The Right to Look

Polland’s final section of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” deeply resonated with me, especially his discussion and contemplation of the ethics of eating animals. This subject is central to our understanding of the omnivore’s dilemma and is located at the heart of my own personal dilemmas with eating meat. There are many writers—some advocated for animal rights or welfare, others being intrigued philosophers and scholars—that have written about the ethics of eating animals. Their works are numerous, often enlightening, or at the very least, educational.

Polland, however, was able to do something differently. His approach to the subject was exceptionally transparent, relatable, and comprehensible. In his hands he grasped the puzzle pieces of understanding the food industry, the vegetarian’s dilemma, animal suffering as well as state of happiness, and the principle of killing. These are all puzzle pieces that I have been holding for quite some time now. I am aware of the cruelty that takes place in CAFO’s and on the kill floor. I understand and recognize that animals can suffer and feel pain as well as joy. I have experienced the vegetarian’s dilemma, a feeling of alienation from one’s own culture and heritage that is hard to explain, but nonetheless existent.
As for the principle of killing, Polland describes it in a way that helps us all understand how humans have been able to look their food in the eye as they kill it and eat it with the “consciousness, ceremony, and respect they deserve.” We have lost that consciousness, ceremony, and respect with the introduction of the food industry, and swiftly our right to look was taken away. What Polland describes is the animal experience. While we can never truly know how the cow, chicken, or pig experiences life and death, we can come close to understanding their time on earth by first understanding ourselves, and secondly by viewing these animals in nature.

When there is no knowledge of the coming of death, there is no fear. When Polland talks about the man with the PETA bumper sticker who decides to kill his own meat and watch it die, he see’s that while the animal suffers temporarily, it does not look at him accusatorily or experience fear. It simply lives a content life on Joel’s farm and then dies, in good hands, where consciousness and attention are given at the bird’s slaughter.

I have no qualms about killing animals when it is done in a humane and respectful way. Like all creatures on earth, we are a form of predators who once relied on the necessity of meat to provide us with the nutrients we needed to survive. So now, we many not need meat to survive, but it is innate and integrated into our culture as human beings. To give up something that we have been granted to have from the start of mankind is not impossible and many choose to do it. But for some, that feeling of alienation, the burden and dilemma of being vegetarian or vegan is altogether too much. What I crave is consciousness. I feel that Polland has at last laid the puzzle pieces out in front of me forming at last a whole and conceivable image. Human’s can meet in the middle. The experiences steer 534 had in life and death, and many other animals slaughtered for the populations desire for meat are not pleasant and far from natural.

While I cannot end the fate for many of these animals, I can choose to make decisions that, as an individual that I can live with. Will I ever eat another chicken nugget?—I’m sure that I will. But why not strive for transparency? Why not look elsewhere towards the places where animals are allowed to live a happy and natural live and are brought to a civil, humane end void of brutality? While it is not entirely realistic to separate myself entirely from the meat industry that surrounds me, I have options and I can make a choice to forgo the masked cruelty of that industry, and to look for more sustainable, humane ways of eating meat. I want to eat animals with “the consciousness, ceremony, and respect they deserve”, to regain my right to look, and to nourish my body with food that I have given conscious and deliberate thought to in an honest, and ethical way.