Last week, on Vegan Freak Radio, we discussed an article by Mark Bittman in the New York Times. In the article, Bittman made a compelling case against the mass consumption of meat, linking its production and consumption to concerns about the environment, human health, and animal welfare. In our estimation, the article was a good mainstream treatment of the subject, but we discussed on our show, Bittman stopped short. Our reasoning was plain: if meat is troubling on so many levels, why continue to eat it? Why not just go vegan? After all, no one can honestly maintain—in the face of such overwhelming evidence—that eating meat is in any way necessary for human well-being.
If we don’t need to eat meat for our health, then why do we eat it? The reasons are multiple and obvious: tradition, taste, and convenience. We justify what we do to animals—at the tune of 10 billion lives a year in the US alone—simply by referring back to the old adage that “this is how we’ve always done it.” Collapsing into this odd logic of “might makes right,” when pushed, most people who eat meat cannot really justify it much beyond this simplistic thinking. Like the privilege of any other form of domination, those who benefit from the privilege are hesitant to see the relationship of their benefits to the exploitation of others. Men are often hesitant to see the domination of sexism; white people are often hesitant to see the wages of racism. Similarly, those of us that enjoy species privilege are hesitant to honestly acknowledge how our privilege benefits us at the expense of the freedom of others.
Sadly, Bittman falls into this trap in his blog at the Times when he responds to some of his vegan critics. In his piece, Bittman treats meat like any other resource when he writes:
Maybe I’m thick, but I don’t get it. If I write a piece about Americans driving too much, do I get trashed for owning a car? For using too much electricity, do I become a bad person for turning on the lights? This would seem to counter 90 percent of the arguments about continuing to eat meat: I choose to; it’s part of my life and my work; in general, I eat the most conscientiously raised meat I can find; and — relatively — I don’t eat much of it.
In this clever little comparison, Bittman ignores one central point: animals are unlike other resources in so far as they are sentient and feel pain. Clearly, driving too much has horrible impacts that have ethical implications, but it isn’t like driving your car makes it suffer. Similarly, using electricity depletes natural resources, but no one would really ever argue that electricity can feel pain, or have a continuous mental existence. Thus, while we do treat animals like resources—indeed, this is the central problem of animal exploitation—animals are sentient beings, which changes our obligations towards them. In this regard, the moral wrong of consuming animals is one that cannot be mitigated by doing less of it. Simply put, either consuming animals is a moral wrong or it isn’t. If it is a moral wrong, doing less of it or doing it more nicely does not mitigate that moral wrong. Analogously, several hundred years ago, Bittman could have argued the same thing about slavery: he chooses to treat his slaves well; they’re part of his life and work; and really, he only has a few slaves. Most of us (I hope) would find this logic objectionable concerning humans. The only reason we can stomach it for animals is that we are conditioned to view animals as somethings and not as someones.
Bittman continues on with his justification for eating meat, writing:
It’s traditional. It’s mainstream, and almost everyone alive who can eat meat does so.
Traditional “values” have been used throughout time immemorial to justify all manner of exploitation. Women should be most sensitive to this particular line of reasoning, for “tradition” has often been used as an argument to keep women in positions of domination within patriarchy.
In the end, what we get from Bittman is another weak justification for eating “happy meat” (and sadly, this is a position most of the animal rights movement is happy with, too). By falling back on the old, unexamined arguments about tradition, Bittman does little to really challenge the central dynamic of animal exploitation. In doing so, Bittman will only help to drive the creation of a niche market for the consumption of “happy meat” for the wealthy “ethical consumer,” the “conscientious omnivore.” Bittman sees animals as just another commodity; this mistaken logic undercuts his own arguments on welfare, and will ultimately condemn many more animals to a life of pointless suffering.
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