I am not given to religion or other superstitious habits. However, in my view, the world's religions are cultural repositories of what I refer to as, "old wisdom." To that end, if taken on a secular basis, Buddhism has something old and wise to say about eating meat. The first is the notion that eating meat diminishes a person's capacity for compassion. The second is that life is suffering and one must do what he can to mitigate suffering generally.
I was particularly struck by the argument for compassion. Most people think that compassion is something that is only expressed between humans. However, if I understand this tenet of Buddhism correctly, compassion is something that is expressed towards all living things. If this is true, then we must also have compassion towards all animals, even those we eat.
But this raises another question; is compassion a relative principal? In other words, does one standard apply to humans and another to animals? Up until very recently, I ate meat from animals that were sustainably raised, fed organic grain and/or grass and humanely slaughtered. After all, if the animal I was eating was treated well and had only "one bad day" in it's life, I must have been acting compassionately. But that line of reasoning made me uncomfortable. How could I eat the flesh of an animal, no matter how well treated, that was sentient and capable of genuine affection towards people and other animals? Also, I realized how disconnected I was from the brutal reality of meat production. Like most people I know, I purchased neatly packaged meat in upper-end markets without ever having to witness the animal's fear and terror in the moments leading up to its slaughter. The answer was startlingly simple. I haven't missed meat since.
The mitigation argument is a surprisingly political one. Aside from the obvious relationship between compassion and mitigating suffering, mitigation requires that we look deeper into our food sources vis-a-vis the U.S. meat and poultry industry. There we find cruel and inhumane treatment of animals on an industrial level. We also find that industrialized meat production results in tremendous environmental problems associated with animal effluence into the soil and water tables as well as the emission of animal gasses into the atmosphere.
The corporate actors involved in the industrial meat production couldn't care less about the lives of the animals they "process" and engage in a level of dispassionate cruelty (and environmental degradation) that is truly psychotic. And that psychosis is passed onto the public via sophisticated corporate marketing techniques. As a result, Americans have no idea about how meat is produced and its associated environmental costs. In fact, the decades-old marketing blitz has been so successful that most Americans are now desensitized and lack the capacity to think about the ethical consequences of industrialized meat production. It's as if no one cares. Industrialized slaughter with all of it inhumanity and cruelty has become banal.
The same can be said for the dairy and egg industry. There, cows and chickens are kept penned up in horrific conditions. Cow are milked to the point where their udders become infected and the discharge passed into the milk. Chickens spend their entire lives in small cages with their beaks clipped to prevent self injury. All that matters is the final product. The quality of the animal's life is irrelevant (although organic milk and egg production is much more humane and sustainable, I refrain from these products due to other dietary and health concerns).
There's only so much that one private actor can do in the face of industrialized slaughter. Adopting a vegan diet is not an easy choice. Culturally, the U.S. does not support vegan food stuffs and I'm forced
to be more creative in the kitchen. Fine dining is somewhat limited and I face the wrath of indignant wait staff when I ask if I may substitute ingredients. Adequate protein intake is also an issue. But the question remains: do my actions promote or mitigate suffering? I choose compassion and mitigation; therefore, I must reject the corporate exploitation of animals.
