This is really worth a look, both for Foer’s case against factory farming and as an example of what public intellectual exchange can look like at its best. The good stuff begins around minute ten.
On not eating Thanksgiving turkey: “I have found that removing this symbol involves a conversation whereas the presence of the symbol never involved a conversation, and that the conversation is rich and provides more than this particular food ever did regardless of how delicious it might be.”
On how perpetuating factory farms requires their concealment: “If we had a factory farm set up on this stage…I think you’d have a lot of people walking out and some people crying.”
On the ethical double standard that we apply to our sense of taste: Foer discusses a character in his book who asks “‘Why doesn’t a horny person have as good a claim to raping a confined animal as a hungry person does to slaughtering it and eating it?’ And she says, ‘This might sound like a totally preposterous question, but why is it at all preposterous?’ Why has taste become exempt from all the ethical rules we apply to all of our other senses?”
With regard to this last point, I think there’s more to say. We do exempt our sense of taste from lots of ethical rules, and that’s deeply suspect. However, I think there’s at least one dis-analogy between animal rape and factory farming. The animal rapist is motivated by repulsive desires – namely, to rape animals. The desire to eat meat, on the other hand, isn’t repulsive or pathological. Unfortunately, the process by which most meat is produced is.
Actually, I think there’s more to say about this…hopefully I’ll get to return to it soon.
