October 12, 2012
VIDEO: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows
We’re excited to launch the pilot episode of a new video platform called ACTV: Interviews & Dialogues with Andrew Cohen, that we are currently developing and seeking sponsorship for. The series will feature video interviews and dialogues with Andrew and a wide variety of leading thinkers–scientists, mystics, philosophers, artists, academics, theologians–exploring everything from the future of music to the case for progress to the evolution of enlightenment. Since this platform is still in development, we’d love your feedback after watching the pilot. Please fill out this simple survey after you watch the video, and we’ll enter you to win a free download of the Evolutionary Enlightenment audiobook.
Our pilot episode features Andrew interviewing Dr. Melanie Joy, author of Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows about her pioneering research into the deeper cultural and psychological dimensions of our food choices. In her groundbreaking book, Dr. Joy explores the invisible system that shapes our perception of the meat we eat, so that we love some animals and eat others without knowing why. She calls this system “carnism,” which she defines as the belief system, or ideology, that allows us to eat some animals while having deep and loving relationships with others.
Instead of making a case for why we should not eat meat, Joy’s work seeks to explain why we do eat meat – and thus how we can make more informed choices as citizens and consumers.
Whatever your culinary habits, this interview will definitely offer a lot of “food for thought!”
Please click here to fill out this brief survey about ACTV and enter to win a free download of the Evolutionary Enlightenment audiobook.
This is a pilot in a series that we’d like to produce and we’re seeking support to enable ACTV to go forward. Click here to make a donation or write to lhartzell@enlightennext.org for more information about sponsorship opportunities.
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Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, founder of EnlightenNext, and the author of 
Melanie Joy is one of my favorite thinkers and this was a terrific interview. Thanks for putting her on, Andrew.
What a great interview Andrew and Melanie! I loved the true engagement and openeness between you both, to really look into this subject from the view of cultural development. I have stopped eating meat only for 10 months now, exactly because I certainly realized that I do not HAVE TO eat meet, that I have a choice! Before that shift of consciousness happened, I had given myself the time to deeply look into the questtion why I was eating meet while loving animals so deeply. So, all in this interview was very recognizable!
Andrew -
I think if you desire to pursue this discussion further, you might find an interesting discourse with someone such as Dr Joseph Mercola of http://www.mercola.com. He is a natural healing authority who asserts the biological evidence of the need for humans to consume red meat. … He is a Christian and is outspokenly opposed to the vegetarian diet while at the same time he is very opposed to the horrific phenomenon that is the modern day factory farm industry.
Personally, I very much feel that the true issue here is not so much eating meat or not eating meat. I feel that the issue is really regarding a conscious or unconscious approach to the obtainment and consumption of the food that we eat. ….. The values of traditional tribal societies for example, when acquiring food in the form of wild animals which were/are killed for food, is/was one of reverence and respect and gratitude. So too that meat is/was a hell of a lot more healthy for those who consume it then the meat that is produced by modern day factory farms with absolutely no respect or regard for or gratitude for the lives that are taken.
Personally I do not feel that eating meat is wrong. I do however feel that approaching life with little or no respect or awareness for the unity of all life and for life the sanctity of life in general, is the road to one’s own undoing, .. and that is what we are witnessing unfolding in the developed and developing societies of today. … One of the significant results of this (meat or no meat), is that modern day food has become and more and more is becoming modern day poison.
A great discussion! Certainly, I agree, we all need to awaken to all of our hidden assumptions, values so we can act with full volition in making all of our choices!
The issue hear seems to be one of sentience. As I understand it, serious scientific research reveals varying degrees of ‘sentience’ in plants. So perhaps one way to look at this whole issue is really through seeing life as a spectrum of degrees of sentience, from primitive plants through to complex plants to primitive animal forms (insects, up through fish) to more complex animal forms (birds through up into mammals).
Even in this discussion, there is a particular line drawn between animal and plant life – or is it even that – would this discussion reveal a ‘problem’ with eating insects, for example? Is eating fish less of a problem than eating pigs? When we position all life forms along a spectrum of sentience, and awaken to the full spectrum, where do we position the boundary between that which is OK to eat and that which is not? What is sentience?
What are the issues that concern us . . . beings that ‘raise’ their offspring? beings that ‘feel pain’? beings that run away when threatened? I am unclear when I think from this perspective and am seeking clarification. Andrew, do you have any thoughts?
I enjoyed this interview but this perspective seems to be overly polarized in its reasoning.
Clearly the industrial model of domination for agriculture and raising animals is a nightmare in terms of the objectification of living things and the harm done to living ecosystems and our own psyches. But objective materialism is the issue in all aspects of modernism. I liked that you mentioned India even going through this phase as it moved out of Traditional thinking. This suggests that adding meat in the modern consciousness reflects a certain flavor of domination that resonates with the modern industrial phase of development. Even from this traditional culture, it is important to note how much dairy is used in place of meat.
So Postmodernist thought has seen the damage of this Modernist way of thinking and moves to the “nonviolent” extreme by suggesting that killing is the issue. Moral shelter is taken in the plant based diet. But can’t it be argued that industrial agriculture itself, even if its just plant based, is just as destructive to the top soil and surrounding ecosystems as factory farmed meat is to our collective psyches?
It seems to me that we can honor the place that modernism has played to get us to where we are now. And maybe we can reframe the moral dilemma we face today. Instead of meat vs no meat, or killing vs not killing, would it not be better framed as transitioning away from industrial agriculture and towards local, sustainable community farming and gardening?
The question is: must killing for food be grouped with domination, numbing, and disrespect? To me, the key lies in the relationship and it is very much possible to enter a responsible, loving, and grateful relationship with an animal that you are killing (see the beautiful Kalahari video below) just as it is possible to have a destructive, domination based, and violent industrial agriculture system churn out plant based products while systematically degrading the top soil and the surrounding ecosystems.
Here are some examples of living in deeper relationship with Nature and the animals and plants around us, which I believe is the true moral imperative here:
Joel Salatin: How to Eat Animals and Respect Them Too
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/can-animals-save-us/joel-salatin-how-to-eat-meat-and-respect-it-too
Kalahari Persistence Runners
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o&sns=em
Thanks for your perspective. It helped to shore up mine. I too thought she was polarizing in a polite way! Links are outstanding, Sean.
This dialogue parked a few thoughts:
Although glad this subject is on the table, I feel we need to evolve the language we use to describe ways of thinking and living that are becoming obsolete: if we really want to invite others to consider carnism and other ethical subjects hoping to awaken others, saying meat-eating is “absurd” and comparing it to rape will only ignite more dualism (has it ever been necessary to rape for basic survival?). It really wasn’t that long ago that meat eating was natural and necessary, so current meat-eating is definitely understandable, far from absurd, as our collective consciousness was focused on evolving other things. And as Melanie said, people can see footage of brutal animal suffering then go out and eat a hamburger the next day, and in spite of more “awareness” more people are smoking cigarettes and eating poorly, so neither shocking video nor shaming language isn’t really effective large-scale. This subject like all others is evolution of consciousness, and it will take an evolved, more compassionate way of communicating to foster the most efficient transition possible.
Not mentioned in this interview or trailer, I wonder if Melanie interviewed members of meat eating cultures who claim to have a spiritual connection with all animals including those they eat, or people in Arctic or costal regions who “live off the land”, and have never adopted large-scale or for-profit operations.
We are currently seeing the adoption of many fundamental-traditional belief system practices within modern culture. The “paleo” diet being something that extremely educated and spiritual people are embracing, including those who practice Evolutionary Enlightenment. I am curious to hear their thoughts.
As Daniel mentions, the possibility of sentience in plants is being explored with interesting results.
Lastly, as someone who grew up allergic to dogs and cats, I was fascinated by the scope of human-pet relationship eventually questioning the ethics of owning pets and how they are bred and treated before wondering about the ethics of eating meat. There are millions of pets being abused, tortured, starved, discarded, living in crates and filth; and on the better scale some living a lonely, bored existence as their owners are at work, suffering from severe genetic pathologies due to profit-driven breeding or obesity and other human pathologies, being teated with human anti-depressants or anxiety drugs (and why are they depressed or anxious?), being elaborately dressed-up like dolls purely for owner amusement (not related to cold-weather coverings)… Then, there’s the question on what we feed our pets. If we keep dogs and cats as we transition to veaganism, do we assume we can breed these animals to become vegans as well so we no longer kill anything for food? Ethically, as it relates to carnism, how could we continue breeding any animal for any reason, pet or food?
Brilliant! Thank you so much for bringing to our attention the framing and current narrative of the dominant culture – here the Corporations / marketing (vested interests) which provides ludicrous justification for the taking of life when there is no necessity for doing so. I am in agreement with you that this is indeed a social justice issue – the ideological mentality of privilege and dominance which prevailed over racism, slavery is now with regards to animals. Excellent framing that if you can eat a pig and cow then please be prepared to justify why you will not eat your dog. However there is a realisation that a rational response will not provide the answer but how evolved and conscious the individual is.
We are omnivores. Get over it. I heard the word “absurd” too many times and “the reality is this”
when what i see was “this is your perspective”.
You have to kill plants to live. We have to kill something
to live. Correct? Then as she says “the reality of it is it’s just a matter of where you draw the line saying it’s ok to eat this but not this” And yes i know how many bushels of this or that it takes to produce a pound of meat.
When we send our combines out into the fields they slaughter billions of plants cutting off their heads and disposing the rest of their bodies as garbage.
Something has to die for us to live. Thats da facts.
After i listened to this I thought, is she saying that if everyone stopped eating meat there would be no more rape, murder, pillage, drug abuse, energy crisis,
paternal leadership, and a massive cultural shift would occur?
We are omnivores. Attaching eating meet to a large number of major problems in the world seems a real stretch to me.
I liked the dialogue – It really made me rethink a lot of things – I agree about the savagery of this practice, – however, not necessarily about the ling between vegetarianism and an evolved consciousness.
Just the other night I saw an interesting French film about WWII – and remembered that ADOLF HITLER agreed with Joy and was a VEGETARIAN for most of his adult life!!
So I just want to point out that the link may exist , but is surely NOT as straightforward as you seem to make it.
I wish I got the rational side of the argument. Both Joy and Andrew seemed trapped in emotion. Absurd is not a rational move. I just don’t get this.
One reason I’d love to get clear on the rational argument for not killing and eating animals is that I could use it to argue against the killing of unborn children.
I stand and pray for an end to abortion. My desire is to be humble, kind and patient. I have no response to the emotional abuse pro life people (like me) are subject to. Whose life matters?
Often, vegetarians are also environmentalists. I think it’s a little bit ironical that a lot of environmentalists will consider mankind not better, and sometimes even worse, than nature. They will reject the idea that mankind is superior to animals, and in general the idea of hierarchy in nature. But at the same time, when we talk about eating food, animals seem to be more sensitive than plants ? Isn’t this contradictory? Rejecting hierarchy between mankind and nature and accepting hierarchy between animals and plants?
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Such a great interview with a clear perspective on the reality of the Situation. Without the zeal of the righteous vegan this interview helps to lay out what is and what could be and also what is really changing in consciousness, I’ve been vegetarian for over 23 years but this helps to make clear and more conscious what my own response has been about. Thank you!
This issue is a real meeting of consciousness and culture, emotion and rationality, practicality and idealism. In addition to the points raised in other posts, overpopulation is a major driver in our current environmentally destructive practices in agriculture and animal use. I wonder how much additional land it would take to replace the calories from animals with humanly edible plant energy. How would that land be fertilized and watered? Which grain cartel would buy it and supply it with patented seeds? The natural ability of ruminants to digest cellulose and turn it, via the bacteria in their guts, into protein and fat is an important part of the life cycle. Monocropping and CAFO’s are both abominations that support too many humans on the planet while destroying the earth’s vitality. This is a terrible situation where we have transcended but excluded wisdom about how to nurture the lower holons that our lives depend on.
Another issue is distinguishing instrumental and intrinsic value and seeing that they are two aspects of evolutionary design. Each holon has intrinsic value, yet has an instrumental value to the larger holon. They are complementary, not competitive.
I do think it’s important to become aware of cultural assumptions about what we eat. I struggle with somehow sensing that my malaise when forced to eat a vegetarian diet (i.e. on retreat) arises from a deeply held belief about what is best for my body/mind (basically a Paleo-style one). Yet it’s not something that I can just easily and simply contradict with another belief – “you’ll be fine.”