Temple Grandin: Animal Friend or Foe?

HBO recently aired a biopic on Temple Grandin. Grandin is an animal scientist, a professor, an author, and an autistic woman. She says her autism causes her to think in images instead of in words, which allows her to see the world from an animal's perspective. As a strictly visual thinker, she is able to see things that other people might not. She was able to invent the cattle chute, equipment that keeps cows calm before slaughter, because she was able to see things from a cow's perspective.

Grandin is a controversial figure in the animal welfare world because she claims to think like an animal, yet her invention helps slaughter them. PETA says Grandin's a-ok because she's reduced animal suffering. Others says she's a pawn of the meat industry, used to assuage consumer guilt over beef. Indeed, Beef Magazine promotes her movie on its website.

I have conflicting feelings about Temple Grandin. I don't believe an abolitionist approach will work in the meat industry, so I'm in support of anything that makes the lives of farmed animals better. But I'm frustrated with the media's depiction of Grandin as the voice for animals.

Grandin has been called a "modern day Doctor Doolittle." But Doctor Doolittle could talk to animals, while Grandin cannot. Grandin may (or may not) be able to think the way an animal thinks, but she cannot read their minds. When I read her book, Animals in Translation, I was convinced that Grandin's way of thinking does give her a better understanding of the animal mind. Given this, it makes sense why both PETA and the beef industry want her on their side. If she can see the way an animal does, then surely she can tell us how to treat them.

Yet, Grandin does not provide consistent answers on how to treat animals. Her stance on beef is: "We've got to give these animals a good life and we've got to give them a painless death." But Grandin works for agribusiness, where cows have neither a good life nor a painless death. The cattle chute has allowed for the factory farm to become more efficient and more profitable. Grandin's invention has ultimately only helped farming become more industrialized, not more humane.

I do believe that Grandin has helped us better understand how animals think, and in that regard, her autism is a special gift. I just think she could better use her gift by working against agribusiness instead of for it. If you see the movie, tell us what you think of it.

Photo credit: Husky