Do carrots feel pain?
Natalie Portman is giving up eggs and milk. She writes on HuffPo:
Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a vegan activist. I’ve always been shy about being critical of others’ choices because I hate when people do that to me. I’m often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., “What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what’ll you eat?”).
With that kind of radical anti-pain attitude, the next thing Portman will oppose is probably abortion. Seriously. I’m still figuring out my own position on pro-life issues, but it sure is strange when Hollywood stars tell you that the one issue they get evangelical about is the mistreatment of animals.
Coincidentally, I was friends with Foer back in high school and college. (Yes, I am name-dropping.) I am a huge fan of his first novel, Everything Is Illuminated. In case you were curious, he is just as funny and clever in person as he is in writing.
You can get the flavor of his latest book from his recent essay in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting we may as well eat our dogs.
It’s hard not to be ashamed by the casual, pointless cruelty often inflicted on various animals on the way to our tables. But if you fundamentally believe that we have a right to kill and eat lesser creatures, even by the million, then it’s hard to treat their suffering as a priority. I get more worked up about human rights and healthcare reform.
But I haven’t read the book yet. So I’ll order a copy and see if an old friend can change my mind.
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2 Comments - add your own
Drew — November 11, 2009 at 11:07 am
I’m not sure what it means to say that their suffering is not “a priority” because there are more important issues to get worked up about.
Certainly, this isn’t a particularly sensible argument in other contexts because a) the argument that there are worse wrongs is rarely accepted as a good excuse for flat out choosing to continue to do something that’s wrong b) “priority” implies that taking the suffering of animals into account somehow takes time away from more important issues, like human rights. But in this case, it’s not clear that it (or at least personally not eating meat) would steal time away from any of those more important issues.
That said, I’m not sure personal vegetarianism actually does much good at all in addressing the problem of animal suffering: any more than personal recycling does much good in addressing the problem of human beings producing too much waste.
I think the only way we’ll ever really plausibly solve the problem of animal suffering is by creating sources of meat production that are both cheaper and cannot feel pain.
paralyzed cows? — November 15, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I say, ‘taste the pain.’ Painless is tasteless. That’s why organic is better – heartier food with a history, suffering, resilience – with a life full of struggle, but worth missing – is the only thing worth putting in my mouth. Keep your frankenfood for the zombies, I’d rather remain human a little while longer.