Elisa Aaltola

Suez and the Need to End Live Animal Transport

3.4.2021 Elisa Aaltola3 kommenttia

As the enormous vessel Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal in March 2021, an estimated 200 000 animals became trapped, most of them sheep shipped from Romania to Saudi Arabia. The ships transporting the animals were unlikely to contain enough water or food to keep them alive. Moreover, the heat onboard the ships was blistering. It was estimated that most of the animals would die in hellish conditions before reaching their destination.

Such animal catastrophes are not isolated events. Live animal transports have been the object of valid yet ignored criticism for a number of years. They are excruciatingly long, and take from several days to many weeks or even months. They expose the animals to prolonged and intense physical discomfort, fear, and stress. The petrified and tired animals are often subjected to violence, such as beating, kicking, punching, pulling, and prodding. The suffering is further accentuated by overcrowding, heat, and lack of water/food. As the number of slaughterhouses has dropped, animals are being transported ever-greater distances, which further increases their anguish.

Some politicians have tried to step in. For instance, the EU commissioner for food safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, has asked Romania to stop exporting live animals to the Middle East. This is because the searing temperatures on board the ships can be deadly, and because the transports have been shown to include extremely violent handling; moreover, at their destination, the exhausted sheep are often stuffed into car trunks before eventually having their throats slit. Instead of following the recommendation, Romania has increased the exports. Evermore animals will thereby undergo the horrors of transport, desperately trying to find comfort from each other amidst the chaotic, frightening conditions.

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They nurture their friendships, are loyal to and defend one another, and likely feel the pangs of love for their nearest, just as we human beings do.

Let’s take a pause to consider, what type of animals we are talking about. Sheep are highly intelligent creatures. Their memory abilities outshine that of many human beings (mine definitely included), as they for instance can remember the faces of 50 individuals for two years. They also excel in solving problems, and are known to navigate complex mazes. Most importantly, next to manifesting these and many other intricate cognitive abilities, they are also highly social and emotional creatures. In all likelihood, sheep can feel emotions ranging from anger to fear, frustration, despair, care, attachment, joy and happiness.

Therefore, the existence of Ovis aries is coloured by – not only learning, remembering or intending – but also sensing, wanting, yearning, feeling. In the terms common in philosophy of mind, it is like something to be a sheep. Just like you and me, sheep have their personal histories, experiences, wants, emotive aches and delights. In short: they are conscious, minded creatures. Next to being a member of her flock, a sheep is thereby a subject, an agent, an individual with a unique perspective onto the world.

In the wild, sheep can live up to 12 years or longer. Female offspring stay with the ewes that gave birth to them, and thus daughters, mothers and grandmothers tend to spend their lives together. Rams, on the other hand, usually leave their mothers at around six months of age, and form playful, boisterous groups with each other. In general, sheep form life-lasting bonds with their conspecifics, and are known to defend one another against dangers and competitors. As such, they nurture their friendships, are loyal to and defend one another, and likely feel the pangs of love for their nearest, just as we human beings do.

Lambs have just arrived onto this planet, and playfully, eagerly, jubilantly run toward its offerings.

Lambs are the blissful crown of the sheep-world. These nonhuman children greet the world with astounding curiosity and wild joy that makes them flick their legs as they take enourmous, care-free leaps into the air. Lambs have just arrived onto this planet, and playfully, eagerly, jubilantly run toward its offerings. They are the manifestations of elation, of a boisterous and inquisitive engagement with reality, a playful desire to jump, run and snuggle up to others out of sheer joy. When looking at lambs that are playing catch or sleeping curled up to one another, I cannot but smile and think: the world is beautiful.

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Unfortunately, however, that world does not treat lambs well. First, lambs are separated from their mothers long before their natural weaning age. Depending on the farming method, the forced separation can take place as young as 6 weeks of age, and is deeply stressful both for the ewe and the lamb. Stated in realistic terms, here nonhuman children are violently taken from their mothers.

After weaning, it is common for the lambs to undergo extensively long transports. They are routinely shipped alive from one end of the world to another. Depending on the destination, the transport can take from several hours to several weeks. As described earlier, the transport conditions are often excruciating.

When the lambs finally arrive at their destinations, another hell begins. They are shoved onto trucks and brought to slaughterhouses, where they may have to wait for days in hunger and thirst for their turn to have their throats slid. Some are sold for ritual slaughter, some undergo standard killing. Whichever the mode of slaying, the animals will be petrified, exhausted, and pained.

Some members of Homo sapiens prefer the texture of young animals’ flesh – they like to eat the young children of nonhuman mothers.

It is worthwhile remembering that often, the lambs are brought to slaughter straight after they have been separated from their mothers. This is because some members of Homo sapiens prefer the texture of young animals’ flesh – they like to eat the young children of nonhuman mothers.

Let’s take stock of the situation. Joyful, playful youth are coercively separated from their mothers, then forced onto trucks and ships, where they all too often undergo physical injuries, severe thirst and hunger, and the sort of fear and stress most of us human beings will never have to even contemplate. These are nonhuman kids at the beginning of their lives – eager to bounce around, play, run and explore, and desperate to stay with their comforting mothers. These are young creatures with their own emotions, their own unique perspectives, whom are met with depriving, slashing violence.

When their lives have just begun, the lambs are pushed into a human-made hell and made to suffer injuries, deprivations and terrors no human should ever inflict on feeling, sensing beings. The reason? Financial gain, an appetite for the flesh of young animals, custom – in short: human profit, human preference, human selfishness.

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The joy and playfulness of lambs is thereby cut very short. Each year, around 550 million sheep are killed for food. 550 000 000 individuals with their own perspectives, fears, joys, yearnings. Let’s repeat that: 550 000 000 conscious, minded individuals. 550 000 000.

Most of these animals go through agony before their dead muscles are put on human plates. Some end in major catastrophes before reaching their untimely and unseemly deaths. Beside the recent Suez disaster, here are just some examples:

In 1919, 14 000 sheep sent from Romania to Saudi Arabia drowned in the Black Sea.

In 2017, 2,400 sheep died of heat-stress, as they were shipped from Australia to the Middle East.

In 2016, an undercover investigation revealed that sheep in Australia were routinely punched, jabbed with sharp objects, kicked, jumped on, and had their eyes poked with fingers.

Most of the horrors never make it to international headline news. As I am writing this text, there are bound to be vast numbers of sheep being violently beaten, and dying from heat-stress or lack of food. As you are reading this, there are uncountable young animals fearing for their lives, calling for their mothers, trying frantically to make it back to their nearest despite of being hundreds of miles away, gripped by panic and pains, incapable of knowing why and what is happening to them – all in the name of human want and custom.

I repeat: these are nonhuman children, ripped from their mothers, scared and anxious. They are young animals, who should be playing, running around, chasing each other, getting nurture from their mothers. What type of creatures are human beings to subject these animals to torment and abuse in the name of eating meat with a particular texture?

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When meat is cheap, so is animal life.

Of course, sheep are not the only animals to suffer live animal transports. Cows, calves, chicken, turkeys, and many other of our nonhuman kin are made to spend from days to weeks or even months in transport. To give one recent example: in early 2021, 1600 cows were confined at sea for three months, in unbearable conditions, only to be slaughtered when they finally reached the shore.

Jo-Anne McArthur / Israel Against Live Shipments

Both the distances and the numbers defy comprehension. Transports from one continent to another are common. Each year, around half a million cows are shipped from South America to Turkey. In 2017, 640 000 sheep were transported from Australia to Qatar, and four million chicken were shipped from Holland to Thailand. These are just some examples. Transport between countries on the same continent are even more common: for instance 5-6 million pigs are transported each year from Canada to US.

Some countries specialize on exporting live animals. Next to South-America and Australia, Europe is a place of such export eagerness. Each year, around 15 million pigs are exported from Denmark, and 12 million pigs from Holland. Annually, 350 million chickens are shipped from Holland, whilst the number of chickens shipped from Germany is 320 million.

Indeed, the European Union is the biggest live animal exporter. In 2019, it exported 1,6 billion animals. The EU does so despite of knowing that the transportation continually violates welfare measures – it allows live animal transports regardless of the utter agony it causes to nonhuman beings.

The motivations for live animal transports consist of absurdities. Danish farmers have bred sows that give birth to bigger litters, whilst the Polish farmers have made the rearing of piglets as cheap as possible. As a consequence, five million piglets are each year transported from Denmark to Poland. Some countries, such as Romania and Slovakia, can rear animal cheaply but lack the needed processing technologies, which means that animals are exported from these countries in order to be slaughtered elsewhere. Indeed, increasingly animals are born in one country, bred in another, and slaughtered in a third.

Here, animals are defined as living ingredients of processed food, who are treated as if they had no consciousness, no minds, no feelings, no value. Ethically, the situation is wholly untenable, wholly unjust, and wholly lacking in compassion. Live animal transports are among the vastest moral crimes of our times.

Animal young, such as piglets, are routinely separated from their mothers and made to stay in lorries for days or weeks, just so that the profits of the meat industry can be increased. I repeat: young animals are taken from their mothers and made to suffer long transports just so that financial profits are greater. When meat is cheap, so is animal life.

These animals try to stay alive, they struggle to hang on to life. They undergo extreme suffering and terror only to be killed. These animals are made to suffer trauma, neglect, the sort of multiple physical and emotional miseries nobody should ever have to face.

Two billion unique agents, who deserve empathy and respect, not violence and neglect.

Worldwide around two billion animals are shipped from one state to another each year, and the rate is increasing. Let’s take another pause. Over two billion animals! Two billion lives and individuals, each filled with stress, fear, longing. Two billion unique agents, who deserve empathy and respect, not violence and neglect.

Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals for The Guardian

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Dinner is best served, when it doesn’t contain the slaughtered bodies of non-human toddlers or their parents.

This is the price of meat: animal terror, animal agony. This should never, ever take place. Animals are not meaty ingredients, whom can be shipped around without moral constraints. They are individuals, who deserve much, much better.

If there is anything to be learned from the animal catastrophe at the Suez Canal, it is this: dinner is best served, when it doesn’t contain the slaughtered bodies of non-human toddlers or their parents. Human beings can thrive without meat, and ditching meat will also support the wellbeing of other animals and the planet. Let’s make meat history – and live animal transports a terror of the past. Sheep, pigs, cows, chicken, all animals deserve better.

(Cover image: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media)

Meat Kills: Lessons from Covid19

3.4.20203.4.2020 Elisa Aaltola1 kommentti

Covid19 has been met with frantic efforts to slow down the disease, turning the world upside down. But should we also learn from it, so that something similar or significantly worse does not take place in the future?

The Meaty Virus

HIV, Ebola, SARS, swine-flu, bird-flu. As many have pointed out, these are examples of viruses that most likely entered the human body via meat, be it that of a chimpanzee, a bat, a civet, a pig or a chicken. Now the new Coronavirus can be added on to the list, as it most likely made its way into the veins of the global human population through the consumption of animal flesh. As a result, China has banned – at least for now – the selling of wild animals for food. Shenzhen – a large Chinese city – also banned the consumption of dog and cat meat. These are steps in the right direction. However, they are only baby steps when considering the risks lurking in all animal industries.

In the Western psyche, it is easy to assume that pandemic diseases can only come from exotic animals, less familiar to the palates of beef-consuming Americans or Europeans. Yet, the risk is present in all farming and meat-production. As swine-flu and bird-flu exemplify, also “ordinary” animal agriculture is a potential nesting place of lethal diseases.

Let’s pause for a while. A huge amount of stressed animals with weak immune-systems are forced to live in overcrowded barns whilst they are fed oceans of antibiotics, thus allowing bacteria to build up resistance. Can you hear the alarm bells, not simply sounding, but banging?

Indeed, animal agriculture is an ideal breeding-spot for new, more deadly bacteria and viruses to mutate, fester and grow. The sizes of animal farms have increased enormously, and one single farm can house hundreds of thousands of animals. As a consequence of this, density has sky-rocketed, as staggeringly large amounts of animals have to be fitted to already cramped conditions. High density means that the animals are evermore stressed, frustrated and anxious, trying to survive in what can only be termed a hellishly unnatural environment, which again compromises their immune-systems and makes them prone to disease. As a final piece in this deadly puzzle, (depending on the country) the animals are routinely fed large quantities of antibiotics in order to combat stress-induced illnesses and secure growth.

Let’s pause for a while. A huge amount of stressed animals with weak immune-systems are forced to live in overcrowded barns whilst they are fed oceans of antibiotics, thus allowing bacteria to build up resistance. Can you hear the alarm bells, not simply sounding, but banging?

Unsurprisingly, industrial animal agriculture has been named a potential source of future epidemics and pandemics. Eerily, just in 2017 over 200 relevant experts signed a letter directed at the World Health Organization, warning of the immanent danger of zoonotic pandemics caused by animal agriculture. One of these experts, Scott Weathers, writes: “Just as WHO has bravely confronted tobacco and soda companies, it must seek to reduce the growth of factory farming as an industry and discourage high rates of meat consumption”. It is only a matter of time, when another pandemic floods human societies – perhaps with even more lethal potency than Covid19.

Meat Kills

We know that animal industries are a major cause behind climate change, and thereby a substantial threat to, not only the nonhuman world, but also Homo Sapiens. It has stolen enormous areas of land from wild animals and spews huge quantities of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thereby heating up our planet. From the perspective of the environment, large-scale animal industries and meat-eating are simply destructive, and thereby they are destructive also for human beings – we will not survive on a sweltering planet ravished by droughts and fires.

It is enormously frustrating to acknowledge that as a result of someone wanting to dine on animal flesh, possibly millions of people will die and many more fall into the grips of economic despair caused by the virus.

Eating meat is therefore damaging for the life of this planet. It is also damaging for human health on a more immediate level. We have known for a long time that large quantities of animal products will block your veins, increase cancer-rates and diabetes, and lead to untimely deaths. Covid19 reminds us that eating meat can also destroy the health of by-standers. It is enormously frustrating to acknowledge that as a result of someone wanting to dine on animal flesh, possibly millions of people will die and many more fall into the grips of economic despair caused by the virus.

This is the last chance to learn that animal farming and meat-consumption can lead to pandemics, which cause mass misery and death. Yet, due to ideological reasons (for the majority, meat-eating is part of their worldview and identity), many refuse to recognize these risks. Indeed, comments pointing toward the same conclusion as this blog have all too frequently been met with anger, as if it was somehow wrong to discuss the source of the current health crisis. One can but hope that more people will be able to take off their ideological lenses and finally acknowledge that meat kills – not only nonhuman but also human animals.

Many think that meat-eating is “a personal choice”. Yet, this is a concretely catastrophic error. Eating meat is not a personal choice, when you consider the treatment and moral value of those animals, who are being eaten – causing suffering and death to tens of billions of animals each year is not a matter of “personal choice”. In the recent decades, climate change has added to this case by showing that, considered also from the perspective of the environment, meat-eating is not a personal choice. Covid19 pushes another very real nail through the coffin and makes it painful clear that meat-eating is far from a personal choice already, because it kills other humans.

Before It’s too Late

We are at war against our own selfishness and the violent ignorance, with which we have treated other species. Only winning that war will ultimately save us.

If we want to ensure the survival of ourselves and others species, it is not enough to minimize the destruction triggered by Covid19. In order to make sure that we do not fall into an even more powerful spiral of mass illness and death, we have to also eradicate the causes of such pandemics. Instead of merely minimising symptoms, we have to get rid of the disease behind the disease – animal industries based on human egoism and greed. Bringing such industries to an end would be an enormous gift to the environment, other animals, and the good of our own species.

The French President Emmanuel Macron stated during the early stages of the European outbreak that we are “at war with an invisible enemy”, namely the virus. This claim is mistaken. The real enemy are the greedy and destructive habits of human beings, which allowed this virus to become a pandemic in the first place. We are at war against our own selfishness and the violent ignorance, with which we have treated other species. Only winning that war will ultimately save us.

The Illness of a Superpredator

2.3.20202.3.2020 Elisa AaltolaJätä kommentti

The Coronavirus has come with disturbing images from Chinese live animal markets. The international media has shown footage of koalas, wolf puppies, bats, pangolins, and wounded deer shivering in sheer horror in their captivity, trying desperately to escape their ropes or cages. Behind them are piles of dead animals and in front of them people, who are curiously estimating which animal to buy and eat. In many of the news reports, the animals have been called “live food”.

Whilst the spotlight has been on human misery caused by the virus, the fate of these animals has gained much less attention. Yet, the meaning of phrases such as “live food” deserves focus. What does it mean for a living, minded creature to be reduced to “food”? Can one really approach wolves or deer as one does bean sprouts, void of moral concern for their experiences and perspectives? Moreover, what does all of this reveal about human beings and their relation to other species?

Global Misery

To point blame only on China would be a drastic mistake. When witnessing images of the tormented animals on Chinese markets, it is worthwhile remembering that similar torments take place amidst most societies. The only difference is that in many countries such suffering is conveniently sanitized – it doesn’t take place in front of curious crowds but is concealed behind the walls of farms and slaughterhouses to a point of being a carefully protected secret. Whilst the agonies from the live animal markets make many pause in pulsing sorrow and anger, similar pauses are apt at the face of Western animal industries, which routinely reduce living, minded creatures into meat-machines, whose experiences bear no relevance. Even if most Western countries have no live animal markets, they do have live animal farms and slaughterhouses, which treat animals as mere meaty or milky resources void of independent moral significance.

Therefore, violent disregard of other animals is not restricted to China, but stretches its greedy limbs everywhere. Our precious Earth is littered by animal factories, supermarkets and industries profiting from nonhuman pain and death. Respect for life and nonhuman needs has been diminished into a tiny trickle in the awareness of the modern human, consuming ever increasing amounts of steaks and dairy without taking a moment to think whether (s)he even needs them.

Because of this, classifying animals as “food” – whether “live” or “dead” – is a like an act of magic, which suddenly makes the individual animal with her experiences, needs and memories disappear from sight.

Suffering and death are here, regardless of geography, for almost everywhere animals are defined as “food”, and “food” has no perspective, which to care about. Indeed, studies show that naming animals “food” facilitates disregard for the animal viewpoint. As soon as deer or pigs are approached as meat, empathy diminishes – how could one feel empathy for a piece of flesh? Food cannot have subjectivity, it is just chunks in your soup or liquid in your milk carton, so why would you care? Because of this, classifying animals as “food” – whether “live” or “dead” – is a like an act of magic, which suddenly makes the individual animal with her experiences, needs and memories disappear from sight.

The Scale of Destruction

The sheer amount of animal death and suffering is hard to comprehend. Globally at least 70 billion mammals and birds are slaughtered annually within the animal industries – ten times the amount of the human population. 70 billion. Yet, even this is only a small segment of the total amount of animals killed, leaving outside wild animals and enormous groups such as fishes, which are killed each year in their trillions. Trillions. As the human population is rapidly increasing, also these numbers will keep on growing, amounting to, not only unbearable animal lives and deaths, but also mass extinction pushing multitudes of species out of existence.

10 zeros, 12 zeros – who can take in these numbers? How to comprehend that this amount of individuals, all of whom had their own unique window into existence, their own memories, experiences and wants, lived and were killed due to human demand? When I try to grasp all of this, my thoughts get entangled and my emotions seek to escape to a place where one does not have to remember that raw horror and death, which Homo sapiens are routinely causing to their nonhuman kin.

At this very second billions of animals exist in claustrophobically minuscular cages, crates and barns, where their offspring are torn from them soon after birth, where the sunlight may never reach, and where the chaotic mix of ammonia, faeces, distressed animal sounds and petrified squabbling is the norm. To offer just a few examples, in many countries sows are forced to exist in farrowing crates, where they cannot actively nurture their young or even turn around. Hens are routinely kept in small cages that are as far from their natural habitats as Earth is from Jupiter. Calves are separated from their mothers, whom are left behind wailing for their young.

Both the Chinese “live animal markets” and Western animal factories originate from the same source: the reduction of animals into body parts and tissue, void of mindedness and inherent value.

Even sadistic acts of violence appear worryingly common, as undercover footage from various countries shows animals being kicked, punched, whipped with electric prods and even beaten to death. Even the law fails to protect animals. Often, the role of animal welfare legislations is to offer legal protection for keeping animals in conditions that in no way match their biological needs and capacities – they tend to serve the interests of farmers and corporations whilst downgrading and ignoring the possibility of “the good life” of other species.

Most of us know that animals pace anxiously in their cages and scream and fight when being killed, yet many say “they are just food”. Both the Chinese “live animal markets” and Western animal factories originate from the same source: the reduction of animals into body parts and tissue, void of mindedness and inherent value. The world is witnessing historically unprecedented use and obliteration of animal subjects. This is systemic, wasteful violence against life.

Wake Up

Homo sapiens has been named ”a global superpredator”, for humans kill other species around the globe without any significant risk to themselves. They (we) are everywhere, annihilating other animals and species ever-more rapidly. In a sense, humans have also become extreme parasites – a species that selfishly benefits from the surrounding world and its beings whilst doing them palpable harm. Yet, many fail to realise the true nature of what is happening. The parasitic species will not recognize its own harmfulness. In the West, humans also want to think that the fault is found from China or other far away places, not one’s own living room.

All around us thinking, feeling creatures are reared in hellish conditions just to be killed and eaten; the shelves of supermarkets and the plates on dinner tables are filled with the flesh of once-conscious beings.

Denial stands at the core of the problem. As the writer J.M. Coetzee has claimed, we are surrounded by unprecedented animal misery. All around us thinking, feeling creatures are reared in hellish conditions just to be killed and eaten; the shelves of supermarkets and the plates on dinner tables are filled with the flesh of once-conscious beings. Yet, many fail to notice that something is elementally wrong. Coetzee’s character Elizabeth Costello is pained by the horrifying absurdity of this all; how billions of conscious beings spend their short lives in desolation and are then killed whilst decent, civilized, seemingly good human beings lift pieces of their flesh onto their lips as if nothing strange was happening.

It seems that Homo sapiens is plagued by a virus much more severe than Korona. It is as if limitless greed, egoism and intellectual dishonesty has infiltrated the minds of many like an illness working its way through the brain tissue and preventing humans from recognizing the pained nonhuman realities – the fact that billions of animals suffer horrendously amidst perfectly ordinary human societies. Costello’s disbelief over the fact that this is let to continue is like a howl in the middle of a feverish, unwell world.

Indeed, the contrast between our self-perception and reality is vast. Many want to think of Homo sapiens as the most developed species of all – a moral and rational image of God or the pinnacle of evolution. However, in actuality, humanity is muddled by a shortsighted and irrational insatiability for evermore resources and ensuing aggressive ruining of the world around us. From the perspective of nonhuman nature, Homo sapiens is the opposite of a moral and rational creator – a source of constant and needless violence, destruction and death.

The same contrast is evident in everyday life. We want to believe in the inherent goodness of our conspecifics and societies. Amidst the environmental crisis and annihilation of animal life, ordinary human existence in the West continues in its own, secure bubbles that often consist of work, visits to the grocery store, Netflix and time spent with loved ones. The world is breaking apart, but many try to escape knowledge of this by retreating further into the comfort of their bubbles, thereby allowing the damage faced by other species to escalate. Echoing Hannah Arendt, there are mundane and banal shades of evil in our existence, and in this case they slice other species and nonhuman individuals into nonexistence.

This is particularly a problem formed by modern humans and industrial societies, which constructed the animal factories, reduced nature into a resource with its technology, and began to measure conscious life with stock prices. Modern, industrial people also need to be the solution to the crisis of their (our) own making. It is time to wake up from the virus-like fever-dreams, which prevent many from facing the reality. The final call to awaken to the value of other species and to demolish the egoistic ideologies that are annihilating life is sounding its alarm.

If anything, I hope that images from both the Chinese animal markets and Western animal factories stir us awake and into recognition of the fact that things need to change extremely fast.

Animals do not belong into cages in China or in the West; billions of conscious minds do not deserve frustrated lives and fearful deaths in the infernal animal industries designed by humans. Homo sapiens herself could be something far better than a destructive superpredator or a dreamful parasite gnawing the veins of the very nature, which gave birth to us all. If anything, I hope that images from both the Chinese animal markets and Western animal factories stir us awake and into recognition of the fact that things need to change extremely fast.

Costello ponders, why she cannot adapt to the society of annihilation just like everyone else. “Why can’t you, why can’t you?”, she asks. The answer is evident: she was woken up, and can no longer fall into the captivity of anthropocentric dreams.

References

Bar-On, Yinon M; Phillips, Rob; Milo, Ron (2018). ”The biomass distribution on Earth”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (25): 6506–6511.

Bratanova, B., Loughnan, S. & Bastian, B. (2011). ”The effect of categorization as food on the perceived moral standing of animals”. Appetite 57 (1): 193–196.

https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/our-work/animals-farming-supporting-70-billion-animals

The Burning Planet and Narcissistic Culture

7.1.20207.1.2020 Elisa Aaltola3 kommenttia

The world as we know it is vanishing. Species are dying and the climate is in crisis. Right now, the pre-historic Australian forests are on fire and hundreds of millions of animals, desperately trying to escape the flames, have been burning to death. The organic planet is heading for widespread destruction and also the future of humanity is under jeopardy. Still, many continue their daily lives as if nothing is happening. It seems as if reason has evaporated with the rising temperatures.

The discussion over the climate crisis tends to focus on politics and economics as if these were fields separate from the human mind. And yes: they have an enormous impact on how we live on this finite planet. They often direct our worldviews, lifestyles and daily decisions. But their current formulations, such as right-wing politics and free-market capitalism, originate from the darkest and most primitive corners of humanity – greed, egoism and search for power. Because of this, we cannot solve the climate crisis without exploring humanity and eradicating those aspects of ourselves, which only feed destruction. Many individuals care deeply and do their best. But why do so many look the other way?

Three groups on the edge of reason

One group of people evade information of what is happening and keep yelling at the world that climate science is wrong and everything is perfectly normal. In a state of dumbfounding ideological fervor, they insist that climate scientists across the globe have no idea, what they are talking about, and that Youtube videos with their bizarrely paranoid and illogical conspiracy theories are a far more reliable source of knowledge.

The failure to accept the reality, manifested by these two groups, is typical to human psychology. It has been explained with terms such as “willful ignorance”, “cognitive bias” or “cognitive dissonance”.

Another group of people accept the information on climate change but seek to forget it as they head to the supermarket with their kids, dreaming of buying that new car or vacations into the other part of the globe. When faced with climate science, extinction of multitudes of species and news of the looming catastrophe, they are acutely worried, but forget quickly so as to carry on living as usual. They remain the silent, passive majority, which failed to respond when there still was time.

The failure to face facts, manifested by these two groups, is typical to human psychology. It has been explained with terms such as “willful ignorance”, “cognitive bias” or “cognitive dissonance”. Whatever the terminology, in a state of such info-failure people run away from reason and knowledge; they become creatures whose heads are buried deep into the buckets of their own denial. The motivations of this free-falling escapism are understandable. The desire to have faith in a blossoming future, the need to believe that all will be well, can push us into refuting the severe realities of the present moment. We all do this to a certain extent; we are all cognitively biased and dissonant in many aspects of our lives. Yet, there are moments in this precarious human existence, when such failures of reason need to be cleared, and the climate crisis stands as the primary example. We all need to face the truths that the planet and its species are screaming at us in desperation.

The third group have the information and knowledge, but they hope to hide it from others. They ruthlessly take advantage of the crisis in order to serve their own political and economic interests. They orchestrate hugely successful PR-campaigns so as to polish the reputation of fossil fuels and various industries. Without mistake, they keep convincing the more gullible parts of the population that the climate crisis is nothing but a green conspiracy, “a climate cult”, that media coverage of species extinction and anthropogenic global warming is “fake news”, and that science cannot be trusted. Indeed, they place themselves as an authority over science, gleefully as in a grotesque parody declaring that they know better than all the scientists of this dying world. This group of people have manipulated relatively large segments of society into forsaking reason, science and knowledge. For them, it is the final act in the grand play of egoism, the last chance to gather as much wealth, political power and admiration of others into the arms of their grinning disregard and superciliousness.

A particularly poignant example comes from those leaders of the fossil fuel industries, who already in the 1980s funded climate science and, upon hearing the gloomy predictions, decided to actively hide knowledge, mock science, and lobby for oil and coal evermore visibly – just to add more zeroes into their bank accounts.

Many politicians and business leaders sit firmly in this group. They are not so senseless as not to know, what is happening. Instead, they are so ruthless as to exploit that knowledge and the widespread destruction of the natural environment and other animals to their own gain. A particularly poignant example comes from those leaders of the fossil fuel industries, who already in the 1980s funded climate science and, upon hearing the gloomy predictions, decided to actively hide knowledge, mock science, and lobby for oil and coal evermore visibly – just to add more zeroes into their bank accounts.

They are in charge of this ship, and they are navigating it straight toward a hell on earth.

This group is the lowest manifestation of humanity. It, too, can be characterized with various psychological terms, ranging from “narcissism” and “psychopathy” to “Machiavellian personality”. Regardless of the choice of term, these individuals are characterized by the inability to note inherent value outside of themselves, inability for genuine empathy and guilt, exceptional talent to manipulate others, a strong will for power, and a deeply self-centered worldview. Studies suggest that there are relatively many who come with such traits, and that they can be found often in the highest offices of politics and enterprise. They are aching to be admired, to have power, to get as much personal enjoyment and financial benefit as possible. They simply do not give a flying f-word about what happens to nature, other animals or even future generations of humans (their grandchildren) – at the centre stage of their existence is “Me”. They are in charge of this ship, and they are navigating it straight toward a hell on earth.

Those, who do not want to know or remember the facts of the current crisis, lack courage to face realities and the responsibility to alter their actions and lifestyles. Those, who take advantage of the ignorance and amnesia of others, lack moral fiber – the capacity to be “human” in the best sense of the word.

The Culture of Narcissism

David Brooks writes in his book The Road to Character (2015) that Western mentality has shifted radically in the past century. He offers a poignant example. The national US radio broadcast celebrating the end of WWII highlighted the meaning of humility. Although US had just won the war, the radio show reminded the nation of how the victory was a collaborative effort and how also winners need to remain humble. Still in the 1940s, bragging and shouting about one’s own excellence to the rest of the world was considered vulgar – virtuousness was, at least in this respect, still honoured. Today, even unadulterated boasting has become the norm. Brooks notes how victorious athletes run around the arena bragging about their achievements. It’s hard not to think of the biggest American boaster of all, Donald Trump, who has made self-aggrandizement into a carnival, and who keeps telling the rest of the globe how intelligent, great, rich, and successful he is (“I am the best!”).

One’s own, big self has been put under the limelight, and other things and beings have ceased to matter.

Grandiosity has replaced humility and vulgarity has become a point of braze – the order of things has tilted up-side-down, poles have shifted and made many too dizzy to remember, what is “good”. Indeed, Brooks suggests that narcissism is evermore prevalent. Sighting various statistics, he argues that narcissist traits have sky-rocketed in US. An increasing number of young folks want to be famous, get easy money, and have power, whilst many struggle with empathy and morality, even deeming the latter to be without meaning. “Me” and related words are those most commonly used, whilst words referring to virtues such as humility have become largely absent.

For Brooks, this is all part of the cult of “Big Me”, which focuses all attention on the self. “You are special”, “You should be accepted just as you are”, “Follow your inner voice”, “You are the best”, “You can achieve anything”, are among the slogans, which popular culture and self-help –literature have pushed into collective psyches so deeply that many have begun to demand that the world notice their extraordinary uniqueness. Humility, sacrifice, solidarity and duties have been swiped away from the scene, and even re-brandished as signs of “weakness”. One’s own, big self has been put under the limelight, and other things and beings have ceased to matter. At its best, morality has become synonymous with following positive feelings, whatever they may be – “If something feels good, it must be morally right”, argue egoistic minds. Everything that is uncomfortable or demanding is shoved into a box and sunk deep into the dying ocean.

Precisely this narcissistic culture has filled many of the highest seats of governments and industries with nothing less than self-serving megalomaniacs ready to manipulate the easily duped into believing that the climate crisis is not real. Individuals, who have absorbed the cult of Big Me readily accept and even admire the narcissistic traits of their leaders – they may even place their votes based on who dares to brag the most whilst ditching morality. They will consider shameless self-promotion as a desired attribute – after all, they take part in such promotion in their own lives. Those struggling with lack of power and identity-related insecurities may wish to identify with someone who dares to be ruthlessly self-serving, with the paradoxical hope that by being puppets of the egoistic leader, a drop of his glory will fall onto them. Egoism and boorish avoidance of responsibility have become points of glorification. When Trump opens his mouth full of lies, people buy MAGA-hats and turn their backs toward nature and other species with apparent disregard to the fact that narcissistic politics will also in the end ruin their own lives and those of their children.

Never trust a narcissist – particularly if you have the whole world to lose.

The logic is simple: if we become accustomed to value egoistic traits, we will also embrace them in those who hold most power. What we in so doing fail to remember is that egoistic traits are bound to lead to nothing but misery and annihilation. Never trust a narcissist – particularly if you have the whole world to lose.

Mark Lilla makes similar claims in his book The Once and Future Liberal (2018). Like Brooks, Lilla suggests that we are living in an era of narcissism. People are eager to advocate for themselves or their own identity-group, whilst the rest of the world is ignored. Lilla posits that social media has a large role to play in this growing ethos of self-emphasis. It pushes us to search for evermore likes to our heavily filtered self-image, whilst “the common good” – whether this be the whole of humanity or the planet – is lost in the cacophony of egoistic power-fights. Increasingly many want to be big individuals, who succeed in life, get more than they need on their plates, are noted and liked, and whose will is followed without counter-arguments. They yell for their rights without paying heed to their own duties. The worst of them search for the type of economic and political power that will dig an ever deeper grave for the environment, other animals and humanity.

Lilla argues that such big egos no longer recognise the relevance of fellow-feeling, duty and solidarity. Those, who search for followers for themselves, their political party or their business interests are not interested in what they can do for others. They live in a one-directed reality: the world is their playground, and they own nothing to that world. Lilla speaks of the “Facebook identity model”, which many have internalized into their minds, and which prioritises the attention we get to a heavily doctored presentation of ourselves. The individual, whose mind Facebook has molded, is obsessed with themselves in the virtual world, and oblivious of the external, material reality, and this is leading to unforeseen levels of egoism and radical individualism.

No wonder, if the planet is dying. The narcissistic culture fosters individuals, who are focused on their manufactured self-image, not reality. They see, what they want to see, and yearn for evermore advantage to themselves. For them, the rest of nature and nonhuman animals are nothing but resources, who exist for the sole purpose of feeding and pleasing humans. Duties toward others species, and the notion of fellow-feeling and solidarity with other animals, the desire to secure a common good for all on this shared planet, have become distant to many. Humans risk becoming imprisoned into their own “selves”, whilst the natural world with its astounding plethora of species, animal sounds, forests, mountains and oceans is replaced by the smartphone screen and compulsively produced virtual content. Such self-imprisoned beings will likely fail to fully understand, why the death of species, animals and natural surroundings is our biggest moral crime – all that death may even seem unreal, irrelevant.

When a narcissistic individual looks at images of Australia and its animals on fire, he may quickly become bored and keep on scrolling for more entertaining content. If someone reminds him that the planet is in a state of SOS and that he needs take responsibility and action NOW, he may loudly complain that he should not be “guilt-tripped”, and grow his carbon footprint evermore enormous.

The Myth of Inner Goodness

Brooks locates the belief in the inner, essential goodness of all human beings as one origin of the narcissistic culture. According to the myth of inner goodness, we all have a beautiful core, which just has to be found – and the method of finding it is endless self-appreciation. If you just believe in your own brilliance, everything is possible, and if things go awry, it is the fault of the external world. Yet, such belief in our inner goodness is false. We have no core, no deep, unchanging essence – it is all fiction. We are nothing but the sum of our choices and motivations. If you act selfishly and greedily, you are selfish and greedy. Here references to the goodness of your hidden inner layers are to no avail, for they do not exist. You are what you do.

Wholesale faith in human goodness is even an antithesis to morality, for it takes for granted something, which in reality requires constant, life-long practice.

Belief in the natural goodness of human beings is perhaps our greatest failing. It makes realistic self-knowledge and understanding of humanity impossible, whereby dark and violent deeds are hidden under endless understanding, anthropocentric hyperbole over human excellence, and excessive confidence in human virtue. Belief in such natural goodness is an inevitable antithesis to the will to change for the better: why challenge yourself and others, why try to become a better person, if you are already essentially good? Wholesale faith in human goodness is even an antithesis to morality, for it takes for granted something, which in reality requires constant, life-long practice. We are not born good or evil, but as creatures, who must actively choose which way they want to grow.

Humans have made an enormous amount of exceedingly bad choices and destroyed far too many animals and far too much nature. Particularly the affluent folks have been irrational, selfish, hellish cock-ups all too frequently. They (we) equal these choices, and if they (we) want to change, these actions need to be placed in the spotlight. It is time to face up to the mistakes humanity has made and do something about them – it is time to change, alter course drastically. And for us to become motivated to cultivate ourselves and our species, and to become wiser, more empathetic, rational, humble, gentle creatures, myths of inner, natural goodness need to be trashed.

This means that also overt understanding needs to stop. We need not keep searching for the good in the trumps of this world, so as to keep on forgiving their heinous actions. We should not remain quiet in the face of egoists hungry for power and wealth, let alone admire their repugnancy. Too much understanding and forgiveness allows destruction to spread. Instead, the moral failures of the narcissist era need to be exposed and condemned loudly, because – as things stand – the worst of humanity is winning and our species is regressing. Cultivating Homo sapiens to become more moral necessitates that we openly speak of the moral failures humanity is capable of and eradicate for good those traits and leaders, who are setting the world on flames.

A Question of Character

Brooks suggests that modern, Western humans have forgotten about the meaning of character. The same argument was put forward in the 1980s by the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who in his seminal work After Virtue described the manner in which modernity has overlooked the most important lesson taught by Greek philosophers: that we must refine ourselves to become more moral, build our moral fiber. Nobody is born ready-made, and instead a good human life requires cultivation of character, the learning of virtue. We must practice our reason, honesty, wisdom, compassion, resilience, courage, sense of justice – we must construct a moral backbone.

What do you do, when everything falls apart? Do you stand up straight or do you quit? Do you face realities or do you hide from them? Do you seek to better yourself or will you digress deeper into selfishness? Will you take responsibility or give up?

The modern, Western human being is often like a spoilt child, who ruins what surrounds him, swallows dying species into his gaping greed, bleeds animals into misery and nonexistence, and tears apart mountains in order to find minerals for the smartphones he takes selfies with. Morality is boring for such a child. Individuals used to the hectic virtual realities of social media will struggle to sit still in silence long enough to remember, why morality is needed in the first place. They want admiration and entertainment, not responsibility. The possibility of growing a moral backbone has been pushed outside the ever narrowing scope of attention. No wonder that the modern individual is thereby often unwilling to take responsibility for his actions toward the rest of nature and animals, and instead carries on with his mindless greed even when all around him is collapsing.

Homo sapiens may be at the brink of its final test, which will show whether we are capable of being good toward the planet and our trillions of fellow-creatures.

Brooks argues that times of crises test and manifest our character. What do you do, when everything falls apart? Do you stand up straight or do you quit? Do you face realities or do you hide from them? Do you seek to better yourself or will you digress deeper into selfishness? Will you take responsibility or give up? According to Brooks, crises ultimately test how well we can fight against the shadowy vices of humanity, such as greed, power and self-centredness. Can we silence The Big Me and its constant noise, and finally live in wisdom? Character does not come by itself. It is a process of growth that begins, when during a time of crisis, we look at ourselves, learn from mistakes and make better choices.

The climate crisis is a test of human character. Can humans face also the most anxious of facts, look at themselves in the mirror realistically, learn and change for the better, take responsibility, carry the consequences of their own mistakes, and help the world and its beings? Homo sapiens may be at the brink of its final test, which will show whether we are capable of finally being good toward the planet and our trillions of fellow-creatures.

Epigraph

Cultivating character leads to a loving, rational, honest and balanced existence, which does not give in to destructive yearnings and base egoistic impulses, faces facts even when doing so is uncomfortable, and tries to help and support the surrounding world with its forests, swamps, deserts, mountains and multitudes of flora and fauna. Cultivating character is moral strength and forms the most beautiful potential of our species.

Selfish desires for evermore personal pleasures, power and wealth – desires that have led to the environmental crisis and lifestyles that squash tens of billions of animals each year – are our greatest failure. It’s time to quiet the Big Me and its gaping mouth of narcissism, which is ready to eat the whole planet. It’s time to resign from moral weakness and grow into the moral adulthood of our species, now.

References:

Brooks, David. The Road to Character. Random House, 2015.

Jonason, Peter K, and Laura Krause. “The Emotional Deficits Associated with the Dark Triad Traits: Cognitive Empathy, Affective Empathy, and Alexithymia.” Personality and Individual Differences 55, no. 5 (2013): 532–37.

Lilla, Mark. The Once and Future Liberal. HarperCollins, 2017.

MacIntyre, Alisdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Indianapolis: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.

Akrasia and the Meat Paradox

7.11.2018 Elisa AaltolaJätä kommentti

Many individuals are plagued by what scholars call “the meat paradox”. Within its grip, one both values nonhuman animals as individuals, and consumes their flesh. The contradiction is striking and yet often ignored. This, again, means that everyday animal ethics – how one treats and values pigs and cows – remains in a state of tension and confusion.

From cognitive dissonance to strategic ignorance

Most scholars argue that the meat paradox can be explained via cognitive dissonance. In the clutches of such dissonance, one holds onto two conflicting beliefs – the belief that animal needs, experiences and lives matter, and the belief that it is acceptable to eat meat. The two are kept as if in separate realities, and thus a person struggling with the meat paradox can ignore moral questions when eating a steak, and forget about his steak-eating, when liking cute online videos of cows.

Scholars have claimed that also dissociation plays a vital role. Here, “live animals” and “meat” become distinct categories up to a point where no connections between the two are recognized. Thereby, a hapless omnivore may forget about the origins of her hamburger and act as if her meat-eating had nothing to do with the lives and deaths of nonhuman creatures. The source of meat simply disappears from view.

Indeed, the more one ignores the origin of meat (the living hen, fish or sheep), the more willing one is to consume animals.

Both cognitive dissonance and dissociation marginalize moral considerations at the time of buying or consuming meat. Studies by J. Kunst and S. Hohle (2016) show that when eating animal products, empathy toward those animals diminishes. When digging one’s teeth into fried fish or dairy ice-cream, one thereby momentarily skips animal-directed empathy and moral reflection. This is because the living, individual animal and her perspective – the very creature that invites empathy and moral concern – does not belong to the category of “eating animals”. Indeed, the more one ignores the origin of meat (the living hen, fish or sheep), the more willing one is to consume animals. It is this phenomenon that prevents everyday animal ethics from becoming consistent and capable of truly respecting and supporting the lives of other animals.

Dissonance and dissociation are encouraged by marketing. When companies advertise fleshy products, they rarely depict images of live animals, let alone mention the horrors of the animal industries. Instead, marketing focuses on inviting images of burgers or pizzas, often void of references to animal origins. When the omnivore is making her decision on the supermarket aisle, she is thus confronted with products that are disconnected from the plights and lives of animals – meat is wrapped in plastic, not in blood, fear and screams, and thereby it becomes easier to forget about ethical issues. Indeed, scholars have pointed out that in Western countries, meat is intentionally rendered abstract: there are no traces (eyes, heads, blood) of the animals in it.

As pointed out by Marleen Onwezen and Cor van der Weele (2016), the omnivore may also resort to “strategic ignorance”, whereby she may deliberately avoid information concerning the conditions in which animals are farmed and slaughtered, or downplay the mental abilities of cows and pigs. Researchers have found out that particularly animal agency (the animal as a minded, capable, living, feeling creature) is the target of strategic ignorance. Indeed, the mental abilities of those animals, whom are killed and eaten the most, tend to also be downplayed the most. Examples of such groups include chickens and fishes (one telling dimension of the denial of their individuality is the reference to these animals, not in plural, but in singular “chicken” or “fish”, as if they all were a copy of the same prototype).

Marketing supports strategic ignorance, and vice versa. When one is repeatedly offered advertising images, in which animals are reduced into meat, it becomes easy to avoid information about their mindedness. And when one willfully ignores the possibility that something might be inexcusably wrong in industrial agriculture, it becomes significantly easier to accept the messages of marketing, which portray such agriculture as morally innocent.

Bringing the animal back

Therefore, cognitive dissonance, dissociation, marketing and strategic ignorance of animal minds all enable the meat-paradox. Since marketing holds such a prominent position in consumeristic societies, and since humans all too easily resort to ignorance when it serves their own immediate benefit, the situation can appear rather gloomy. However, there is cause for hope.

First, dissonance and dissociation can be lessened by highlighting the living animal behind the product. When images and stories of individual pigs and hens are highlighted in the context of meat, it becomes significantly more arduous to keep living animals as a separate category from meat. Thereby, the connection between animals and animal products needs to be underscored – the animal whose body is utilized for meat, dairy and eggs deserves to be brought on the center stage.

Second, this will diminish also the impact of marketing, which either avoids references to living animals altogether, or offers the hungry omnivore idyllic representations of free roaming and perfectly happy cows or hens. Indeed, researchers have found that combining meat recipes with images of animals reduces people’s willingness to eat meat. This, again, means that stories of individual animals should be circulated and emphasized more widely in our cultures, ranging from the media to education, advocacy and everyday discussions over the dinner-table.

The implication is clear: reducing the meat paradox requires that both living, minded animals and the plights caused to them are highlighted.

What appears to make a crucial difference to the meat paradox is awareness of where the meat came from. Positive images and stories of animals are important, but research by Eric Andersson and Lisa Feldman Barrett (2016) shows that it is particularly information concerning the harms done within animal industries, which has the biggest impact. According to their studies, when people are told that meat comes from factory farming where animals are treated poorly, they evaluate the meat offered to them as much less appealing. They rate the meat to taste, smell and look worse, to be less fresh, and to be more fatty and salty. They also estimate that they would pay significantly less for such meat and be less likely to buy it. Indeed, in the test situation they are willing to eat less of the meat. The implication is clear: reducing the meat paradox requires that both living, minded animals and the plights caused to them are highlighted.

Third, by offering stories of and information concerning other animals, also strategic ignorance becomes much harder. Bringing forward the individual animal and her living conditions invites empathy, whereby the nonhuman creature becomes “a someone” rather than “a thing”, and this makes it significantly harder to deny animal mindedness and needs. Most importantly, empathy sparks moral reflection and concern – the very factors that offer the most potent challenge to the meat paradox.

Omnivore’s akrasia

There is also a further way to approach the meat paradox. “Akrasia” is an old philosophical term for a state, within which we go against what we know to be true or good. Arguably, it is often precisely “omnivore’s akrasia”, which leads people to act against their values both in the context of nonhuman animals and the environment. Most Westerners know that animal farming harms and violates the most basic needs of animals, and most also know that eating animals is destructive for the environment. Yet, many act against this knowledge.

Although contemporary psychologists have various highly valuable advices to give in order to combat the meat paradox, it is also fruitful to go back to the classic philosophers, who sought to understand akrasia hundreds or even thousands of years ago. What do they have to say about tackling the terrible paradox of human existence – that we often know what is good, and yet go against it?

In practice, this would mean that more emphasis should be placed on animal ethics, both on the individual and societal level.

One of these philosophers was Plato, who discussed akrasia in his dialogues Protagoras and Gorgias. A suggestion offered by Plato is that various wants and emotions mask as “good” that, which is actually “bad”. Therefore, the omnivorous akrates may know that harming animals and causing them suffering is morally wrong, and yet when the urge to eat a lobster dinner arises, she finds various excuses for her behavior, thus momentarily believing that what she is doing is justifiable. It may also be the emotion of yearning to be socially accepted within, say, a family of avid meat-eaters that prevents her from choosing differently. Plato argues that such movement between knowing and forgetting what is good leads people into constant states of ambiguity, where they “wander all over the place in confusion”. In a nutshell, one becomes lost in the bogs of self-directed needs and misleading emotions, and temporarily forgets one’s basic values.

This seems to describe the conflict of loving and eating animals quite aptly. Many are ambiguous and often confused with their relation to nonhuman creatures: moral values and self-directed desires and emotions lead into different directions, and making one’s mind up can be frustratingly difficult. Thus, one may simply come to accept the conflicts and ambiguities, and learn to ignore their strange tension, whereby simultaneous loving and eating becomes the norm. This is not the direction adviced by Plato, however. In his discussion on akrasia, he argues that we ought to notice the problem and cultivate our ability to follow the good. Whilst the psychologists discussing the meat paradox place emphasis on re-introducing the animal and her living conditions onto the scene, Plato thereby implies that the solution is found from re-configuring how we ourselves relate to others.

We are to look into what sorts of values we as individuals want to follow, and how we could cultivate ourselves so as to remember “the good” even when egoistic wants and emotions pull toward the other direction. Applying Plato’s thinking to the animal context, the solution to omnivore’s akrasia lies in cultivating our moral ability and clarity. In practice, this would mean that more emphasis should be placed on animal ethics, both on the individual and societal level. Perhaps reflections on how we ought to treat other animals should be encouraged already at the level of early education.

Another classic philosopher to speak of akrasia was Baruch Spinoza. In his book Ethics, this 17th century thinker spoke of a state of “bondage”, where we know what is good but act against it. For Spinoza, the source of akrasia was both the habit of following public, poorly reflected opinions (the sorts of popular beliefs that are often repeated by people and seldom reflected on) and the habit of following emotions entwined with such opinions (in contemporary terms, following the emotion of hate due to adopting the belief that people of different ethnic background are less worthy). The solution was simple: to aim for more rational beliefs and the sort of joy sparked by them. Spinoza suggested that when we observe the world as if from a distance, rationally and without prejudice, pure joy and even love may follow, as one gains a glimpse into the very nature of existence. It is this distance, knowing the world sub specie aeternitatis, that liberates from akrasia and guides us toward doing what is good.

Observing things from further away may reveal fundamental questions of our era. What is happening to this planet? What are we doing to other species? Who are we as species, and what sorts of values do we wish to follow?

Applying Spinoza to omnivore’s akrasia, it is the type of misleading beliefs concerning animals (“pigs are dirty”, “chicken are dumb”) which maintain a bondage over many. The media, education, and various other social institutions keep bombarding us with untruthful accounts of what types of creatures nonhuman animals are. They – and particularly marketing – also keep repeating untrue claims about animal farming, which lead many to believe that animals are treated perfectly. These beliefs may intertwine with emotions, such as contempt of animals or love of meat, which keep reaffirming akrasia. The consequence is familiar from above: the akrates loses track of her more rational and empathic values concerning animals, and bites into the burger.

From this perspective, the solution to omnivore’s akrasia (and indeed the meat paradox) would be simple: to take a step back from one’s immediate desires and the constant flux of social conditioning, and look at the greater scene also rationally. Observing things from further away may reveal fundamental questions of our era. What is happening to this planet? What are we doing to other species? Who are we as species, and what sorts of values do we wish to follow?

These sorts of questions are difficult, but when we find answers for them, a new type of joy and love may emerge. Here, becoming vegan is no longer considered as a sacrifice, but becomes a matter of living better, more rationally and joyously. By finally paying reflective attention to how our own actions – including those concerning what we eat – impact other species and individuals, our world becomes a far richer place, full of space for the needs, minds and experiences of all animals (human and nonhuman). Choosing to leave meat and other animal products becomes, thereby, not a chore, but rather a positive, rational and enabling act, which will increase the flourishing and joy of all species.

Perhaps, then, the solution to both the meat paradox and omnivore’s akrasia lies – not only in emphasizing animal mindedness and perspectives, and information concerning the abysmal conditions of animal industries – but also in approaching things differently by taking into account the bigger picture. The futures of other species and individuals lies in our human hands, and it is a matter of joy, rather than a sacrifice, to support the joyful lives of all.

(Art work: Street art; Dana Ellyn)

References

Aaltola, Elisa (2016) The Problem of Akrasia: Moral Cultivation and Socio-Political Resistance. In Paola Cavalieri (ed.) Philosophy and the Politics of Animal Liberation. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Aaltola, Elisa (2015) Politico-moral Apathy and Omnivore’s Akrasia: Views from the Rationalist Tradition. Politics and Animals 1:1.

Anderson, Eric & Barrett, Lisa Feldman (2016 )Affective Beliefs Influence the Experience of Eating Meat”. PLoS ONE 11 (8).

Bilewicz, M.; Imhoff, R. & Drogosz, M. (2011) The humanity of what we eat: conceptions of human uniqueness among vegetarians and omnivores. European Journal of Social Psychology 41 (2): 201-209.

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Dowsett, Elisha; Semmler, Carolyn; Bray, Heather; Ankeny, Rachel & Chur-Hansen, Anna (2018) Neutralising the meat paradox: Cognitive dissonance, gender and eating animals. Appetite 123: 280-288.

Kunst J.R. & Hohle, S. (2016) Meat eaters by disassociation: How we present, prepare and talk about meat increases willingness to eat meat by reducing empathy and disgust. Appetite 105: 758-774.

Kunst, J.R. & Haugestad, C. (2018) The effects of dissociation on willingness to eat meat are moderated by exposure to unprocessed meat: A cross-cultural demonstration. Appetite 120: 356-366.

Kupsala, Saara (2018) Contesting the meat–animal link and the visibility of animals killed for food: a focus group study in Finland. Food, Culture & Society 21(2): 196–213.
Loughnan, Steve; Bastian, Brock and Haslam, Nick (2014) The Psychology of Eating Animals. Current Directions in Psychological Science 23 (2): 104-108.

Loughnan, Steve; Haslam, Nick & Bastian, Brok. (2010) The role of meat consumption in the denial of moral status and mind to meat animals. Appetite 55: 156-159.

Onwezen, Marleen & van der Weele, Cor (2016) When indifference is ambivalence: Strategic ignorance about meat consumption. Food Quality and Preference 52: 96-105.