I suggest that these inherent sociological issues of the culture of meat eating create a problematic and strange dynamic: by relating to and identifying with anthropomorphized animals, arguably human-like characters, and then eating those selfsame animals, are we not acting symbolically cannibalistic? If we eat beings that we associate with human characteristics, does that not suggest that meat eaters are somehow cannibalistic in nature? These questions are particularly fascinating in relation to the way that our culture relates to the meat that we eat; we see images every day which represent the meat industry and convince us to consume their products. Not only do we take in these texts and their animal mascots but we also revere meat in a similarly worshipful way. In social settings, humans love to talk about eating flesh: the taste, the smell, and the entire experience is, in a sense, sensual or arousing. This, again, could be correlated to the way that society portrays women as pieces of meat (for example the typified “let me get some of that ass” or the like) to be taken in and consumed. The consumption of meat contradicts the way we lovingly anthropomorphize animals, how as children we form affective bonds with animal characters, and then perpetuate the cycle as adults. Evidently, breaking down the distinction between human and nonhuman animal is not effective in disrupting the cycle of meat eating, rather we use it to continue on the same projected path. My paper will explore why that is and what could effectively be done to change these deeply rooted cultural norms.

 

As humans, we have selfishly established that we have dominion over all things and are unwilling to relinquish that control; in contemporary economic thought, the earth belongs to man and everything else on this planet is here because we allow it to exist. Anthropocentric thought notwithstanding, this gets to change. We have come so far in technological advances as to allow us to have a better understanding of nonhuman animals and their experience of life that we cannot blindly continue on this path of torture. Through the use of this knowledge, we can create a new reality, one which all sentient beings can exist in a way that does not endorse cruel practices as normal or acceptable. This idea does not seem impossible: we must simply pursue the options available to us and apply them to all areas of farming, including the end of viewing farming as industrial or profit-driven. Humans are irrevocably entwined with nonhuman animals; the connection between us is too important to ignore. And as argued here, our differences are negligible and therefore dismissible in ethical discourse. We must end practices which we would not perform upon ourselves, because humans and nonhuman animals are necessarily one in the same.

This tradition of eating meat is passed down to our youth along with all of its previously indicated speciesist and sexist implications, generally without a second thought. It may seem extreme to boil down these issues to words with such strong negative connotations but it is only logical to make these leaps given the evidence presented in these various studies. Then, why do we continue to believe that the processing and consumption meat are not ethical or political issues?

This status quo of human domination stems from years of indoctrination into Western philosophy. The concept of humans being greater than all other nonhuman animals derives from Aristotle’s classification of animals and the scala naturae, or Great Chain of Being, which positions humans above all other living things simply because humans can reason. Aristotle’s thought that man is a political animal who must live a “uniquely human life”, but that all other animals are dismissively fit for nothing more than a “life of pleasure” (Roberts 187). The tradition of privileging humans over all other nonhuman animals has since generally been accepted in Western society, leaving little reason to doubt this widely established perceived truth. However, those who do not believe that animals exist solely for human use and consumption have worked tirelessly to break down this harmful binary.

           

There is a multitude of epistemological literature on the nature of the connection between humans and nonhuman animals. Within the discipline, there is a general consensus that “characteristics that supposedly elevate humans to a privileged ethical position in relation to other creatures are either present in nonhumans or irrelevant for purposes of ethical discourse” (Cassuto 60). This essentially means that the differences between human animals and nonhuman animals are infinitesimal and should not be cited as reasons for excluding animals in consideration for ethical treatment; if we are to accept this as true, then any anthropocentric arguments should be eliminated from discussion. That is to say, that positioning humans over animals is unethical, and therefore any inhumane practices performed on farm animals should be eradicated. Many counter arguments include a Kantian avenue of thought that only humans are allowed entry into the moral community, and because nonhuman animals are not humans they do not receive the same considerations. But, as previously implied, trying to define differences between humans and nonhuman animals, even via biological argument, is illogical and faulty at best

 

---the larger implications of this paper are just to get people to think about the signifier/signified and the idea that we do all these things, and we say all these words and phrases and we don’t stop to think about it. We are so alienated from our lives in so many ways, we feel that we are such a connected society and we are empathetic but we’re not. We are a very disconnected, alienated people and our ritualistic way of living proves that.