the animal machine

The New York Times today ran this op-ed on changing the way farmed animals experience pain. By genetically engineering animals whose brains, while experiencing the sensation of pain, don't experience it as something altogether unpleasant, they are, in a way, numb: they become the animal machines that Descartes so foolishly claimed them to be. This purportedly would remove much of our guilt in perpetuating the awful methods we use in industrial farming. The piece concludes:

If we cannot avoid factory farms altogether, the least we can do is eliminate the unpleasantness of pain in the animals that must live and die on them. It would be far better than doing nothing at all.

This is an interesting path to pursue, and it's hard to disagree with innovations that lessen the suffering of animals (which is my whole motivation for writing this blog, after all). I've thought about this before. If we can engineer animals that grow at unnatural rates, whose flesh we manipulate so that the majority of the animal is our preferred lean breast meat, then why not engineer animals that are almost entirely insensate, both physically and mentally? Since we have the technology to turn sensitive creatures into meat-making machines, why not take the last step and make them completely senseless? It is, after all, for their own good.

I think the barrier to pursuing this to its "rational" end is the fact that these animals must be heavily genetically modified. People are afraid of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), despite the fact that they consume them all the time without really noticing. Those chickens that are mostly lean breast meat? Do you think those happened naturally? I've done some research in the past on genetic modification, and came to the confident conclusion that tinkering with genes in a lab is, practically, no different than breeding turkeys to the point where they can no longer naturally reproduce (because of those big, lean, white-meat breasts). But where "natural" breeding is unquestioned, GMOs scare the pants off of us because it's new and because chimeras have always been objects of fascination and repulsion. We eat GMO corn and soybeans but talking about GM animals is too much for our delicate sensibilities to handle.

I have two reactions to this and I'm not sure which of them is "correct". Let's start with the practical one:

Get over it! If GMOs are scary because they're unnatural, what do you call confining a genetically fucked-up animal to a space where she can't move a step in any direction? What do you call chickens producing abnormally gigantic eggs in total darkness at a rate four times that of what their normal, non-modified cousins in the barnyard did? Animals who never inhabit the world they were evolved for, whose basic needs to bathe, stretch, forage, create community and care for their young are completely thwarted, who are fed diets of their ground-up compatriots and never touch the ground or breathe unfiltered air--is that natural? Oh hell no it isn't. If we've already messed with these genetics for our benefit, why not finish the job for their benefit? They live and die for our preferences and tastes; it's hard to deny them this one small thing simply because we're scared it might not be natural.

And then the ethically consistent response: These creatures aren't ours, we shouldn't have messed with them in the first place, so what right do we have to take away any opportunity for an actual life?

The thing that really bothers me, though, is this: at one point, the author (a neuroscience grad student) states:

We are most likely stuck with factory farms, given that they produce most of the beef and pork Americans consume.

This kind of thinking is not productive, nor is it healthy. We've overcome some awful habits in our past as humans. I believe this exact reasoning justified the perpetuation of slavery in the United States for a good fifty years past the rest of the Atlantic community. It's bad reasoning, it's lazy morality, and we can do better.

more on the vegan-fearin'

The fat white men at HumaneWatch are affiliated with (paid by) Berman & Co., lobbyists for such philanthropic groups as Outback Steakhouse, Wendy's, and Hooters. Scan the article on SourceWatch for more.

PRWatch.org:

A front group is an organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other party or interest whose sponsorship is hidden or rarely mentioned. The front group is perhaps the most easily recognized use of the third party propaganda technique. One of the best examples is Rick Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), which claims that its mission is to defend the rights of consumers to choose to eat, drink and smoke as they please. In reality, though, CCF is a front group for the tobacco, restaurant and alcoholic beverage industries, which provide all or most of its funding.

From ABC7News:

David Martosko: "I don't know the firms that send the Center for Consumer Freedom money. I don't want to know. It's not my business to know."

straw man fears vegan assault

I have been trying for the last two hours to not write about this, partially because I have so many other things to do and partially because I am mad. I don't know if I will be able to contain my vitriol. Then again, I've been told my vitriol is one of my best and most charming features (good thing? bad thing? I choose to embrace it).

...Humane Watch has launched, aimed at reporting about the activities of [the Humane Society of the United States], from a pro animal industry perspective.

Humane Watch is "keeping an eye" on the HSUS, which they accuse of being bloated, vaguely corrupt, and (GOD FORBID) secretly devoted to animal rights. As opposed to welfare, which the HW's writer David Martosko doesn't have a problem with. It's just those crazies who think animals are individuals and deserving of consideration he doesn't like.

While most of the blog is couched in pretty moderate terms (don't want to alienate the readers or let on that maybe the author's not the "animal lover" he claims to be), the repeated implications that animal activists are dangerous ("vegan army", assurance that any threats from the "violent subculture" of animal rights will be reported) are just more propaganda supporting the erroneous ideas about animal rights that agribusiness and the media toss around. There is a dismissive, patronizing tone throughout that implies only fools believe animals are worth something aside from their uses to people. And it's written by a pudgy white dude.

It is clear from the slick design and the media fart surrounding its launch that the blog has some money behind it. At the bottom it announces: All content © 2010 Center for Consumer Freedom. The Center for Consumer Freedom is "working hard to protect your right to have the truth about the activists who threaten your favorite foods." (Poor foods!) Who are they, actually? They are "supported by over 100 companies and thousands of individual consumers... Many of the companies and individuals who support the Center financially have indicated that they want anonymity as contributors. They are reasonably apprehensive about privacy and safety in light of the violence and other forms of aggression some activists have adopted as a 'game plan' to impose their views, so we respect their wishes."

So: fuzzy, is it not? Who are those hundreds of companies? And what companies own those companies? They can't possibly disclose because of the dangerous "vegan army" prowling at their doors, but otherwise, if it weren't for those crazy animal rights people, they'd be transparent, serious they would. They're just scared of the vegans, is all.

(I'd be interested to know how many vegans these people actually know, for most of the vegans and vegetarians I know--quite a few--detest violence in any form. But it seems like reality would not be particularly useful to their reactionary drama.)

How much of this is about "consumer freedom", as they say, and how much of it is freedom as defined and funded by agribusiness?

Perhaps this sounds paranoid. Okay, you got me! I'm paranoid! I am absolutely not willing to trust any form of corporate organization. Not even non-profits. I am not a member of PETA, I have never given money to HSUS. I won't invest in anything that's not absolutely transparent. If I spend a few hours playing with the dogs at the Seattle Animal Shelter, or if I bring a bag of nutritious food or a blanket to them, those things that I am giving go to the animals. If I give them money, who knows what the fuck they will do with it?

I don't trust them.

And if I don't trust animal welfare organizations, or even animal rights organizations, I am sure as hell not going to trust a group rallying against "self-anointed 'food police,' health campaigners, trial lawyers, personal-finance do-gooders, animal-rights misanthropes, and meddling bureaucrats."

Bunch of fat white Republican men, it sounds like to me.

Do I now cry conspiracy? Why bother? It's clear that agribusinesses have their shiny pates up many asses at once, that they influence legislature (why is dairy a necessary component of the human diet according to the USDA when 25% of humans are lactose intolerant?) and aren't afraid to manipulate the media (vegan fucking army?). It's clear that honesty is not particularly important to them (shit in the meat, guys. they are literally and figuratively feeding us bullshit).

Are Humane Watch and its pudgy white dude author a straw man? Not at all: says right at the bottom of the page, they're sponsored (paid) by the Center for Consumer Freedom. Who bankrolls the CCF, though? If only they weren't so frightened of the vicious animal crazies, maybe I wouldn't be so skeptical.

from UW News

From uwnews.org:

Radical new directions needed in food production to deal with climate change
Yields from some of the most important crops begin to decline sharply when average temperatures exceed about 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 Fahrenheit. Projections are that by the end of this century much of the tropics and subtropics will regularly see growing season temperatures above that level, hotter than the hottest summers now on record.

Regardless of what your views on climate change are (and I myself am confused by all the competing "science", hence the birth of my own internal "why do we trust so much of this science anyway?" debacle), this is a frightening prospect. Heavy reliance on monocrops means that our whole food system balances precariously on a few delicate variables.

The challenge is becoming more difficult, the scientists said, because the world's population is likely to have increased more than 30 percent, to 9 billion people, by 2050.

It's positive that we are trying (with ham-fists, but trying) to confront this before it becomes too great of a problem. However, it seems like science is trying to solve this problem with genetic modification of food crops--manipulating plants to produce even more corn and soybeans on ever-smaller amounts of herbicide-soaked earth. The situation, as solved by UW scientists, involves more questionable practices with poorly-understood consequences, instead of actual, radical solutions: an end to monocropping, an end to investing grain in wasteful meat production, and starting a productive dialogue about overpopulation.

a whole new exciting way to avoid admitting that eating meat is wrong!

An article from October in the New York Times addresses the new "foodie" trend of butchering as art. The classes and seminars (only for the rich, it seems--one internship is 10,000$) feature people who want to know where their food is coming from, what happened to it, and ensure its purity. It seems that these are mostly people who recognize the ethical issues inherent to the killing of sentient beings for their flesh, and are trying to avoid actually confronting the problem. One girl says:

“I feel like if I’m going to eat meat... I don’t want to eat stuff that I haven’t had to work for.”

Does "working for" something you find morally questionable make it any better? Or does it just distract you from the fact that the practice does not sit well with you? The sense of having come through an ordeal--challenging oneself--can be reward enough to overlook the initial problem entirely. Simply proving you can watch an animal die doesn't change the fact that the animal dies.

Killing someone with your hands doesn't change the fact that you're killing someone. No matter how humane you are, you're still taking something of theirs--their most important of all somethings, everything they have--for the minor human pleasure of bacon.

One participant wrote, powerfully:

Animals do not want to die... They can feel pain and fear, and, just like us, will struggle to breathe for even one single more second. If you’re about to run 250 volts through a pig, do not look it in the eyes. It is not going to absolve you.

interspecies love

and not in a creepy way either!

the ethics of breeds

If you love dogs and haven't seen Pedigree Dogs Exposed, scroll down, find it, and just watch the first ten minutes if you can't spare the time. If you couldn't figure it out from the wheezing pugs waddling painfully down the sidewalk, the bulldogs hyperventilating and suffering heat stroke, the almost-universal experience of knowing a lab or German shepherd whose life ends prematurely when they can no longer use their hind legs--then let's paraphrase all that suffering: Many breed standards are incredibly unhealthy for the dogs they describe. The KC and AKC subscribe to the wholesale mangling of dogs for aesthetic purposes. And while I am the first to admit that French bulldogs are damn cute, it's less cute when someone you love is suffocating in your arms. Ever helped an asthmatic through a terrifying attack, or watched someone suffer a severe allergic reaction? Would you intentionally force that on a child? What if it guaranteed that this suffering's side effects would leave them "cuter" and adhering to some made-up and changeable list of desirable physical traits?

That's the Kennel Clubs for you.

The same is true for certain cat breeds, although the show circuit is much less celebrated. But the relatively small number of cat breeds (80, versus the 150 dogs recognized by the AKC) and the astronomically high number--98%!--of companion cats who are just plain ol' barn cats ("domestic short/longhair" if you want to get fancy) leaves most cats better off than dogs.

In addition to the horrible condition of many "pure" breeds, the fact remains that buying a companion animal from a breeder is hardly justifiable when so many are waiting for homes in shelters.

PETA (not by any means my favorite people, but often the only actual experience the public has with animal rights activism) has this to say about buying a dog from a "responsible breeder":

...as long as dogs and cats are dying in animal shelters and pounds because of a lack of homes, no breeding can be considered "responsible."

Simply put, for every puppy or kitten who is deliberately produced by any breeder, a shelter animal dies.

Which is a powerful argument. But if for some reason words don't do it for you, try the bludgeon approach:

Charming, as always.

With all of these factors in place, it seems like buying a purebred puppy is a terrible idea. It's hard to justify. Watch me try to justify it.

My previous life as a professional dog-breed identifier, aspiring trainer, and puppy-gawker rages against this. Part of me loves the diversity of breeds. I covet the Doberman pinscher . I grew up with distinctly different terriers. There are certain breeds that are heart-wrenchingly gorgeous, some known for particular intelligence, and some with long histories. I have a hard time divorcing my fascination with breeds from my love of dogs in general.

Keeping distinct breeds does not have to involve suffering. There are many breeders who disagree just as vehemently with breed standards as many activists--this is especially prevalent among breeders of working dogs. Breeds like German shepherds, once prized for their working abilities, have been bred to standards that actually preclude their doing the job they were created for. So there is an undercurrent in these breeds that is determined to "save" them, breeding to older, more reasonable standards, or ignoring standards entirely and simply breeding good working dogs to other good working dogs, regardless of what they look like. There have also been movements in extremely problematic breeds, like English bulldogs, to return to an older version of the animal that doesn't suffer the way the modern dog does. The Victorian Bulldogge is exactly that kind of breed: a retro-bred bloodline determined to preserve the unique qualities of the breed while not sacrificing its health. Despite the extraneous vowels, I think the Olde Victorian Bulldogge is on to something. Solving the problems within breeds is one of the necessary steps towards healthier dogs.

There is also the question of dog "sports". Things like obedience and agility in the U.S. are largely sponsored by the AKC, and in order to participate your dog must be registered. These dogs needn't conform to the breed standard in anything more than name (the AKC will paper pretty much anything with four legs and a bloodline) but it does mean that the dog came from a "reputable" breeder. The coveted CDX and ADX titles can only attach to the end of registered dogs' names. But this is entirely a realm of human pride; the dog doesn't care if he's got a title or not. The dog also doesn't care if he's got papers. The dogs in agility and obedience care because it's fun to learn, fun to communicate, fun to forge a cross-species bond. It's a job, and a good job, a rewarding one. For intelligent dogs, having a rewarding job may be a prerequisite for a fulfilling life.

Dog lovers have recognized this lacuna and started trying to fill it. The American Mixed Breed Obedience Registration not only "papers" your mutt, but creates a space for mixed-breed dogs to participate in obedience trials while it offers a nod to human pride in its titles and ribbons and such.

There are grey areas, as well. One does not have to limit oneself to show-standard breeder-bought puppies or pound mutts. Breed rescues provide opportunities for lovers of particular dogs to search out a specific animal, and 25% of the dogs surrendered at shelters are actually registered with the AKC. Particularly irresponsible breeders may even surrender their surplus once they're past prime selling age. This is how I got my Mallow cat. Full disclosure: I have a cat that is not a mutt. Not only is he a specific breed--he's a problem breed. Mallow is an exotic shorthair, a Persian-derived breed with that problematic squashy face. What I can say for the exotics, though, is that they've been crossed with many other breeds, to the point where their gene pool is diverse and their health and breathing problems much less pronounced. In Persians that completely flat face is coveted; Mallow, while lacking a pointy nose, is at least round-headed. And while he will occasionally snore, he's not wheezy. So he's one of the lucky ones.

My own fondness for "breeds" of companion animals is, I think, illuminating. While the animal rights-enlightened amongst us recognize dog breeding as a huge problem, there are still going to be people looking for specific breeds--puppies or kittens, no less. They may even insist on papers. While breeding Olde Bulldogges may contribute to the overpopulation problem, it does make an argument that breeders and fanciers may be much more willing to listen to: you don't have to give up your breed to make their health a priority.

screaming chickens?

The Superbowl Denny's ad--or rather, a whole series of them--struck me as profoundly confusing and discomfiting. First of all, any ad campaign that involves screaming is a bad idea. But the repeated image of hens screaming at the prospect of free Denny's breakfasts ("that's a lot of eggs!")... I don't get it. The commercial acknowledges that producing eggs is an unpleasant prospect for the hens, to the point where whole rooms of them are screaming in terror. And it's funny, I guess? I suppose it's not much different than the image of a cow holding a sign suggesting you eat chicken, but the idea of hens screaming at the rolling out of a free egg breakfast campaign is more upsetting, as it's much more visceral and, really, honest. If laying hens--animals who never touch grass or even anything except wire mesh, who resort to stress-induced cannibalism, whose lives are lived in darkness--could scream, I'm sure they would.

Pedigree Dogs Exposed

An episode from the BBC Reveals series:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=44215931

The documentary implicates the Kennel Club in the suffering of thousands of dogs for the purposes of closed-minded "traditions", breed standards that have really only existed since the Victorian eugenics craze. This video caused a great upset in Britain and prompted the RSPCA to withdraw its support of, and the BBC to refuse to air, the Crufts dog show. The outrage and negative media attention has forced the KC to reconsider its practices, and headway is (slowly) being made towards breeding healthy dogs.

The US and the AKC, characteristically, have ignored the matter and chosen to continue breeding to unreasonable standards. At the same time, seriously problematic breeds are growing in popularity--of the top ten breeds in the U.S., half of those are dogs that have extremely serious, well-known, life-threatening genetic problems.

The film is heart-wrenching. The ways in which some of these obviously well-loved animals suffer are hard to watch: the Cavalier writhing and screaming in agony, the boxer confused and exhausted by his seizures, the owners doting, holding, soothing. I couldn't watch my companion animals go through that.

new space

http://tmkaske.livejournal.com/

My blog, while usually poorly attended and maintained purely for my own egoistic pleasure, has been skewing towards thinking about animals--partly because I was asked to keep a record of my thought process while participating in an excellent class on animal suffering at UW.

I'm less interested in what's happening to me internally when I think about animals, partly because it's hard to make sense of what goes on in there and partly because I hate reading my emotional self-reflections. Ever gone back and read your old journals? They're cringeworthy, or at least mine are.

But I am interested in cataloguing my thoughts about animals in the media. I've thought of putting some effort into keeping a window open onto the things I do in academia, but in less academic terms, and I wonder if I can sustain a regular dialogue with media reactions to animal rights, welfare, and popular culture. Perhaps as I work this may grow into something useful.

on "owning" pets

I'm still thinking about the article from my previous post (on debarking) and what it means.

I think about animals a lot, and I can't help referring back to the animal persons I interact with most--my cats.

Removing claws, severing vocal chords--these measures just seem like such an outright unwillingness to compromise. Close relationships are about negotiating and understanding, about giving, and loving another being for who they are without intent to change them. This accurately describes my relationships with my family and dearest friends, and it translates well to my relationship with Monster and Mallow. I compromise with them and they with me (yes you can sit on me, and I will hold still for as long as possible so that you are comfortable, but you will have to accept my using you as a book rest), and when there are places we cannot come to compromise (floor-pooping), then we are in the territory of love: I love them, and therefore I accept the things they do which I cannot change or understand. This is not always ideal (the yodeling for breakfast is not pleasant for anyone, and did I mention the floor-pooping?), but no relationship is ever perfect.

Of course our relationships with companion animals are not equal. Monster and Mallow, for example, do not pay rent. They do not finish their chores, wish me a happy birthday, nor will they financially support me in my old age. They are not humans and therefore these things are largely meaningless to them. I have a greater responsibility to them. I clean up after them, feed them, provide them with medical care. It is not an even equation; I make all the decisions about their lives, can dominate them easily, and legally they are chattel property.

So when I hear about pet "owners" disabling their companion animals for convenience, I feel like those animals have been sorely betrayed.

I'm perplexed by the power relationship between humans and companion animals, confused by how we relate to them and what we want from them. I try hard to avoid using terms of ownership when it comes to my cats--I say "my cats" like I would say "my sisters". While I make choices for them all the time, I try to be considerate. While I choose to accept their idiosyncrasies, they don't have a choice about mine.

I would love to spend some time working on ideas about companion animals. I have Donna Haraway's When Species Meet and Companion Animal Manifesto but as yet no time to read them. Since my relationship with Monster and Mal is so immediate, it feels like an important issue to address.

"debarking losing favor"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/nyregion/03debark.html?em

I was not even aware that debarking was a legitimate procedure to use on companion animals. I had heard of animals in experimental labs being debarked (and the dogs in question were beagles, so I can see why the lab technicians simply accepted it as a reasonable thing to do) but I had no idea, no idea that a person who purportedly loved their dog would take away his or her voice.


“I probably spend more time and money on my dogs in one year than they have in a whole lifetime,” said Paul, a breeder and dog handler in Catskill, N.Y., who asked that his last name not be used because he did not want to be singled out by activists. “I just hate being labeled as someone who’s cruel because I debark.”

Paul usually has more than a dozen dogs at a time, many of them Shetland sheepdogs, a breed known for excessive barking. He said he has had most of them debarked, and requires his clients to debark theirs before sending them to him for dog shows. He said his dogs have lived long, happy lives, and “none of them are any sadder after being debarked.”

I find it terribly interesting that this man justifies his disabling of his dogs with the argument that he spends a lot of money on them.

I, of all people, know how inconvenient animal habits can be. I live with a floor-pooper. I love my floor-pooper, knew what I was getting into, and have decided that he is worth it. All animals come with some animal still left in them; your choice is to either make that a problem or to accept that what you have is not a human but another form of being altogether, and that there will be miscommunications and certain situations where you have no choice but to accept their otherness.

Thinking about this also brings up debate about cats and declawing. I have one declawed cat; I had no say in that decision. I lived with my mother, and the procedure was a requirement for having a cat in the house. I didn't think much of it as all of our childhood cats had been declawed. The way my mother framed it, clawed cats would result in the complete, unmitigated destruction of our home. Now that I have Mal, whose claws are intact, it's clear that this is not always the case. Sure, his high-speed halts have marked up the sofa, and he's caught me once or twice with a sharp one, but for the most part it hasn't been an issue. Monster, however, still seems to realize her loss nine years later; she has the occasional nervous twitch in her paws that seems to be a momentary shock of nerve pain only quieted by furious licking. And her toes seem sensitive, too; when it's chilly or if she's sitting on something uninsulated she very, very meticulously positions her front paws on the tip of her tail, cushioning them. Amputees get ghost pains, so why wouldn't that happen to cats whose fingertips are amputated?

My brother's cat, though, is another case entirely. Caspian kept his claws for almost two years. He is malicious and violent and temperamental. The family cringes when he jumps on a lap. After constant complaining, my mother finally convinced my brother and had him declawed ("disarmed"). And I have to say: he's changed, and not for the worse. People are more willing to interact with him since the chance of getting mauled is much lower. The other animals aren't afraid to approach him. He actually seems to be happier, now, too, which doesn't make any sense at all. But he's lost his flab and become more talkative, playful and social. He's still sneaky and temperamental, but he's no longer a menace. So does that justify taking away his fingertips?

Despite the occasional cases where these disabling procedures seem to improve relations, I think a NYT reader comment sums up the best thinking on this topic: "Folks, no matter how well intentioned you think you are, please do not take an animal into your life if you cannot accept complete responsibility for it - claws, messes, barks and all." HC, Texas