I always assumed butchers get desensitized and lack any empathy for animals. I was wrong, James McWilliams has an eyeopener in Loving Animals to Death:
In addition to insisting that it “doesn’t really matter” whether it’s morally wrong to raise and kill animals, Foer also explained that this “question is the least relevant to the choices we make on a daily basis.” In other words, because our culture is so deeply infused with animal products, it makes little practical sense to investigate the morality of eating animals. People don’t care. I might have agreed with Foer before last semester, when I helped teach a course called Eating Animals in America. But in that class, something happened that opened my eyes to the Food Movement in a new way. We had read Timothy Pachirat’s Every Twelve Seconds, a graphic look into the workings of an industrial slaughterhouse. In our discussion, one student—an elaborately tattooed Iraqi war veteran, Purple Heart, competitive weight lifter, and active Texas rancher—told his classmates, all of whom were disgusted by what they’d read, that there was a better way. There was, he insisted, an entirely different way to go about treating cattle. My colleague and I asked this student—let’s call him Mike—if he’d be willing to open the next class by describing how he handles slaughtering cattle on his family’s ranch, where they kill two cows a year for personal consumption. He generously agreed.
Mike began by explaining how horrified he was by Pachirat’s description of the way that the industrial operation’s cattle were treated. He was visibly angered. His hands were balled in fists. Having grown up around cattle and admitting that “I have this special thing for cows,” even more than his dogs, he said that slaughtering his animals with dignity was of the utmost importance. Mike described how his family cared for the calves, nurtured maternal bonds, made sure that the animals had access to open pasture during nice weather and shelter from storms, monitored feed, never had to administer antibiotics or vaccines, and showered the animals with physical affection. Lots of scratches and rubs. And then he took a deep breath, looked at the class with icy blue eyes, and began to explain how, to kill the cow humanely, you had to create a quiet atmosphere, make sure the knife was sharp, gather the whole family around, and … and then he paused. He looked shocked for a second as his voice caught in his throat. His eyes darted around the room at his fellow students, who were dead silent. He took another deep breath and began to talk about severing the spinal cord. And then he was overcome. I sensed that a cathartic moment was coming and so looked hard at his eyes as they began to fill up with tears. The only thing I remember thinking was that this rancher is seeking a new path that nobody is providing. And that there’s no way he is alone.
In addition to insisting that it “doesn’t really matter” whether it’s morally wrong to raise and kill animals, Foer also explained that this “question is the least relevant to the choices we make on a daily basis.” In other words, because our culture is so deeply infused with animal products, it makes little practical sense to investigate the morality of eating animals. People don’t care. I might have agreed with Foer before last semester, when I helped teach a course called Eating Animals in America. But in that class, something happened that opened my eyes to the Food Movement in a new way. We had read Timothy Pachirat’s Every Twelve Seconds, a graphic look into the workings of an industrial slaughterhouse. In our discussion, one student—an elaborately tattooed Iraqi war veteran, Purple Heart, competitive weight lifter, and active Texas rancher—told his classmates, all of whom were disgusted by what they’d read, that there was a better way. There was, he insisted, an entirely different way to go about treating cattle. My colleague and I asked this student—let’s call him Mike—if he’d be willing to open the next class by describing how he handles slaughtering cattle on his family’s ranch, where they kill two cows a year for personal consumption. He generously agreed.
Mike began by explaining how horrified he was by Pachirat’s description of the way that the industrial operation’s cattle were treated. He was visibly angered. His hands were balled in fists. Having grown up around cattle and admitting that “I have this special thing for cows,” even more than his dogs, he said that slaughtering his animals with dignity was of the utmost importance. Mike described how his family cared for the calves, nurtured maternal bonds, made sure that the animals had access to open pasture during nice weather and shelter from storms, monitored feed, never had to administer antibiotics or vaccines, and showered the animals with physical affection. Lots of scratches and rubs. And then he took a deep breath, looked at the class with icy blue eyes, and began to explain how, to kill the cow humanely, you had to create a quiet atmosphere, make sure the knife was sharp, gather the whole family around, and … and then he paused. He looked shocked for a second as his voice caught in his throat. His eyes darted around the room at his fellow students, who were dead silent. He took another deep breath and began to talk about severing the spinal cord. And then he was overcome. I sensed that a cathartic moment was coming and so looked hard at his eyes as they began to fill up with tears. The only thing I remember thinking was that this rancher is seeking a new path that nobody is providing. And that there’s no way he is alone.
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