Why We Love Dogs Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism

Carnism is the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals. Carnism is essentially the opposite of veganism; “carn” means “flesh” or “of the flesh” and “ism” denotes a belief system. Most people view eating animals as a given, rather than a choice; in meat-eating cultures around the world people typically don’t think about why they find the flesh of some animals disgusting and the flesh of other animals appetizing, or why they eat any animals at all. But when eating animals is not a necessity for survival, as is the case in much of the world today, it is a choice - and choices always stem from beliefs.

I talked about this author a couple weeks ago, after listening to her basic presentation.  Her opening is imaging yourself at a dinner party and eating a delicious stew.  You ask for the recipe and it turns out it is dog meat.  This horrifies you, but then the host laughs and says she was just kidding.  It's "only" beef.  Well, that's fine.  Let's eat!

Not really.  The small volume [about 150 pages plus resource section and notes] itself grew out of her doctorate work and is one half typical facts on how animals deserve our respect, the harm of the current system, a resource section and so on -- the now typical thing for someone familiar with the literature -- half her own specific focus.  As one bio notes:

Melanie Joy, Ph.D. is a social psychologist and professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She researches carnism, the ideology of meat production and consumption.

The general idea is that humans form certain ideas (schema) to frame reality and in various ways this has led to a fictional view of animals. This is helped by re-enforcing an optional (and suboptimal) way of doing things, including by making it seem necessary, natural and normal.  Once upon a time, someone like Descartes could imagine dogs were mere machines. Now, things are a bit better, but we do have the somewhat strange reality of concern for let's say whales, while millions of animals are mass produced (telling choice of word -- they are things, in "factory" farms)  in horrible conditions that are hidden away for a reason. 

She ends with a sense of optimism, one less prevalent by some at the blog where a few years later I first saw a reference to the book.  Like myself, the blog is vegan (seems the three main contributors, two married to each other, are vegan -- they surely all are vegetarians), while generally talking about other matters.  I referenced the work of Temple Grandin, an autistic animal expert, who used her special view of the world to reduce stress in animals being led to slaughter.  She has written her belief that animals deserve our respect and has been honored by PETA. But, at least then, her efforts did not impress the bloggers.  Easing the welfare of animals may make us feel better, but the evil of animal production continues.

As I noted there, found that a rather extremist and unrealistic view, change coming over time.  Dr. Joy (some name!) seems to be more open to reform as part of our "witnessing," which has an individual and social character. A "witness" is someone who sees something and also someone who tells others about it -- like in court. "Witnessing" has a religious connotation (e.g., Jehovah Witness), a matter of spreading the word, including by example.  It is hard, as she says, when the system fortifies the alternative, it hurts to face injustice, we feel powerless to change and it compels us to see need for change ... often hard to do. 

The importance of seeing things are they truly are is not only to me a more interesting and fulfilling means of doing things, but is necessary to truly reform and change things.  As noted in the book, imperfect schema and so forth (including disassociating oneself from bad things as we go about our daily tasks)  is on some level truly normal, necessary and natural.  Still, at some point, we go off the rails. 

Recently, e.g., I was reading about Prigg v. Pennsylvania, an important antebellum case involving fugitive slaves. A telling point here is that "Prigg" was the slave catcher.  The putative slave [Margaret Morgan] and her children (one born while she was in free territory) is already somewhat off-screen.  The opinion itself by Justice Story, a nationalist Northerner, spoke about "property" in slaves being at stake. The actual clause in question (as Lincoln might note) references "persons." The "personal liberty" law deemed unconstitutional given the supremacy of national law and the rights of slave-owners looks a lot less problematic if the concerns of free Northern blacks were taken into consideration:

If any person or persons shall, from and after the passing of this act, by force and violence, take and carry away, or cause to be taken or carried away, and shall, by fraud or false pretense, seduce, or cause to be seduced, or shall attempt so to take, carry away or seduce, any negro or mulatto, from any part or parts of this commonwealth, to any other place or places whatsoever, out of this commonwealth, with a design and intention of selling and disposing of, or of causing to be sold, or of keeping and detaining, or of causing to be kept and detained, such negro or mulatto, as a slave or servant for life, or for any term whatsoever, every such person or persons, his or their aiders or abettors, shall on conviction thereof, in any court of this commonwealth having competent jurisdiction, be deemed guilty of a felony.

The law was not intended to block lawful retrieval of fugitive slaves, but to prevent the wrongful seizure of free individuals. The "problem" was that there was a federal law in place that provided a simpler means to retrieve slaves and also it was felt that the fugitive slave provision itself provided a means to so oneself.  In effect, it provided a "self-executing" right to retrieve slaves, which is a possible, but not necessary reading.  The comparison that comes to mind are treaty obligations. They might set forth obligations, but they need not be self-executing.  This is more so the case when other concerns, including those involving the "home" states or nations in question.  The Bill of Rights adds further complications.

The various justices split on the specifics here though even Justice Taney accepted (explicitly in Kentucky v. Dennison, overruled by Puerto Rico v. Branstad) that forcing states to act was not something the federal government could do, even if the states had a duty to act.  This still left opened the idea that states might unconstitutionally get involved in the process, such as nationalist slave state Justice Wayne arguing the clause should be interpreted to make the matter exclusively a federal matter. Justice McLean was alone in suggesting (scholars have noted it is somewhat unclear just what the bottom line of all the opinions were) the law might be acceptable if it did not block the owner from separately going to federal officials to get certificate of ownership.

The law reflected a reality that limited federal resources left the matter largely up to states and local officials.  Such officials might not want to get involved or (as time showed) actively were against the efforts of retrieving fugitives.  This is understandable, but early efforts showed that the North was fairly supportive of the efforts, including courts building a fiction that the late in the day add-on fugitive slave provision was a "historical necessity" to passing the Constitution and though "persons" were involved here, slip-shod proceedings that would not even allow the putative slave to testify passed constitutional muster. 

Bottom line, some degree of good faith was there and it was reasonable to have laws to protect the wrongful kidnapping of non-slaves.  It helped, however, if Margaret Morgan (the Wikipedia entry tells us she was in a weak form of slavery even before running away, the problem arising when heirs wanted her back ... she eventually was sold and lost from history, according to the Oxford Guide to the Supreme Court entry by Paul Finkelman), especially the child born on free soil, is kept out of the picture.  If we just worry about "property," even though the Constitution speaks of slaves as "persons," and ignore the possible wrongful seizures that would horrify if white people were involved, things go down better.

The book made a few too many references to Nazi Germany -- Godwin's Law comes to mind, even if it is not violated when the references are legitimate -- but the mentality behind such evils does come up in carnism too.  The matter is skewered even by those who are horrified by slavery and speak from current times. The book itself confuses the 3/5 Compromise to mean that slaves were considered 3/5 persons, not just in the context of allotting representatives.  Imagine a white father in 1839.  By "self-help," some "agent" of a "property" owner comes and seizes his wife (a light skinned black that could pass as white) and children, including one born in Ohio.  He might wonder how a state anti-kidnapping law that merely required some basic safeguards was unconstitutional.

Being told this was impossible, that it was "indispensable" in fact to the security of the union and slavery would not help much.  He might suggest that it really was not. Putting aside that quite few slaves actually fled, maybe hundreds a year, into the North. Assuming the slavery was acceptable, or at least the law of the land accepted its presence.  He would wonder why it was not possible to provide a means to retrieve "property" but still prevent the wrongful seizure of "persons."  He might also wonder why the laws of the other state as to the "slavery follows the mother" rule would even apply when the child in question was born on free territory.

Of course, he had a somewhat different perception of things. Likewise, the set-up leads to a certain new normal, including making certain things a problem.  If we went down this path, we might wonder about the treatment of slave "persons" overall.  An open examination, an open "witnessing" of things after all did lead to many, even some in slave areas, to turn against the practice.  It was basically dangerous to open this door.  Some did, however, some was able to view things differently.  The personal liberty laws themselves, limited as they might have been in practice, was an important step in the process.  A matter of principle.

At around this time, animal welfare was also beginning to come into force, including in Great Britain.  Jeremy Bentham, for instance, suggested:

“The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer?”

This book makes it clear they do and helps explain how we avoid thinking about the implications.