ignore it. In fact, the herd instinct of humans can be found underlying and significantly contributing to virtually all atrocities in history and the present: genocides, slavery, witch-burnings, and the moral status and uses of animals, including their property status and slaughter by the billions.

Many readers today will say, “Yeah, sure, the first three (genocide, slavery, witch-burning) are bad, but the moral status and use of animals is fine as it is.” I’ll just remind these readers that the societies and people engaging in the first three thought those were “fine as they were” also. Again, humans never engage in activity that we have not “rationalized” in some way. We see the atrocities of other societies and other times clearly, but we tend to be so very blind to the atrocities of our own society and time.

Elaine Vigneault:

I’m a white American. It’s likely some of my ancestors owned slaves. Does that mean I should own slaves now?
My dad had seven children. If he didn’t have at least six children, I wouldn’t be here now. Does that mean I should have seven children?
My friend’s dad drove drunk all the time when he was in his twenties and nothing ever happened. Does that mean my friend should drive drunk?
My primate ancestors likely flung their poo and had sex in public. Does that mean I should fling my poo and have sex in public?

The past is the past for a reason. Live in the present.