Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
After hearing much, both positive and negative, about Jonathan Safran Foer’s recent book, Eating Animals, I was delighted to finally get the opportunity to read this acclaimed book. Foer is a gifted writer who grabs your attention and keeps you engaged. He uses several creative methods to illustrate his points, such as using five pages of printed letters to represent the number of animals used for food by the average American in their lifetime (21,000 animals) — would anyone want to be responsible for that many deaths? But Foer also goes on to document what he uncovered in years of investigation about the brutality of turning living, breathing, feeling beings into a macabre disassembly line of death. He uncovers the cruelty in the system, the sick and diseased animals that are forced to live bleak lives in their own filth. He clearly sees the depersonalization that must exist for humans to turn nonhumans into units of profit. He understands the rivers of blood that are let flow daily to assuage the global demand for flesh, a demand that is increasing.
Foer is a talented writer. He is creative and does an admirable job of gathering a large array of material. It is difficult not to be in awe of his writing, so artfully has he crafted this book. Honestly, I was riveted throughout the reading, even when I was disappointed in the attitude he espoused. As a writer, Jonathan Safran Foer is a unique talent. I admire that immensely.
Yet somehow, with all of that, there is much that Foer misses. He seems to romance the happy meat farms where men, still objectifying animals for profit, do so with less cruelty than factory farms. But in the end, there is still a major deception at work here, and some of it is self-deception as well. This is evident within the words of turkey farmer Frank Reese, who relates that his birds look at him as if he is betraying them when he sends them off. The birds are right; he is. He is doing it and trying to feel good about it because their brief childhoods were less toxic than they would have been in other facilities (but still fall far short of what their life could have been had they not been commodities). Of course, those other facilities are nothing short of institutionalized horror, plain and simple, so that isn’t much of a recommendation. He pretends to love his birds; he obviously enjoys their company. But in the end, he betrays them and sends them off to a horrible end, of which he spares himself the sight. He is still trafficking in death for profit, no matter how hard Foer tries to paint him with angelic imagery.
Here is what Foer’s books misses and questions he never asks:
Is it okay to use animals for human purposes as long as they are not abjectly cruelly used and killed? Does the animal himself have any right to exist? Is there any intrinsic value to the animal? Who determines if humans are the only beings of worth, and how can that be when we are the worst, cruelest, most selfish and destructive beings on the planet?
Is meat eating a good practice outside of the treatment of animals? Is it good for our health? Is there significant scientific evidence to suggest that human beings are not naturally carnivorous, such as our lengthy intestines and our tiny teeth?
Is it environmentally prudent to use animals for their products? What about those “lagoons” of animals waste? What about all that grain and feed? What about destruction of areas around factory farms, waterways, air quality. How much destruction is enough?
What about the cost? Not the subsidized cost, the actual cost? We are paying for it, just not up front. Like other parts of factory farming, it is kept hidden from view. But pay we will. Can we afford it? Can the planet?
Is it morally acceptable to subjugate, terrify, torture, and kill animals for any purpose? Is it acceptable to promote a type of food that means luxury (?) for some while creating shortfalls and hunger for others?
Eating animals is only one part of the equation. What about using animals in other areas, for entertainment, confining them in zoos, using them for target practice on canned hunts, keeping them as pets and yet destroying millions when humans grow tired of the animals. What about wildlife? What about loss of habitat, loss of mercy, loss of our souls? Foer obviously dislikes what he finds in factory farms; he just never seems to find anything troubling about the global impact of what callous treatment towards animals is costing the planet, the people and the living, dying animals. But those things fall outside of his purpose, which was to examine Eating Animals.
Foer likes the idea of happy farms and happy meat, but doesn’t really investigate the feasibility of such programs. There are, of course, still many problems with these operations including the cruelty to animals — although significantly less than in factory farms, it is still not a life any being would want — environmental costs, health costs, and moral costs not to mention grisly, terrifying, mechanized death at the end. What does this type of operation cost the human soul?
Foer is undoubtedly a talented writer. I find much in his ability to admire and much in his book to praise. It is to his credit that he decided to quit eating animals based on his findings. But he stops short as far as taking an ethical stand for the animals. He tells us to take the first step, not the last — as if vegetarianism was that step. The first step, I believe, should be ethical veganism and an end to exploitation of animals. Vegetarianism is not a first step, it is a side detour. And in that, Foer fails to recognize the personhood of animals and their right to exist without belonging to the will of another. His previous book was titled, Everything is Illuminated. Evidently, not for Foer.
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email Tags: Eating Animals, factory farming, Frank Reese, Jonathan Safran Foer, meat production, Niman Farms, slaughterhouse
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Your five paragraph section on the questions Foer never asks holds very clearly-worded, solid questions. Thank you.
Jason:
I just checked out your very creative blog and I thank you for your words about the Foer review. He is so talented, but I was so frustrated by his lack of conclusions. Time will tell if he evolves in his views.