Meat: The Ultimate Betrayal

“All the while I sat, petrified like stone, my left hand clenching the arm rest, my eyes fixed on the ever-turning update wheel, and my phone frozen to my ear. By the time my dad started conversing with me, my mouth seemed glued shut as I could barely form words, overcome by the same emotion I felt upon learning of Hillary Clinton’s shocking defeat on that tragic, groggy day last November. Several seconds passed between each painful, nondescript answer, until finally I revealed the truth—‘My presentation was a disaster,’ I mumbled, choking on suppressed tears.”

Shortly after being accepted into the Honors Program at St. Louis University, I had the opportunity to take classes exclusively reserved for other honors students. I fumbled through the list of such courses the Honors department had shared with me. “Jesus, the Bible, and Social Justice?” Hell, no; I’m an atheist! “The Psychology of Oppression?” Damn; it’s already full! “Ethics of Food.” I raised my eyebrows and even jumped back in my seat, astounded I had just found the perfect class given my profound interest in veganism! Imagining this class would afford me the opportunity to further explore the concept of veganism, in addition to other facets of ethical food production and consumption, I tore through the keyboard, registering for this course as quickly as I possibly could.

Zoom forward four months. We had read articles on how sliced white bread, a marvel of the mid-20th century, became associated with “white trash.” We had read articles from authors imploring us to return to local, small-scale farming practices due to a reverence for nature and an idealization of pre-industrial agriculture. And we had discussed, at length, the cruel, slavish conditions imposed on migrant farm workers in Immokalee, Florida in the production of tomatoes for the popular Southern grocery chain, Publix. We even read numerous selected works by Michael Pollan, including several extended, sordid passages extolling the virtues of “humane” alternative animal production. Disappointed by the near constant omission of the ills of modern animal agriculture—and its near universal romanticization when practiced on small-scale, local farms—I decided my best opportunity to crack through the constricting mold of complacency was during a presentation in which I had to reflect on the ethical dimensions of my dietary habits as examined over a two-week period.

An inspiring book

While taking this course, I decided to continue investing into my ongoing effort to research the various dimensions of veganism—ethical, environmental, psychological, dietary, and even economic. I flicked out my Discover credit card, and purchased “The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat?,” for $19.95, not including shipping, from Amazon (little did I realize this was the beginning of my first foray into major credit card debt I am still struggling to repay to this day). When I received this book roughly two weeks later, I placed it on my baby grand piano for it to gather dust over the next month or two. With two weeks to go before a presentation I hoped would correct this course’s conspicuous deficit of pro-vegan, genuinely anticarnist literature, I ripped this book from its dusty stasis, delving through its 12 chapters over the succeeding days.

Hope Bohanec, a distinguished animal rights advocate with over 20 years of experience in the movement, masterfully delivered a unique thesis nowhere more poignantly articulated in the animal rights canon, arguing that slaughtering animals, especially those who have grown to trust us, constitutes “the ultimate betrayal.” She begins her analysis of the morality of animal slaughter by noting that conscientious consumers are willing to examine the impact of their dietary choices on the environment, nonhuman animals, and human suffering. While this effort to reduce one’s impact by making purchase decisions that reduce the overall net sum of suffering in the world is morally praiseworthy on Bohanec’s account, the growing trend of seeking more “humane,” “sustainably raised” products obscures the fundamental moral transgression of claiming someone’s life for something as trivial as palate preference.

As Bohanec reflects, “when we become caretakers of domesticated animals, whether they are dogs, goats, or chickens, we are leading these animals to believe that they can trust us… These animals, as highly emotional beings, come to expect us to care for them, to make them as comfortable as we can, and to nurture them through the end of their life stages.” She continues by noting that “When we consistently feed them, give them water, and administer proper medical attention, they come to expect this human treatment and develop a capacity for trust that can be truly astounding. This trust can lead to a sense of intense loyalty that is so strong it can be described as love.” Given this conception of trust-building, it becomes an act of betrayal when the “unspoken promise” between nonhuman animals and their caretakers is so brazenly violated as when an unsuspecting animal is subjected to slaughter and the excruciating suffering it so often entails.

At this juncture, Bohanec advances her core thesis, remonstrating that “when the human guardian has an ulterior motive of self-interest and is all the while plotting to ultimately kill the animal companion for her flesh, this sacred bond of trust is completely violated by the human’s treacherous motive.” She deepens her account of betrayal by noting that “A violation of trust of this magnitude, when one individual depends on the other for her very life and every aspect of well-being, can only rightly be termed betrayal—the greater the degree of dependence, the greater the degree of trust, and the greater the bond of trust, the greater the magnitude of betrayal.” Bohanec further posits that moral responsibility is proportional to the need of the object of responsibility—such as a nonhuman animal, disabled human animal, or young child—and the resources a given moral agent has at their disposal to address that need. On her account, it is precisely when we are most responsible for the wellbeing of nonhuman animals or other disadvantaged individuals that we possess the strongest moral invocation to aid them.

Despite this moral calling to aid the other—the face-to-face relation the moral philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, professes “orders and ordains” us to see the other as a unique individual worthy of compassionate and respectful treatment—human “guardians” who slaughter their nonhuman animal captives violate not only their role as caretakers, but also the trust their unwitting victims have come to place in them through prior humane treatment. As Hope is quick to point out, however, her account does not entail that it is more ethical to abuse and then kill a nonhuman animal simply because their treatment does not entail the same element of betrayal; rather, it reinforces her view that killing is the greater moral transgression, regardless of how a human “guardian” treated a nonhuman animal prior to slaughter. In the case where a nonhuman animal is tormented and then killed, torture is the preceding crime; in the case where a nonhuman animal is treated humanely and then slaughtered, betrayal is the infraction that precedes the killing. Either way, raising animals with the sole intent to profit from their deaths is morally repugnant on Bohanec’s account.

Four thought experiments

In response to carnists’ attempts to rationalize nonhuman animal slaughter, many vegans have curtly retorted “would you consider it humane if it were done to you?” While this question serves as an excellent framing device for any insistence that killing, mutilating, or otherwise exploiting nonhuman animals is somehow ethical, Bohanec introduces several thought experiments in her first chapter alone that help clarify the nature of the profound moral transgression entailed by unnecessarily claiming the lives of sentient creatures for personal benefit. If, for example, someone were to treat another person well, then murder him, the prior humane treatment would do nothing to exonerate the murderer of his crime. At best, the perpetrator might receive a lesser sentence than if he had both tormented and murdered his victim, but the charge of murder remains nonetheless. Bohanec further asks us to imagine that a defense attorney pleads with the court that because a husband treated his wife well prior to murdering her, he should be acquitted of the crime. How would the jurors react? As Bohanec implores, how would you react? The absurdity of justifying unnecessary killing on the basis of prior humane treatment becomes breathtakingly laughable as Bohanec progresses through such thought experiments.

Next, Bohanec asks us to imagine that we are highly reliant on a given caretaker for almost every aspect of our life, from feeding, to bathing, to cleaning your living space. After years of courteous treatment as your caretaker attends to your every need, you come to trust this individual and fiercely so. Then one morning your caretaker comes along to kill you and your family members and friends or ships you off to a death camp. Would you, in this situation, graciously thank your captor for his past kind treatment—or would you “curse him for his callous betrayal?” The sense of betrayal, Bohanec alleges, would be so great that you would not thank your captor for his past kind treatment; instead, you would realize that all prior help you received from this individual was a ruse, a ploy to pursue his own self-interest. Extending this analogy to animal slaughter, Bohanec stresses “The magnitude of betrayal in the slaughter of animals is so great that it precludes any consideration of previous assistance provided to the animal. And because this assistance was not for the actual motive of helping the animal—rather, it was a means in the pursuit of self-serving intentions—these previous actions cannot be considered humane at all.”

Before unleashing her next batch of thought experiments, Bohanec revisits the topic of the fundamental harm posed by death. She notes that it is bizarre so many consumers express great concern over the treatment of nonhumans prior to their slaughter yet feel few qualms pertaining to their actual execution. To Bohanec, “This fact seems to demonstrate a general inability to appraise the various gradation of moral transgressions, with killing being at the furthest end of the spectrum of immorality.” This struggle to properly morally assess the act of slaughter also defies our conceptions of jurisprudence. According to Bohanec, our society has embraced the principle that punishment ought to be proportional to the severity of the crime in question, with killing considered one of the most serious types of crime; when the death penalty is exercised, she notes, it is almost always in cases that involve murder. Even then, further criteria, such as premeditation, torture, and rape, must usually be satisfied before a judge invokes the death penalty as a just recompense to a horrible misdeed (or series thereof). As Bohanec alleges, the extent to which we view human life as sacred and strive to protect it is “admirable.” Yet she also admonishes us to consider why we do not extend the same care and consideration to nonhuman animals when they have the same interest in continued existence.

With the foregoing moral reasoning serving as a backdrop, Bohanec next asks to imagine the following: would you rather spend six months in a five-star hotel and be killed at the end of this six-month period or be allowed to live out the rest of your life in a jail? Even if the conditions in the jail were quite harsh, Bohanec alleges, most people would opt for the option that allows them to remain alive; however pleasant those six months might be at the five-star hotel, we would still be greeted by the prospect of an untimely death. From this thought experiment, Bohanec derives the following conclusion: the most important ethical consideration is not how a human captor treats a nonhuman animal prior to slaughtering that animal, but that that animal be allowed to live. As Bohanec attests, cows, chickens, pigs, and innumerable other species possess the same drive to survive as cats, dogs, and other “companion” animals. Animals will fight to preserve their lives every bit as intensely as many human animals have, from resiliently weathering the sheer brutality of the Holocaust to surviving the exceptionally harsh winters in the Sierra Nevada while trekking along the California Trail. We can infer from their life-preserving behavior that nonhuman animals desire to live above all else, and that their survival, not merely their treatment, should be the primary moral consideration extended to them.

To encourage viewing animal slaughter in a more relatable, less abstract manner, Bohanec launches into her final major thought experiment, posing the following question: would you rather be murdered or assaulted with a baseball bat? As in the previous thought experiment about spending six months in a five-star hotel only to be murdered at the end of that six-month stay or spending the rest of your life in a jail, most people would prefer the option that allows them to remain alive, to continue living their lives, even if permanently disabled by the assault (assuming, of course, there is no severe, ongoing, irreversible suffering). The most important consideration to most people is continued survival above other considerations of well-being. Bohanec extends this thought experiment further, asking whether it is acceptable to hit a pig with a baseball bat. Since it is clearly unacceptable to cause unnecessary suffering in such fashion, why, Bohanec wonders, is it acceptable to inflict the more severe infraction—taking their life? As Bohanec underscores, “The idea that you can humanely kill an animal is completely absurd. The very act of killing is the greatest source of inhumanity and the worst act of violence.”

The dreaded presentation

“I lumbered back to my chair, unable to look at anyone, my head sealed instead to the clock, waiting for the moment I could escape without drawing any more attention to myself. When that moment finally came, an unusual silence pervaded the air as everyone departed; perhaps I had surprised and shocked everyone, though my dad later convinced me that others might have empathized with my failure as well. Still flushed with anxiety, I managed to shuffle into the building across from Fitzgerald Hall, after which I collapsed into a cushy, grey chair. I opened my laptop to begin typing a profuse letter of apology, but naturally, my computer continued a lengthy update that I had ignored for weeks.”

Flummoxed by the glaring omission of animal ethics in a class supposedly about the ethics of food, I vowed to the share the truth at long last—the animal abuse industry was just as violent, corrupt, and unjust as I had suggested throughout the semester where I had reasonable occasion to do so. We had, for example, read articles that alluded to animal cruelty, only for human interests to assume center stage once more. One article tracked the journey of an undercover investigator who posed as a migrant worker so he could be hired at a slaughterhouse and document the conditions therein. While the author did attest to the appalling sights he witnessed as animals were butchered, he spent the vast majority of his essay describing the unjust power dynamics that existed between employers and employees in such environments, particularly when illegal immigrants lack legal standing to report their employers’ abuse for fear of being deported. His trek into the dark underbelly of animal agriculture is certainly commendable, but the failure to connect the corporate abuse of employees to the heinous act of slaughtering innocents necessitated the need for a more complete account of oppression, an account that was never advanced in my “ethics of food” class (except by my occasional protestations).

Of the dozens of articles we read, what was the cause of this glaring omission? How could our professor overlook the single most pressing issue in the ethics of food? As fellow classmates could have discovered in this learning environment, over 70 billion animals are massacred for meat, eggs, and dairy every single year, and the ethical and environmental impacts of this predilection for animal products could hardly be more profound. I resolved to do the following with my presentation: I would finally provide a firm foundation for my veganism by showing a deliberately suppressed truth; I would screen a 59-second video produced by Mercy For Animals showcasing standard practices within the industry, the quickest, most powerful case I felt I could render in a presentation supposed to be reserved for discussions of why I have acquired such an unseemly mass and why I prefer to eat lunch in our dining hall alone, being the thought-absorbed, introverted loner that I am.

“Afraid that others could still see and hear me, I trudged into an abandoned lecture hall where I collapsed once more, this time splayed out in a miserable mess rather than stiffened by anxiety into a gargoyle-like repose. Relieved of the dizzying fear that someone would witness me in this emotionally vulnerable moment and associate it with my 'I don't eat my friends' shirt and thus veganism, I finally allowed myself to begin spewing tears while I grieved into the phone. My dad tried to comfort me, telling me that it was just one failure; after all, I had given compelling speeches with the Ethical Society of St. Louis, the Gateway Green Alliance, and St. Louis Animal Rights Team. He also praised me for having the courage to speak truth to power in a society that constantly pressures me, alongside millions of other compassionate individuals, to remain silent about the single greatest atrocity in all human history—our millennia of raping, torturing, murdering, mutilating, abusing, exploiting, enslaving, exterminating, and eating innocent animals who just wanted to live.”

I knew I was taking a risk; our professor had deliberately suppressed the truth, and she would regularly glare at me whenever I ventured into the realm of the anticarnistic (conversations with fellow classmates after our term ended revealed I was not the only one who noticed our professor’s tendency to glare at me while I was speaking, a tendency that grew more flagrant as the semester progressed). But it was a calculated risk; I wanted to expose the truth, if only for 59-seconds. Even if my grade would be lowered, I would likely have spared dozens if not hundreds of animals from a lifetime of misery by inspiring fellow classmates to reduce their animal product consumption, making my display of solidarity with their overlooked plight more than worthwhile.

“Just two years ago a bacon-loving, deer-hunting carnist, my dad reminded me that other people simply are not ready for the truth. And I pleaded with him—why must justice wait? Why must we continue suppressing the truth? And why must we remain silent about the single greatest atrocity in the entire history of our world?”

At last, the day arrived; the time to enact my plan was now! I began with a rather mundane introduction, one of several I had prepared, that did not presage the truth bomb I intended to drop just moments later. Clasping my heart with my hands, I uttered that the single largest observation about my diet was that it was entirely vegan and that I wanted to share, at long last, why I feel so passionate about this manner of living. I switched slides and activated the video; three seconds in, Prof. Ratigan (as I would later call her) shrieked I stop the video at once, and I complied, deactivating the video immediately as the overwhelming sensation of shame flooded my face. My optimism derailed, I stumbled, as if befuddled by large quantities of alcohol, through the remainder of my presentation. As soon as I finished, I sat back rigidly in my chair and refused to look at any of the subsequent presenters, my head deadlocked on the clock at the back of the room, awaiting sweet release.

“My dad reminded me that everyone simply felt uncomfortable with the footage I had shown, the footage I had shown hundreds of times to hundreds of other individuals, none of whom ever shut me down quite like I was shut down on Thursday. And I recalled all the professors from my former institution who regularly aired the truth in their classes each semester. These philosophers, sociologists, and writers revered the truth, for they believed that only by knowing the truth can we live a good life. I am shocked—no, horrified!—that my new institution, which prides itself on its alleged commitment to social justice before all else, could harbor educators so resolutely opposed to social justice for animals, even in a class supposedly dedicated to the ethics of food!”

When silence is betrayal

To this day, I remain astounded by the learning environment I encountered in my first strictly honors course. The denial, the hostility, the lack of mutual understanding; Prof. Ratigan was not alone in rebuking me. One particularly gifted, social justice-oriented student named Gabriela would often arch her eyebrows and lean to the side when I spoke, only to resume her upright posture when trying to contradict one of my points or responding to an unrelated issue. (I also recall, in the same semester, a handsome graduate student in my advanced ethics course who engaged in similar behavior when I outlined the concept of human privilege, which I had elected to develop in our final 20-page paper, on the final day of class.)

Despite the preexisting narratives that strive to delegitimize vegan discourse—alongside the occasionally hostile environments that carnists can both intentionally and unintentionally craft—it is crucial we continue advocating for nonhuman animals to the fullest of our ability. Only then can we urge others to join the winning side of history, take the side of justice, and let the truth be known that all may know an ever-expanding compassion, whether cat, dog, cow, chicken, pig, human, or rat. Anything less is betrayal.