{"id":62421,"date":"2015-08-17T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-08-17T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=62421"},"modified":"2015-08-13T13:22:10","modified_gmt":"2015-08-13T12:22:10","slug":"how-i-learned-to-hate-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/08\/how-i-learned-to-hate-animals\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Learned to Hate Animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

12 Aug 2015 – <\/em>How are we socialized into accepting\u00a0systematic violence against animals? Like anything else, I think we learn the rationales for non-human exploitation in drips and drops. This\u00a0education\u00a0\u2014\u00a0or more accurately,\u00a0miseducation\u00a0\u2014 probably\u00a0takes place throughout our lifespan, with different\u00a0answers formulated to meet our ideological needs at different times and places. There\u2019s nothing particularly nefarious\u00a0in the\u00a0process. Speciesist messages are passed on by well-meaning people. Human violence against animals is just the way it\u2019s always been. Plus, it generates a great deal of money for certain people at the top of the economic hierarchy, and one\u00a0might argue even\u00a0those humans on the bottom\u00a0benefit.<\/p>\n

Above others, a particular instance in my socialization stands out. In 1999, I\u00a0was 12.\u00a0My father had just accepted the headmaster position at a boarding school\u00a0which, as a result,\u00a0I would attend free of charge.\u00a0The institution boasted a farm\u00a0and in the fall students participated in what was euphemistically referred to as \u201cchicken harvest,\u201d\u00a0as if killing sentient individuals\u00a0was no different than the harvesting of potatoes, which took place around the same time.\u00a0Leading up to the event, the school held an assembly at which the barn manager, a stout\u00a0Irish immigrant, explained how animals were treated on factory farms and how it was different from that of those in his care.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0implication seemed to be that\u00a0in raising\u00a0and killing birds the way the school did,\u00a0we did\u00a0them\u00a0a favor. The\u00a0unstated assumption, of course, being\u00a0that animal agriculture was inevitable. I\u00a0learned there was a certain nobility in\u00a0participating in violence against animals. Doing so represented\u00a0a mature embrace\u00a0of the world\u2019s complexities, in contrast to those who bought\u00a0the cellophane-wrapped results\u00a0in the supermarket.\u00a0Of course, acknowledging a contradiction doesn\u2019t make furthering\u00a0it\u00a0less hypocritical. And one\u2019s direct rather than passive\u00a0participation doesn\u2019t matter\u00a0to the animals being killed. But it seemed like the reasonable, adult position at the time.<\/p>\n

Attending chicken harvest wasn\u2019t mandatory, but there was a strong pressure to do so. Those who didn\u2019t participate were forced to spend the day in the library, writing a report on animal treatment in\u00a0factory farms.\u00a0Only a handful of\u00a0vegetarian students\u00a0did this, one of whom I had a crush on. And in retrospect, I\u2019m amazed\u00a0by their ability to resist pressure from\u00a0friends and teachers.<\/p>\n

\"chicken-slaughter-02<\/a><\/p>\n

Chicken harvest was videotaped that year. In the recording, you can see me\u00a0in my denim work\u00a0jacket,\u00a0gripping my neck in vicarious horror. There was\u00a0a performative aspect to my reaction. But despite this, the slaughter\u00a0was the first real instance of violence I had ever seen, so far as I can remember. And it was horrifying.\u00a0Undoubtedly I had\u00a0witnessed schoolyard scuffles, but nothing like this. Nothing that resulted in a bucketful of the lopped-off heads of living individuals, blinking in their apparent last moments of consciousness.<\/p>\n

When it was over, I remember laying in the grass with my friends, publicly\u00a0vowing to become\u00a0vegetarian. This oath, of course, lasted a few days tops.\u00a0Later, some boys broke into the car of my English teacher, an outspoken vegetarian who didn\u2019t attend chicken harvest or barn\u00a0chores, and draped the interior with animal flesh. I remember acting, like my peers, as if it\u00a0was quite funny. I\u00a0think we believed she got what she deserved,\u00a0for not recognizing the way things were and doing so while a woman.<\/p>\n

Two years after, in my final year at the school, I was a full participant in the year\u2019s slaughter. Together with a girl I briefly dated, I wrestled a turkey into a large bucket with a small slit, just big enough for its neck\u00a0to stick out from. I pinned the animals\u2019 writhing body to the ground after its head\u00a0was cut off\u00a0with an axe, until the poor creature\u00a0bled out. From there, we brought the carcass through the methodical process of boiling, plucking, gutting and cleaning.\u00a0Somewhere, there\u2019s a photo of me\u00a0smiling, holding the corpse\u00a0upside down,\u00a0waving to the camera with a glove-covered hand\u00a0smeared with blood.\u00a0It wouldn\u2019t be\u00a0until I was preparing to go to college,\u00a0reading\u00a0Peter Singer\u2019s Animal Liberation<\/a><\/em>, that I began to question the assumptions behind that smile.<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Jon Hochschartner<\/em>\u00a0is a freelance writer from New York.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How are we socialized into accepting systematic violence against animals? Like anything else, I think we learn the rationales for non-human exploitation in drips and drops. This education \u2014 or more accurately, miseducation \u2014 probably takes place throughout our lifespan, with different answers formulated to meet our ideological needs at different times and places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-rights-vegetarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}