Why humans are so ok about animal suffering

Vegan philosopher John Sanbonmatsu’s work focuses on our resistance to rethinking the meat economy. In The Omnivore’s Deception: What We Get Wrong About Meat, Animals And Ourselves, the critical social theorist (also a magician) argues that there are two systems, interlocked, that dominate the meat economy, and our delusion that animals need humans.The first is speciesism, the belief that humans are superior to the rest of the animal world. The other is capitalism, which, yoked to speciesism, drives the industrialisation of animals for consumption and experimentation.The two forces are so intertwined that humans believe meat consumption is “natural”. Sanbonmatsu makes three points. 1) Humans are not superior. Every species has its own excellence. Humans have language, “that enables us to build technologies and forms of life that other species cannot. Only humans, thus, have Anna Karenina and astrophysics.” But, humans have “no neurological or morphological structure that would separate us clearly from other animals.” 2) Making a distinction between ethical and unethical animal exploitation is “spurious”. The call for “moderation” is meat apologists’ smokescreen. 3) Finally, what is considered extreme, can become an era’s “common sense”. To demonstrate, the book draws parallels with abolishing slavery.Exposing speciesism’s self-serving myths, Sanbonmatsu writes, “Thousands of years ago...ingenious ancestors of modern turkeys, reindeer, cows, camels, pigs, chickens, aurochs, geese, sheep, etc., all had the same epiphany at once. In a miracle of interspecies coordination, they decided to exchange the inconveniences of a ‘state of nature’, in which all warred against all and none were safe, for the security and comfort of domestication by Homo sapiens.” He calls it humanity’s “pleasing tale”.Humans comfortably live with a contradiction of values. We show every kindness to a beloved animal companion. At the same time, we find no horror in slaughtering for food. We feel no need, either, to reconcile these two extremes, says the book.Sanbonmatsu says defenders of animal agriculture argue dairy, meat and fish industries are benign systems, with cruelty an anomaly. That farmers care for their animals, ironically, though they’re raised to be killed. Advertising reinforces this idea, showing “animals smiling and dancing on their way to the barbecue or butcher.”But, animals do not consent to being used and brutalised. “So long as we choose to exploit and impose our will on them, it will always be necessary…to wield violent force against them.” There is, therefore, no such thing as “ethical” animal farming.To explain why “moderation” is not enough, the book compares the meat system with slavery. Apologists for slavery would argue the cruelty of some slave-owners didn’t make the entire system an abomination. Slavery was once the norm – until it wasn’t. And the uncompromising social norm was replaced by a common-sense understanding that slavery itself was abhorrent, not merely its excesses.Similarly, the book argues, the problem isn’t a lack of ethical meat or need for moderation. The problem is the system itself, which is failing both humanity and the planet. The environmental movement, it says, has largely failed because it is unwilling to confront capitalism and speciesism.Recognising that animals have rights is a long battle, but there have been victories. Fur is mostly banned, animal experimentation is restricted. And cow’s milk faces competition from a growing range of plant-based alternatives. Maybe, we’re closer to questioning the meat system – long mistaken as “common sense”, peddled as “natural”.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.