justifying one's dinner
Submitted by rsb on Mon, 2006-04-03 21:27.
culture | philosophy
I *highly* recommend this article on hunting by Michael Pollan, from the NYTimes magazine of March 26. It explores the practical, ethical, and philosophical dimensions of being a carnivore and killing what you eat, and advocates that at the very least, we should be more intimately involved in producing our food.
You can also look through readers' questions for the author, and his responses.
Several years ago, Pollan wrote about his experience following a steer from birth to slaughter; this article is also worth reading.
That same year he wrote about animal rights in an article that engaged the arguments of philosopher Peter Singer.
I noticed that his work is archived on his website, and it's probably easier to read the articles there than at the NYTimes site.
Pollan's new book looks interesting, too. I really like the way he thinks.
Very interesting stuff!
Submitted by dkg on Mon, 2006-04-03 22:44.
Very interesting stuff!
Pollan's work is definitely engaging. his inital bald acceptance of being a speciesist (in An Animal's Place) was shocking to me, but it probably shouldn't be.
Interesting, also, to see that in the version of that article on his web site, he acknowledges that the parable of Wrightson's Island is a hypothetical scenario, while the Times' version of the article reads like it's fact.
it's good to have someone asking these questions in public like this, though. I also recently read Jeffrey Masson's The Pig who Sang to the Moon, which is a more unabashedly animal-sympathetic book, but covers some of the same ground.
Also, borrowed from a friend J.M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello, which includes in somewhat novelized form some of the arguments that Pollan refers to.
His Q & A session is a good one, too: he's not too defensive, even when challenged, and seems to want to make most of his interrogators a little bit uncomfortable, in the best socratic way. He even sneaks in a dig at the singularitarians at the end:
And it seems to me that until we download our consciousness onto silicon, the need to eat will always be with us. Amen.
fyi, Read a review of Pollan'
fyi, Read a review of Pollan's latest book.