Ajna
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2009
- Messages
- 91
This thread's purpose is to debate the moral implications of the meat industry and its purpose in society. This threads purpose is not to debate the idea of morals overall, or the eating of meat overall. Im sure these sub-topics will come up in the debate , I am only asking as the starter of this thread that we do not dwell on these subjects and try to keep the intention of the OP in perspective.
Now to get things started:
I believe that the meat industry turns viable life forms into a product, effectively desensitizing a majority of society to the sacrifice being made to give them food and to a lesser extent the practices that make that food available in mass quantity.
I will only discuss the practices of battery farms if any of you, or myself based on your counter-arguments feels like it is necessary. Until then I will assume that most of you are educated on what goes on in those places, and many believe they are inhumane. If anyone disagrees that these practices are disgusting however I will be more than happy to discuss this with you.
That being said, It is my stance that even farms that practice free-range methods with harvesting and selling their meat are still part of the problem. The problem? The mass global industrialization of the meat industry.
Life is vampiric in that it must consume other life to continue living. Whether we choose to eat a piece of celery, a cow, or another human being- to sustain our own lives we must end another to whatever extent.
For most people... it would be somewhat unsettling to go into the woods, bash a rabbit over the head with a rock, and then eat it. But there is no such emotion given to a chicken nugget, whose path to become a chicken nugget was guaranteed to have been part of a life of "food slavery" in that from the time they were born it had been decided that they would one day be a chicken nugget. In the example of a battery farm (which in case this is not common knowledge, the meat you purchase comes from a battery farm unless marked otherwise.) Not only had it been born into a world where it would have no other purpose other than to become human food, but its short life was absolutely filled with it being subjected to horrendous and torturous practices.
Either way, in most countries, if you are a chicken... you are human food. You have no other purpose in life. When I say purpose, I do not mean effectiveness for human life of course.. but for chicken life. We are the only animals in nature that consume more than we need to. By consume i do not mean it as directly as eating... but in a much broader sense. Most of the chickens, cows, and pigs of the world for a very large quantity of time have been in cages so their children, and their children, and their children, can feed our children and their children and their children etc.
This i believe has made society in a general sense desensitized to the sacrifice being made. A life is being extinguished so that you may sustain your own.
If you were to poll everyone that walks into a mcdonalds and orders a hamburger if they would be willing to take a trip to the slaughter house and personally kill a cow so that it can be made into the burger they are ordering (disregarding the time this would take of course for the sake of the point) I believe the average person would not want that blood on their hands.
I am not arguing that the killing of the cow is wrong, as that we have to consume other life to sustain our own, as was originally stated in this thread. However, I am suggesting that the connection that your hamburger was once a living creature, that is now dead so that you may have a hamburger and continue living is lost in the process created by the industrialization of meat as a product by the time it gets to the consumer.
This is a sacrifice that would be impossible to ignore if you were taking the life yourself. The fact that this is an unsettling idea to many is unsettling to me.
Now to get things started:
I believe that the meat industry turns viable life forms into a product, effectively desensitizing a majority of society to the sacrifice being made to give them food and to a lesser extent the practices that make that food available in mass quantity.
I will only discuss the practices of battery farms if any of you, or myself based on your counter-arguments feels like it is necessary. Until then I will assume that most of you are educated on what goes on in those places, and many believe they are inhumane. If anyone disagrees that these practices are disgusting however I will be more than happy to discuss this with you.
That being said, It is my stance that even farms that practice free-range methods with harvesting and selling their meat are still part of the problem. The problem? The mass global industrialization of the meat industry.
Life is vampiric in that it must consume other life to continue living. Whether we choose to eat a piece of celery, a cow, or another human being- to sustain our own lives we must end another to whatever extent.
For most people... it would be somewhat unsettling to go into the woods, bash a rabbit over the head with a rock, and then eat it. But there is no such emotion given to a chicken nugget, whose path to become a chicken nugget was guaranteed to have been part of a life of "food slavery" in that from the time they were born it had been decided that they would one day be a chicken nugget. In the example of a battery farm (which in case this is not common knowledge, the meat you purchase comes from a battery farm unless marked otherwise.) Not only had it been born into a world where it would have no other purpose other than to become human food, but its short life was absolutely filled with it being subjected to horrendous and torturous practices.
Either way, in most countries, if you are a chicken... you are human food. You have no other purpose in life. When I say purpose, I do not mean effectiveness for human life of course.. but for chicken life. We are the only animals in nature that consume more than we need to. By consume i do not mean it as directly as eating... but in a much broader sense. Most of the chickens, cows, and pigs of the world for a very large quantity of time have been in cages so their children, and their children, and their children, can feed our children and their children and their children etc.
This i believe has made society in a general sense desensitized to the sacrifice being made. A life is being extinguished so that you may sustain your own.
If you were to poll everyone that walks into a mcdonalds and orders a hamburger if they would be willing to take a trip to the slaughter house and personally kill a cow so that it can be made into the burger they are ordering (disregarding the time this would take of course for the sake of the point) I believe the average person would not want that blood on their hands.
I am not arguing that the killing of the cow is wrong, as that we have to consume other life to sustain our own, as was originally stated in this thread. However, I am suggesting that the connection that your hamburger was once a living creature, that is now dead so that you may have a hamburger and continue living is lost in the process created by the industrialization of meat as a product by the time it gets to the consumer.
This is a sacrifice that would be impossible to ignore if you were taking the life yourself. The fact that this is an unsettling idea to many is unsettling to me.