‘War On the Animals’: 100 national animal welfare laws, 117 years of futility
Roman law granted the 'paterfamilias', the right of life and death over every member of his household. As far as animals are concerned, we are all, without exception, a Roman 'paterfamilias', legally and symbolically, with unlimited power over life and death. For animals it makes no difference whether we look at world history through the lens of Rome, Christianity, Hegel, the liberal rule of law or Marxism. Our right of life and death over them never changes. We can let them live, buy them, pen them in, breed them, exterminate them, poison them and slaughter them. Maybe this all seems too pessimistic. Have there not been plenty of positive developments? Animal welfare laws? Engaged young people? Growing environmental awareness? The boom in cruelty-free products? I see little reason for optimism. Optimism is the sentiment of a consumer society with a stomach where its beating heart should be.
MARKUS WILD: Humanism has elevated humanity above its natural condition, but our relationship to animals remains in a state of war. Today, the legally sanctioned… “business-like slaughtering machine” operates globally. The only difference is that the market is dominated not by beef or pork, but the chicken-lives industry. (Did you misread that as “chicken liver”?) Over 70 per cent of growth in the global meat industry has been driven by broilers. After the market leaders China, Brazil and the USA, the biggest producers are the European Union, India, Thailand, Mexico, Russia and Turkey.
The imperial behaviour of the poultry industry resembles that of an authoritarian state. The five largest poultry companies together account for 45% of the global market; last year, they killed around 9 billion broilers between them. The world will produce between 130 and 180 million tonnes of chicken meat in the next few years.
Chicken is booming thanks to its use in fast-food chains, its promotion as a healthy, light, and protein-rich alternative to red meat, the ease and variety of chicken recipes, and an increase in disposable income in some emerging economies. States subsidise the industry with public funds. Enormous numbers of chickens can be kept in small spaces, they grow quickly, and it is nearly impossible to keep track of individual injuries, mutilations or illnesses. Responsibility for waste products and the risk of epidemics are borne by the general public.
Rearing, transport and slaughter are excruciating for chickens. Before slaughter they are crammed into containers. On arrival at the slaughterhouse, they are taken out, flipped over, hung upside down, and tied up. Their heads are dragged through electric water-baths to stun them before finally they have their throats cut. The electric stunning can cause injury, pain and fear, as can the prior handling, being put upside-down and suspension. The chickens receive electric shocks before their heads even reach the bath, and the shocks in the bath may be too weak or too short to stun them. These animals then have their throats cut while conscious.
The total number of farm animals, such as cows, pigs and chickens, may seem small in relation to the entire animal kingdom, including all vertebrates, insects, worms, crustaceans, coelenterates, and so on. But if one just takes mammals and birds, the ratios look different. According to one estimate, 60 per cent of mammals are farm animals, 36 per cent are humans, and just 4% are wild animals. Around 70 per cent of birds are farm animals, while just 30 per cent are wild. The number of animals bred as livestock by humans is many times higher than the number of wild mammals and birds. For billions of fish, we show no mercy either way. Animal suffering multiplied by an unimaginable factor in the 20th century…
In 2009 Jonathan Safran Foer published Eating Animals, an account of his journalistic research into the horrors of the North American meat and fish industry. His motivation was autobiographical. The book begins with his memory of his grandmother’s cooking (“her chicken and carrots probably was the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten”). When he found out he was going to be a father, he decided to write a book about eating animals.
Why should a responsible father not concern himself with eating animals? An acquaintance of mine who enjoys Safran Foer’s novels refused to read the book. He said it was because it was nonfiction. Besides, he was scared he’d have to become vegetarian. My acquaintance has a son who eats whatever is on his plate. Peace to the plates!
I have no children. I can be indifferent about the future. I am not leaving anything to anyone. The statistical thirty years of life I have left will see global chicken production increase to 180 million tonnes while global temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius. Until then it will still be possible to live comfortably in Central Europe. Fathers will continue to kill animals, and with them their children’s future and ultimately the children themselves, for fear of having to become vegetarian.
Roman law granted the paterfamilias the right of life and death (ius vitae necisque) over every member of his household: wife, children, employees, slaves and livestock. He could decide to let them live, cast them out, abandon or kill them, buy, sell, marry, and divorce them. Particularly shocking to us is his power over the life and death of his children, although there are very few substantiated examples of it being used. It is generally thought to have been an archaic law from the early days of Rome that remained as a dead letter in later centuries…
For animals it makes no difference whether we look at world history through the lens of Rome, Christianity, Hegel, the liberal rule of law or Marxism. Our right of life and death over them never changes. We can let them live, buy them, pen them in, breed them, exterminate them, poison them and slaughter them. This applies to all possible types of animals, which for the purpose of deciding over life and death we have divided into categories: sacrificial animals, farm animals, pets, assistance animals, wild animals, sporting animals, laboratory animals, circus animals, zoo animals, therapy animals, working animals, beneficial animals, pests, production units, sources of meat, milk producers, furbearers, surplus animals, etc. Every animal has its place in the system of our specific needs. Even people who through their lifestyle distance themselves from the power over life and death belong to societies that grant this power.
As far as I know, there was and is no society or culture not based on this violence, which is ultimately always deadly (because it creates life only in order to take it). As far as animals are concerned, we are all, without exception, a Roman paterfamilias, legally and symbolically, with unlimited power over life and death.
Maybe this all seems too pessimistic. Have there not been plenty of positive developments? Animal welfare laws? Engaged young people? Growing environmental awareness? The boom in cruelty-free products? I see little reason for optimism. Optimism is the sentiment of a consumer society with a stomach where its beating heart should be.
The collective and institutionalised use of violence by humans against humans in war is much more strictly regulated than the use of violence against animals. This is because our relationship to animals is still in a warlike natural state. According to the prevailing ideology, it is natural for people to breed, use, and kill animals. Even though the overwhelming majority of these animals is specifically bred, manipulated and mass-produced by us in order to maximise economic gains, we have a tendency to think of this violent relationship as something natural. This perversion – which is what it is – stems from the fact that we want our relationship to animals to be that of a natural state of war. Our stomach wants it to be so. It then seems only natural for the fate of animals in the globalised market to be harsh and unforgiving.
No matter what high-tech weapons and ingenious killing machines we deploy against animals, it is still natural, and so we cling to the image of a ruthless nature with claws and fangs. People who advocate for animals are habitually reproached for having a romanticised view of nature as peaceful. This accusation is generally incorrect and intended simply to emphasise that the accuser’s own view of nature is realistic: despotic, brutal, merciless and not for the faint-hearted. We see nature as it suits us or as we ourselves have made it: harsh and unforgiving, “red in tooth and claw”, eat or be eaten, individual lives count for nothing. SOURCE…
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