07/08/11 11.52Let Them Eat MeatPagina 1 di 23http://letthemeatmeat.com/
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An ex-vegan on veganism. By RhysSouthanletthemeatmeat [ at ] gmail [ dot ] [com ].
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ADDITIONAL READING
“
If you don’t want to die, don’t be born
!” —
Child soldiers in
Johnny Mad Dog
.In
Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence
, lovable curmudgeonDavid Benatar argues that life always contains suffering and death and so we causeunnecessary harm by having children. Harm is only possible through existence, andthough life contains pleasures, the good almost never outweighs the bad. And even if itdoes, it’s still a harm to be born, because life will inevitably contain some suffering,whereas non-existence contains no suffering and yet the lack of pleasures cannot bemissed by the non-existent. It is always wrong, then, to bring harm-experiencing beingsinto existence. If pregnant, please abort.The problem and solution, as Benatar sees them, are clear-cut:Although sentience is a later evolutionary development and is a more complex state of being than insentience, it is far from clear that it is a better state of being. This isbecause sentient existence comes at a significant cost. In being able to experience,sentient beings are able to, and do, experience
unpleasantness
. (2) …In the ordinary course of events [parents] will experience only some of the bad in theirchildren’s and possibly grandchildren’s lives (because these offspring usually survivetheir progenitors), but beneath the surface of the current generations lurk increasinglylarger numbers of descendents and their misfortunes. Assuming that each couple hasthree children, an original pair’s cumulative descendants over ten generations amountsto 88,572 people. That constitutes a lot of pointless and avoidable suffering. (6 - 7)Is existence really so bad? In case you’re not convinced, Benatar succinctly describes themundane tortures that inevitably befall any unwitting human thrust into life on thisoverrated, loathsome orb:As a matter of fact, bad things happen to all of us. No life is without hardship. It is easyto think of the millions who live a life of poverty or of those who live much of their liveswith some disability. Some of us are lucky enough to be spared these fates, but most of us who are, nonetheless suffer ill-health at some stage during our lives. Often thesuffering is excruciating, even if it is in our final days. Some are condemned by nature toyears of frailty. We
all
face death. We infrequently contemplate the harms that await anynewborn child—pain, disappointment, anxiety, grief, and death. For any given child wecannot predict what form these harms will take or how severe they will be, but we can besure that at least some of them will occur. None of this befalls the non-existent. Onlyexisters suffer harm. (29) …[W]e tend to ignore just how much of our lives is characterized by negative mentalstates, even if often only relatively mildly negative ones. Consider, for example,conditions causing negative mental states daily or more often. These include hunger,thirst, bowel and bladder distension (as these organs become filled), tiredness, stress,thermal discomfort (that is, feeling either too hot or too cold), and itch. For billions of people, at least some of these discomforts are chronic. These people cannot relieve theirhunger, escape the cold, or avoid the stress. However, even those who can find somerelief do not do so immediately or perfectly, and thus experience them to some extentevery day. In fact, if we think about it, significant periods of each day are marked bysome or other of these states. For example, unless one is eating and drinking soregularly as to prevent hunger and thirst or countering them as they arise, one is likelyhungry and thirsty for a few hours a day. Unless one is lying about all day, one isprobably tired for a substantial portion of one’s waking life. How often does one feelneither too hot nor too cold, but exactly right? (71 – 72).Boy he sure left out a lot. Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that Benatar does not look on thebright side of life. He believes that even an impossibly charmed life in which everything isorgasmic pleasure save for a single pinprick is worse than never coming into existence,because the non-existent can neither experience pain nor lament lost pleasure. Whatintrigues me about his “anti-natalism,” besides that it’s outrageous and I love hischutzpah, is that this is the exact argument vegans make when they criticize humaneanimal farming on suffering reduction grounds. Veganism seeks to reduce demand foranimal products so that fewer (and ideally zero) farm animals are born. The idea is that wedo a disservice to these animals by bringing them into existence — even if it’s the bestkind of humane farming and the animals are treated well and killed painlessly — sincetheir lives include suffering and then death.When vegans talk about humanely raised animal products, they may admit that it is atleast slightly better than factory farming, but they tend to be like Benatar and focus on theharms. Even if the animals get to wander around, play and eat a natural diet, and areeventually killed painlessly, such a life is worse than never coming into being. Whilehumane farm life may be relatively pleasant overall, the incidents of suffering farmanimals often face — branding, dehorning, the separation of the calf from the mother,castration, artificial insemination, and early death — hopelessly taint the life beyond2 notes July 29, 2011 10 42 PM
Why the Top Priority of Vegans Should be HumanExtinction, Not Veganism
LET THEM EAT MEAT
07/08/11 11.52Let Them Eat MeatPagina 2 di 23http://letthemeatmeat.com/
The Animals IssuePeter CarruthersBest Price$4.12 or Buy New$27.36Privacy Information
Creepy Crawly CuisineJulieta Ramos-Elor...Best Price$8.99 or Buy New$10.95
Privacy InformationThe Denial of DeathErnest Becker Best Price$2.82 or Buy New$8.79Privacy Information
Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervante...Best Price$3.65 or Buy New$11.20
Privacy InformationEscape from EvilErnest Becker Best Price$0.40 or Buy New$16.89Privacy Information
justifiability. As HumaneMyth.org says in “Happy Cows: Behind the Myth”:The truth of the matter is that each purchase of dairy products or veal directlycontributes to more individuals brought into existence who will endure confinement,social deprivation, mutilation, reproductive manipulation, indignity and prematuredeath. (41)The sufferings can be minimized and some can be eliminated, but even if these animalsare going to suffer only a little then be killed before their natural lifespan is up, they justshouldn’t have been born.Fair enough, but when vegans use any amount of suffering to disqualify the legitimacy of bringing a life into existence, this creates some unintended philosophical consequences. If they are going to be so strict about any amount of suffering ruling out the desirability of starting a life, their priority shouldn’t be merely the end of animal farming — their priorityshould be ending humans.There are a few reasons for this. One is that even the self-proclaimed ethical humanscause more suffering than even the most unrepentant carnivore species. As Benatar says:Although the arguments I have advanced have not been misanthropic, there is a superbmisanthropic argument against having children and in favour of human extinction. Thisargument rests on the indisputable premiss that humans cause colossal amounts of suffering—both for humans and for non-human animals. In Chapter 3, I provided a brief sketch of the kind of suffering humans inflict on one another. In addition to this, theyare the cause of untold suffering to other species. Each year, humans inflict suffering onbillions of animals that are reared and killed for food and other commodities or used inscientific research. Then there is the suffering inflicted on those animals whose habitatis destroyed by encroaching humans, the suffering caused to animals by pollution andother environmental degradation, and the gratuitous suffering inflicted out of puremalice.Although there are many non-human species—especially carnivores—that also cause alot of suffering, humans have the unfortunate distinction of being the most destructiveand harmful species on earth. The amount of suffering in the world could be radicallyreduced if there were no more humans. (223 – 224)Some vegans already agree with Benatar here and wish for the extinction of humans forthe sake of other animals. But even these vegans are overlooking another reason forwanting the end of humans; it’s not just that humans cause more suffering than otheranimals — they also suffer more. If vegans believe that the life of a humanely raised farmanimal is not worth living because of the sufferings endured, then we especially shouldn’tbe bringing humans to life, since we suffer even more.Most vegan philosophers provide asurvival exemptionto veganism, allowing for theconsumption of animal products when human life immediately depends on it. Their justification for this apparent discrepancy is that human lives are richer than the lives of other animals, since we have a greater appreciation for nuance and a wider variety of pleasures. In other words, our lives are more complicated and thus better. The problemwith this is the flipside: due to our complexity and wider range of potential experiences,humans also endure a greater variety of sufferings than other animals do.So why do vegans generally believe that the pleasures humans experience outweigh oursufferings and make our lives worth starting, but the same is not true for animalshumanely raised for food? Clearly there comes a point when life has too much suffering tobe worth experiencing, but if life and death on a humane farm goes beyond the tolerablesuffering threshold, then life as a modern human must too.Is life worthwhile if it includes suffering and ends in death? If the answer is no, weshouldn’t be raising animals for food, but then we shouldn’t be raising humans either.No doubt it hurts like hell to be castrated as a young pig. But is it that much more painfuland scary than being circumcised or getting vaccinations? Maybe so, but after that earlyagony, pigs on humanely raised farms are likely to have a relatively tranquil life that is freeof major pains and anxieties, and then they’re ideally killed before they know what ishappening to them, without ever having to suffer much — if any — stress about theirmortality.Humans don’t have it so easy. An oyster doesn’t suffer because it is so simple anorganism; humans suffer the most because we are perhaps the most complex animalorganism. From a suffering reduction paradigm, the more complex you are, the greateryour suffering — and the harder it is to justify your existence.Benatar provides the general outlines of human misery, but I’m surprised he didn’t devotean entire chapter to all the bad things most lives contain. Sit down and think about yourpast for a minute or two and a chapter like that writes itself. Here are just a few of thestandard unpleasantries I can think of that even the most privileged humans face, some of them shared by other animals, but many of them unique to humans:
Work suffering.
Being out of work, having a job you hate, tedium, stress, lamentingdisregarded ambitions, wasted time, fears of not being productive or good enough andbeing fired, identity suppression to fit in the work culture, resenting others for gettingaway with doing less than you, the drive to be successful and impress your peers,
07/08/11 11.52Let Them Eat MeatPagina 3 di 23http://letthemeatmeat.com/
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MeatSimon FairlieBuy NewPrivacy InformationThe Myth of SisyphusAlbert CamusBest Price$4.11 or Buy New$11.20Privacy Information
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irritating assignments you’d rather not do or which go against your beliefs, getting fired.Farm animals often have to work too. Depending on their species, they may have to layeggs, have their wool sheared, or be milked. But none of that has to take very long — it’scertainly not an eight-hour work day — and on a humane farm it shouldn’t be thatpainful.
Relationship suffering.
Unrequited love or lust,the passion paradox, sexual frustrationor disappointment, being stuck in an unhappy relationship, STDs, long distance woes, jealousy, fears that the person you love will leave you or cheat on you, discovering lies,mutually waning love, getting dumped, feeling guilty for dumping someone, unwantedpregnancies, depression over miscarriages, post-partum depression, sleepless nights asparents, terror that something will happen to your child or that your child will misbehave,getting divorced, having parents who get divorced.Most other animals experience sexual frustration, and cats sometimes fall prey to thepassion paradox, becoming more clingy and desperate the more you ignore them. Andsometimes dogs can develop separation anxiety. But the rest of these are more or lesshuman problems.
Pain.
Minor injuries like slamming your finger in a door, severe injuries from accidents orattacks, throwing up, colds, chronic sicknesses, menstrual cramps, headaches, migraines,cluster headaches, burns, puncture wounds, the emergencies that bring you to the doctor,the treatments themselves, going to the dentist, the pain of growing a baby inside of you,having the baby, passing a kidney stone, fracturing limbs, bruising your tailbone, aging,paper cuts.It’s likely that animals are about even with us on this one, except that they are less likelyto have psychological scars from especially traumatic pain experiences.
Violence.
Rape, murder, assault and fear of all of these.Animals certainly experience violence, but for them violence would go under the headingof pain, because for humanely raised farm animals, violence is most relevant as a visceralunpleasant momentary experience. Vegans sometimes call it rape when animals such ascows are artificially inseminated, but cows hardly seem to notice this as it is happening,and it certainly does not cause the long-lasting trauma that rape does for humans.Animals experience fear too, but they are less likely to experience chronic fear at thecontemplation of something disturbing. Fear for animals usually means reacting toimmediate threatening stimuli that they need to escape. On humane farms, this shouldnot be a common occurrence.
Self-esteem suffering.
Feeling inadequate, ugly, unloved, stupid or worthless; regretsabout decisions you made in the past and worries about the future.Animals can feel unloved, but probably don’t experience the rest of these.
Self-determination infringement suffering.
Structural injustice, inequality, oppression,patriarchy, racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, dirty subversives threatening straightmarriage and Christmas (j/k), immigration restrictions, addiction, bullying, the freedomcurtailments that come with voluntary responsibilities such as parenthood, feeling a needto conform to society’s expectations, fear that the wrong people are in power and willrestrict your freedoms, prison, religious demands, onerous societal or governmentalrestrictions, over-controlling parents, ideological summer camps, compulsory education. Just because there is not a visible fence around most of us most of the time does notmean that humans feel freer than animals on humane farms do. Other animals don’t needas much freedom as we usually require to be happy because they have simpler and fewerneeds. The typical humanely raised animal is probably more content with their level of freedom than the typical human living in a country such as The United States or TheNetherlands. At least animals don’t torture themselves by reading news stories aboutideological opponents making laws they don’t like, or by contemplating freer animalselsewhere.Vegans point to calves sent to auction or slaughter, and the stress they feel while beingtransported to a new location. But what human has not felt the stress of an uncomfortabletransportation experience to a location that fills them with anxiety?Vegans don’t like that cows are impregnated every year to keep them lactating. But is thatany worse than being a woman in a religious community who is expected to produce asmany children as she possibly can?Vegans also don’t like that calves are separated from their mothers and confined whilethey are being weaned. But this is a minor inconvenience compared to separating humanchildren from their parents on the first day of Kindergarten or, god forbid, pre-school, toinitiate the next 12 years of their lives confined to a desk, in which they will be forced tomemorize and re-hash information they care little about, with summers being the onlyreprieves, since homework keeps them chained to their desks at night.
The suffering unto death.
Losing a pet, losing a loved one, losing yourself; also,contemplating all these inevitable future instances of death, and the related existential
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