Jonathan Safran Foer and Eating and Killing Animals

I haven't read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals yet. I don't know when I will, given lack of time, but I have seen a head-spinning number of reviews of and reactions to it lately. I get the impression, from these reviews and reactions, that there will be aspects of the book that will frustrate me, but I can also appreciate that he is telling mainstream America far more than most of them have read or heard before about who rather than what is on their plates and that he has done it in a way that is getting a lot of people thinking and talking. And though I've not read it myself, I've found other animal advocates' reactions to the book and Foer's approach interesting and worth considering, and I've read and watched some of his interviews.

For example, in a recent Facebook note, Josh Hooten of Herbivore posted a thoughtful response to the attention Foer's book is getting and the discussing it's sparking, in the mainstream and within the the vegan animal rights movement. And a SuperVegan post that is thoughtful and worth reading itself republished Josh's post in full.

Also, as mentioned in that post, Katie Drummond of True/Slant last week published not only her personal reactions to the book but also an interview with the author -- in which she came right out and asked him why on earth he hasn't gone totally vegan yet, knowing what he now knows.

And honestly, I found some of his answers there unsatisfactory, just as I sometimes found myself wanting more from him when he appeared on Ellen DeGeneres's show recently.* At moments in this particular interview and audience Q&A, he seemed to be perpetuating the humane myth, this idea that unnecessary slaughter of animals can be "humane" and that cruelties, suffering, and unnecessary death are only factory farming problems. Indeed, it was Ellen (a vegan**) who briefly piped up when he was talking about battery cages to clarify that "cage-free eggs" are cruel too (side note: Ellen mistakenly implied that an egg-laying hen lives only 30 days -- it seems she was thinking of the chickens raised for their flesh, who are indeed killed at 6 to 7 weeks old; egg-laying hens live in their personal hell for a couple years).

Foer was asked by an audience member why vegans don't eat dairy and eggs in the second segment, and his answer relied, again, only on the confinement of the hens and cows in industrial operations, which implies to people that when the animals aren't confined, everything's hunky-dory. I fail to understand why what, to me, seems like the simplest of answers isn't given in these instances. I can see how the anti-exploitation, anti-use argument would be too much to get into in the short time allowed and in these particular circumstance (and I understand that Foer doesn't seem to believe in the anti-exploitation stance in the first place).

But what about that simplest of arguments, the reason many vegetarians stop eating meat in the first place -- the killing? Many vegetarians just don't know how much inherent killing is involved in consuming dairy and eggs. And it seems one of the easiest, quickest answers here would be that all animals whom we use for food, we kill. For all eggs, tiny male chicks are suffocated or ground up alive, and hens are sent to brutal slaughter after their egg production declines. For all dairy, calves are separated from their mothers, and baby calves and ultimately mother cows are horribly slaughtered for meat.

"Ultimately, eggs and dairy kill all the animals used for them too. Baby male chicks, worn-out egg-laying hens, newborn calves, six-year-old cows -- they're all slaughtered after we're done with them, and virtually all of them go through unspeakable suffering even before that": Why can't we say that? Foer responded to Drummond's question about the absence of references to veganism in his book thus: "The book is called Eating Animals, not Eating Animal Products. I took on a lot, and I wanted to keep the scope as narrow as I could to keep some thread running through it." Not killing animals when we don't need to seems like a clear thread and narrow topic to me, so his answer doesn't really satisfy me.

But as noted by others before me, including Josh Hooten, Foer isn't an animal rights advocate (Josh: "I think sizing him up through an AR lens is a mistake"). I've seen his position characterized as being anti-killing in general in a couple places (e.g., here), but my impression is that currently, he's focused primarily on how animals are treated and killed, not on whether we should be using and killing them in the first place, so though some of his answers and statements may be disappointing to animal advocates, they shouldn't really be surprising, I suppose.

In any event, as I said, others who've read the book and who've been following the media blitz surrounding it have interesting things to say, from varying perspectives, about the potential impact of all this. Check a few of them out:

• "Does It Matter That Jonathan Safran Foer Isn't Vegan?" -- the SuperVegan/Josh Hooten post mentioned throughout (Hooten's full post is pasted at the bottom of the SuperVegan post, so be sure to read all the way through)
• "On 'Eating Animals' by Jonathan Safran Foer" from Animal Person
• "On Not Eating Animals: Q&A with Jonathan Safran Foer" from Katie Drummond

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* It's not my intention to just complain about the interview in general. There's much to be pleased about when animals -- and veganism, courtesy of Ellen -- get mainstream attention on such a popular program, and there were some "hell yeah!" moments too. More on this to come in a later post.

** I'll head this one off: yes, I know -- and am as dismayed as anyone -- that Ellen DeGeneres is currently serving as a spokesperson for Cover Girl, which tests on animals. Again, stay tuned for another post in the next couple days in which this will come up.