Why don't we eat dogs?
Psychology professor and author Melanie Joy discussed why we feel disgusted by eating dogs, but have no problem eating "socially acceptable" animals like pigs and cows.
Posted: Thursday, October 24, 2013 10:36 pm
RedAndBlack.com
Imagine you’re at a dinner party where the hostess is famous for her pasta and meatballs, Melanie Joy told a full room in the Miller Learning Center Thursday evening. Imagine you really enjoy the meal and ask the hostess for the recipe. How would your perception of the meal change if the she replied it needed three pounds of golden retriever?
“My life’s work as a psychologist, professor and an author has centered around one key theme,” said Joy, a professor psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and author of “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows." “It is a theme that is central to our freedom of choice, and therefore to our personal empowerment, and also to social and ecological justice. And that theme is making the connection. I’m here to talk about our connection with other beings, and with ourselves and with our core values.”
During the lecture, hosted by Speak Out for Species, Joy said there is a gap in human consciousness when it comes to eating meat that is created by a meat-eating “ism” which can be addressed by raising awareness of the absence of disgust we feel when we eat socially acceptable food animals compared to eating less socially acceptable animals, like dogs.
“I loved how she took it from the psychological perspective because that’s a little more new, it’s a new viewpoint that’s not necessarily been pursued in the animal activist world,” said Kirstin Valdes, a junior wildlife major from Alpharetta and president of Speak out for Species.
Vegetarianism and veganism are recognized as life philosophies, Joy said. People don’t refer to them as leaf-eaters the same way they refer to meat-eaters.
“What I found is that there is an invisible belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals,” Joy said. “And this is the belief system that I came to call carnism. Now carnsim is a special kid of belief system or ideology — it’s a dominant ideology, that means it’s invisible, it’s entrenched in, it shapes beliefs, behaviors, norms, laws, etc.”
Joy said because the system is invisible, it’s victims are invisible as well, including the 17,121 farm animals she said were killed in the United States every minute, totaling around 9 billion a year.
“The number of animals slaughtered in a given unit of time is staggering,” said Joseph Drwiega, a senior medical student from Savannah. “It is very disturbing to think about that. And in Athens, Ga., we get to see all the chicken trucks drive by and that’s sort of how I get to see the animals going off to slaughter. And you don’t really think about it until someone addresses it to you.”
Joy showed several videos during the course of her presentation, including one four-minute video about large-scale animal agriculture. The video included graphic images of animals being prepared for processing. Joy said her goal wasn’t to distress the audience but to help raise awareness of the invisible victims of carnism, which include humans as well as the animals.
“In 2005, for the first time ever, Human Rights Watch issued a report criticizing a single U.S. industry, the meat industry, for working conditions so appalling they violate basic human rights,” Joy said.
Joy said there were three mythical ‘Ns’ used to justify carnism — normal, natural and necessary — and that all three of those terms had been used to justify other oppressive systems such as slavery. She said the myths supported by carnism had absorbed into society’s consciousness.
“John F. Kennedy once said that belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought,” Joy said. “JFK did not underestimate the power of myths, and neither should we because the myths of meat prevail, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And they prevail because the system is institutionalized, it’s entrenched, woven through the very fabric of society.”
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