Dear Good Netizens: how do we participate in a carcass cruncher society after a plant-based shift in ethics, values, & perception? By exposing the cracks of cognitive dissonance in the old paradigm.
"It's easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe." - Moby
I remember when I taught English in Taiwan for 6 months, a move that (looking back) was one of the most difficult times in my life. Taiwanese/Chinese culture eats every part of the animal (literally): when walking through the market, the smell of pig intestines waft through the air, adding to the ambience. Organs, chicken feet, and things you'd rather not know are "woked", deep fried, and available every day; which - from a positive angle - at least nothing is wasted. However as a vegan it was a very isolating experience to navigate this environment day-to-day. In larger Asian culture I noticed how animated, "cutsie" animals are quite common in marketing of food products to children. My students loved to watch the animated show Peppa Pig, 'Old McDonald Had a Farm (ei ai ei ai ohhhh isn't it cute?)', and sing a curriculum-required song that word-for-word went, "I like chicken, I like fish, I like ice cream, what's this? This is juice, this is juice, I don't like juice!" ... do you feel the cognitive dissonance yet? One day during lunch I had a deep, chilling moment of intuitive insight as to how disassociation of animal food products from the actual animal is socialized in young children: via animation. Children's books, television shows, and movies encode this socialization process. When a child is taught to associate a surreal - albeit cute - animated interpretation of an "animal" (which may walk like humans, talk like humans - a phenomena known as "anthropomorphism") to the flesh & blood being, they will disassociate the animal food product from their mental concept of that particular "animal". E.g. the word "bacon" is not associated with the mental image of a living, breathing "pig" because the child's mental image of a "pig" has been subconsciously connected to "peppa pig"; even though bacon comes from real pigs! Did my students struggle to associate images of real, flesh & blood "pigs", "cows", & "chickens" with images of their related food products like "bacon", "hamburger", & "chicken fingers"? Absolutely, and I practiced vocabulary-visual associations often with them in order to plant seeds. Children must understand the connection between their food and where it comes from.
Cognitive dissonance can be defined as, "the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change". The association between perfectly-packaged animal food products to the real-life being requires a vast shift in perception which - to people who have already embraced a plant-based lifestyle - can leave us feeling like aliens in a society of carnists. One of the most common manifestations of cognitive dissonance that vegans often find themselves encountering in Western society is a scenario that may follow as such with a carnist family member or colleague:
"So why did you decide to go vegan?"
"Because I love and respect animals. I will not eat them".
"Just because I eat meat doesn't mean I don't love animals! I love my dog so much, they are part of the family. I don't understand how the Chinese can eat dogs".
*vegan eye roll*
"So do you see any difference between a dog and a pig? Studies show that pigs pass the mirror self-awareness test, which dogs do not. I.e. they have a sense of self".
"Well some animals are meant to be eaten. That's nature. Stop judging me! You are making me feel bad".
This aspect of cognitive dissonance is evident in virtually all aspects of Western society and is called "speciesism" in sociology. We have given in our minds, homes, hearts, & legal systems higher status to certain animal species - like homo sapiens sapiens, dogs & cats - while we have given other species like pigs, cows, & birds zero legal rights or value because we eat them. How can we live in a world where human beings who eat certain animals also claim to "love animals" in general? The hierarchy of division in species goes virtually unquestioned in most carnists minds as they devour hamburgers, bacon, & chicken while pampering their dogs and cats with expensive food, toys, & veterinary care. Why?
In my humble opinion it is because our culture subtly socializes children into a materialist perception of nature (and therefore greater reality) which:
a) perceives the Earth not as a fluid, changing, living, sacred & holistic energetic ecosystem but merely physical resource which exists solely to fuel our economic growth & expansion
b) teaches the belief that resources are "limited" in nature, thus we must compete for energy and resources, rather than work together to create abundance for all
c) actively shames & hides indigenous knowledge of the natural world whose great teachings all stress the sacred principles of balance, interconnectivity, & reciprocity with nature and all its "people"
d) separates the identity of "human-ness" from nature as if we exist in a bubble of civilization which does not affect the natural world via a complex intersection of various factors
Global warming is a wake-up call that it is time to shift our perceptions of our species' relationship to nature. One of the biggest ways the collective can start to combat climate change is to shift to a plant-based food production system.
Digest all that information for a minute. Shifting to a plant-based paradigm is so much deeper than diet, and thus it is imperative we address the cognitive dissonance permeating the old paradigm.
The cognitive dissonance is most evident in - but certainly not limited to - the following realms of socialization:
1) Religion
The beliefs (as promoted by Evangelical Christianity despite the sound biblical evidence suggesting that Jesus was a vegetarian) of "God made animals to be eaten by humans" and "man is made in the image of God" both contribute to the separation of "human" from "animal". If God is the creator of all life, then why are "animals", "plants", "funghi", and "insects" also not made in the image of God? This hotmess of a topic deserves its very own blog post (so stay tuned ...)
2) Language
The Sapir-Whorf "Linguistic Relativity Theory" is a Linguistics concept that your native language encodes your perception of reality, time, color, emotions, etc. (think of each language like a different-shaped window). For example in Romance languages like Spanish all nouns (even inanimate ones) arbitrarily have either a masculine or feminine gender. I.e. "la mesa (the table)" is feminine and "el árbol (the tree)" is masculine (even though trees are androgynous). Thus it is difficult to express gender neutrality/androgyny in Spanish whereas in Germanic languages there are gender-neutral pronouns and no gendering of nouns. Thus how would your language affect your perception of gender?
Now switching lanes: how do the concepts of "animal" and "human" separate us from the natural world? Well the very words "animal" and "human" are considered by most to be non-interchangeable i.e. "humans" are not "animals", and "animals" are not "humans". There is only one singular category defining "human" in our minds (which means being homo sapien sapien - quite a limited club, right?) while "animal" covers all other living beings who move, breathe, eat food, and have a central nervous system (although the line separating "plant" from "animal" is foggy at best). Modern human languages are conceptual & symbolic in nature: that is you learn what a "word" means by associating a mental concept like "red" with arbitrary sounds that your parents, family, & greater society teach you to associate with that concept. One of the easiest ways to see linguistic relativity in action is how different colors have different symbolic meanings across cultures: in Western society we often associate "blue" with "sadness", while in Chinese culture "red" is associated with "good luck".
Are linguistic concepts like "human", "animal", "phylum", "kingdom", "family", "species", "sub-species", "primitive", "civilized", "savage", etc. loaded with boxes, lines, strict definitions, classification, & time-honored walls of institutional bias? You be the judge. Einstein had a few opinions about the subject of perceptual bias in science: "Reality is an illusion, albeit it a persistent one".
Maybe what Einstein is trying to express is that "reality" is all relative to the window through which you look out onto the world. Do you believe "humans" are really just big-brained "animals" (as Darwinist Evolution teaches)? Or do you believe dolphins exhibit traits of what science has defined as "human" like language, emotions, and a sense of self? The fact that bottlenose dolphins have been observed getting high on pufferfish toxin begs all sort of philosophical questions.
3) Law
Did you know that the United States federal government gives a corporation all legal rights of "personhood"? This was the first legal precedent of a non-human entity (while corporations are run by humans, they are not a human being) receiving rights afforded only to "persons"; which our Western culture equates only to "humans". African slaves were not defined as legal persons in the United States which justified their enslavement. Native Americans were not afforded the same rights as legal persons which justified the genocide of their various peoples, forced removal, and stealing of their ancestral lands. It's clearly all a matter of linguistics when it comes to legal treatment. Are there any other species exhibiting high signs of cognitive functions which could match (or far outreach) our own?
The list and research is long:
- the great apes like chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans
- cephalopods like octopus, squid, & cuttlefish
- corvids like the crows and ravens
- parrots like the African grey or Kea
- pigs
- cows
- horses
Why are all these highly complex and intelligent beings not legally afforded the same rights of "personhood"? When we define "personhood" on human terms - like "intelligence", brain size and ability to speak human language - we will only look for our own forms of intelligence in other beings whom are not humans. Obviously this is a very limiting definition when interacting with other species who live in totally different environments and exhibit a wide variety of behaviors. Maybe a better definition of intelligence is creative problem-solving relative to one's environment. How aware or in tune are "animals" with their own environments? Can "instinct" truly be separated from "intelligence"?
The documentary series "Animals Like Us" highlights a number of research topics that show the divide between "human" and "animal" is actually very thin. Altruism, medicine, language, emotions, homosexuality, and culture are all shown to exist across a wide variety of species by this enlightening program; illustrating that many traits we define as "human" has been a wholly selfish definition.
Animals Like Us: Altruism
By separating "humans" from "animals", governments have justified what animal activists call "the animal holocaust". If the darwinist perception dominating science were to admit non-human species show love, complex emotions, & altruism society would no longer have the legal grounds to separate "animals" from "humans" in support of the annual slaughter of millions of factory farm species.
The numbers do not lie. How is the "animal holocaust" justified legally? By labeling "animals" as "property". Check out animal rights lawyer Lesli Bisgould's fascinating TedTalk on the subject.
In our own self-righteousness we have created a paradigm which defines, categorizes, and understands the entire natural world and greater cosmos centered around our own self-serving terms. We consider ourselves "special" and have equated "humanness" with "personhood", resulting in the categorization of all other beings whom we share the planet as "animals". The legal separation of "humans" from "animals" is based inherently on the assumption that "animals" are non-conscious beasts operating off instincts, more akin to "things", which can lawfully be owned as "property". The reality in the 21st century is that there is more than enough scientific research, observation, and data demanding that we reclassify the term "person" to be more inclusive.
Native American cultures had no concept of ownership or property. Furthermore many endowed animals, mountains, plants, rivers, the weather, and even the cardinal directions with "personhood" (read some Peter Nabokov like Where The Lightning Strikes). A certain rock could be considered a "person" or "conscious". Furthermore when a kill was made of an animal like a deer, offerings and prayers were given back to nature in order to to appease the "deer people". Maybe Native American cultures' concept of "personhood" can be associated with a collective oversoul - think of a spiritual spokesperson representing the whole group. For example when studying ancient cow cults which worshipped the bovines and carried out bull sacrifices, the priests were trying to establish good favor with the deity associated with the real animal. The deity was considered conscious, alive, and just as real as the physical animal. Clearly the ancients had a much different worldview of what constitutes a "person".
How can we as vegans in our everyday lives help share this beautiful perception of nature and reality with the modern world? How do we shift the old paradigm?
Understand that separation is the greatest illusion. Everything we have comes from one source: nature. Honor the interconnectivity of everything, always. Whilst vegans witness the cognitive dissonance every day, in order to survive in a society full of carnists, we must forgive others and ourselves. We can only forgive by recognizing we are all products of our environment. Do not blame individuals for the paradigm they were socialized into. Softly try and plant seeds in order to expose the cracks of cognitive dissonance when people are reacting in a defensive way to information which challenges the paradigm. A perception cannot be changed forcefully, but shifted subtly. It requires individual participation, and every individual has their own journey to greater awareness of our relationship with the natural world and all the beings we share it with. Also, sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words.
"Knowing is a very great power, just to know" ~ Hakim Awyan
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