On Absurdity and NYT Editorials

Posted: 23 Apr 2008 08:32 AM CDT

An editorial in today's New York Times, called "Million-Dollar Meat" is screaming for letters to the editor. I haven't been writing as many letters for animal rights as I usually do, as my commitment to blogging daily (and at least a couple of times a week at the recently-launched www.marymartinphd.com) is my priority, and sometimes that's all my day allows.

The back story is that PeTA is "offering a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and bring to market in vitro meat."

Let's deconstruct:

The Times is "disgusted by the conventional meat industry in this country, which raises animals — especially chicken and pigs — in inhumane confinement systems that cause significant environmental damage." So is everyone else, and there's absolutely no risk in writing that. In fact, they'd sound like barbarians, at this point, if they took any other position.
Naturally, the Times believes that: "There is every reason to change the way meat is produced, to make it more ethical, more humane. "

Without fear of sounding like a broken record, I am disappointed that such bright, articulate, educated people fail to consider slaughter without necessity as unethical or inhumane, regardless of the conditions the animals are kept in. But they will explain themselves, in a remarkably unsophisticated manner, in a moment. First, however, they must exacerbate the existing confusion over what animal rights is.

"But the result of the technology that PETA hopes to reward could be the end of domesticated farm animals." What's so bad about the end of domesticated farm animals? They're only domesticated because we made them so, and we only made them in order to dominate and exploit them.

"This has often seemed as if it were the logical conclusion of some radical animal-rights activists: better for animals not to exist at all if there is a chance that they would suffer." Seems as if it were the logical conclusion is confusing to me. First, seems as if it were often tells me that the editorial board at the Times isn't clear about what animal rights is and hasn't been properly introduced to the idea that domination and exploitation are at its core. Next, it is a logical conclusion that bringing animals into the world for the sole purpose of using them isn't right, and I don't know what's so "radical" about that idea. Finally, I don't think that last clause is the point of animal rights. The idea that it's better for animals not to exist at all if there is a chance they would suffer is inaccurate. I would rewrite it as: better for animals not to exist at all than to be brought into this world for the sole purpose of being dominated, exploited and slaughtered for no legitimate reason. But because of all of the focus on cruelty, this misunderstanding about animal rights has become ubiquitous.

This editorial is a perfect example of what happens when you focus on cruelty: you open the door for what the Times "prefers," which is "a more measured approach." Once you couch your objection in the language of suffering, you have no choice but to accept any resolution that seeks to reduce suffering, otherwise you look like you're against reducing suffering.
Of course, this is the direction the Times chooses, with its declaration that we should: "Ensure the least possible cruelty to animals, by all means, and raise them in ways that are both ethical and environmentally sound."

Again, the editorial board, word people that they are, might want to further explore the notion of "ethical," and ponder the place of dominance, exploitation and slaughter in their definition.

The next sentence contains a notion I found embarrassingly unsophisticated, not to mention absurd: that we should "also treasure the cultural and historical bond between humans and domesticated animals." It is not a bond that we are treasuring; it is bondage. What kind of a society treasures involuntary servitude in 2008?

Surprisingly, the penultimate sentence articulates the substance of animal rights as I know it, yet it appears that the editorial board isn't aware of what it has done when it states: "Historically speaking, they exist only because of the uses we have found for them, and preserving their existence means, in most cases, preserving the uses we have made for them." Exactly. The editorial board might want to think about what that means.

We end with: "It will be a barren world if the herds and flocks disappear in favor of meat grown in a laboratory tank." Animals wouldn't completely disappear, and there are more food animals in sheds and factories than in herds or flocks.

What's amazing--but not really--about that last sentence and much of the editorial, is that it celebrates the idea that we bring animals into the world for our use. And that the Times thinks it would be a damn shame--a barren world--if we didn't get the opportunity to continue to use them the way we wish to. If the Times understood animal rights in terms of nonviolence and social justice, I wonder what kind of "measured approach" they'd be able to conjure up?

Letters can be sent to: letters@nytimes.com.