On Animals and Culture

On Animals and Culture

Through an accident of birth and geography, you grew up with a certain name for your god and certain beliefs about animals. You were taught that some animals are for eating and some are for petting. And yet others are for entertainment. Your beliefs about your god and about animals are similar in that, whether you think of it this way or not, you hold them both sacred.

But what does it mean to hold something sacred? Why do we cling to beliefs and customs? Is there something intrinsically right or good about valuing certain animals as food? Is there a reason to value certain animals for "sport?"

Every use of animals, in every culture, has one thing in common: it is carried out today because it was carried out yesterday. It is sacred today because it was sacred yesterday. After all, there is no good reason to eat cows and not dogs. We domesticated dogs yesterday, therefore they're not food? We ate cows yesterday, therefore we should eat them today? We race horses or camels or dogs, depending on where we live, meanwhile racing horses or camels or dogs seems odd . . . depending on where we live.

We judge other cultures based on what we have decided are norms, but in reality they're often completely arbitrary. For example, there are socially-acceptable horrible acts, and socially-unacceptable horrible acts. That's one of the main differences among cultures. Americans find ritual animal sacrifice appalling. Yet we have institutionalized forms of cruelty--like factory farming--that are no better, and some might argue that they're worse (if the animals used in the rituals had unfettered lives where they got to behave in biologically and socially-appropriate ways before they were unnecessarily and brutally murdered).

So I ask you: Is ritual animal sacrifice worse than meat-eating, and if so, why?

One of the most irrational-posing-as-rational reasons for using nonhuman animals, causing them suffering, terrorizing them, and ultimately killing them, is culture, and it's sibling, tradition. Let's look at some common statements:

• "Bullfighting is part of our culture," says the Spaniard.
• "Eating turkey is a Thanksgiving tradition," according to most Americans--as if that's a good enough reason to slaughter 50 million turkeys for one meal on one day of the year.
• "We eat horse meat; it's part of our culture," says the woman from Japan or France or Belgium.
• "We don't eat horses, here; they're a national treasure," says the American.

Do you see the problem? Anything goes when positioned under the umbrella of culture.

Every part of culture that we have come to defend is something that began in a certain historical context. Take, for instance, what I perceive is the most sensitive topic: the culture of Native Americans. We've taken enough from them (like, everything, and every time I think about it I'm embarrassed to be of European descent). But they're not so different from the earliest European settlers in that they used animals in a way that benefited them and they weren't in the business of institutionalized terror and cruelty for profit. They were simply doing what they thought they had to do to get what they needed and make it through the day.

Fast forward to 2008. Notice that the terrain is a bit different than it was 400 years ago. Most of us don't use horses for transportation anymore (not because it's not right, but because we have more efficient modes of transportation). We don't need to use horses (not that we needed to back then, but doing so no doubt made everyone get places a bit faster). And guess what else? In 2008, we don't need to eat animals. In fact, study after study shows that the way we raise animals for food has not only harmed the environment, but it has polluted our bodies. Yet we continue to do it. Why? Because we accept that it's part of our culture. We don't question it just as we don't question why we eat cows and not dogs. Americans have been inculcated (en-cultur-ated) to find the eating of dogs anathema to us. But is the actual eating of dogs really different from the eating of cows (once you remove the culture part that says dogs are pets and cows aren't)?

One of the traits that we like to think sets us apart from the nonhuman animal world (although there's increasing evidence to the contrary) is that we are able to make decisions based on some kind of moral code. And I'm not referring to religious doctrine. I'm referring to refraining from doing things simply because they are wrong to do, such as killing sentient beings when you do not need to.

The consciousness of humanity won't be able to evolve as long as it clings to ideas and behaviors borne out of an entirely different time. We need to have discussions about how we should behave going forward that are based on what we have the ability to do now, and the knowledge that we have now--not on what we did or knew yesterday.