- ISBN13: 9781573244619
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
In her groundbreaking new book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, Melanie Joy explores the invisible system that shapes our perception of the meat we eat, so that we love some animals and eat others without knowing why. She calls this system carnism. Carnism is the belief system, or ideology, that allows us to selectively choose which animals become our meat, and it is sustained by complex psychological and social mechanisms. Like other “isms” (racism, age… More >>
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism
Ms. Joy’s book claims to explain why we choose to eat some animals and not others. Just as she begins to build on her thesis, the book quickly turns into another vitriolic rant against meat production and consumption. Like similar rants, Ms. Joy uses the most graphic and horrifying details possible to bring the reader to their knees and turn them into vegans. It is not that the things Ms. Joy is saying are unimportant, but the bait and switch tactics and screaming voice Ms. Joy uses will probably hinder many from absorbing the message she wants to spread. And unfortunately, she is probably preaching to the choir. I had hoped to learn something new, but did not feel that Ms. Joy did justice to her subject.
Ms. Joy graphically dramatizes the misery of animals that are victims of modern meat production, but she completely avoids the fact that plants feel pain too. Many studies have proven that plants know when something painful is going to happen to them, and they try to move away from it. Can we really say that it is OK to cut down plants for human and animal consumption and then say that animals should not be eaten when both plants and animals are aware and feel pain? And what of the animals that eat other animals? Should that be stopped as well?
It is an undeniable fact that our world is an eating world, and eating cannot be avoided. It is how we eat that matters, not what we eat, but Ms. Joy doggedly supports the belief that animals and animal products should never be eaten by humans. I agree that the cruelty involved in producing meat and other animal products must be stopped, but how can we draw the line on what can be eaten or not eaten when the entire world is conscious and aware?
Ms. Joy also fails to address the issue that humans have not only put themselves at the top of the food chain, they have taken themselves out of the food chain. Humans go to extravagant lengths to make sure that their precious bodies do not become food for another plant or animal when they die. In our eating world, this seems to me to be one of the most outrageous things humans do. We do not address this issue because we do not want to admit our animal nature or accept our place as a small part of a greater system.
If we were to truly care about the plants and animals in our world, we would treat them humanly and put their health, comfort and enjoyment of life ahead of our greedy drive for money and comfort. And when our bodies give out, we would offer them to the earth and return the favor we have received as we ate our way through life. The most important point Ms. Joy makes is that humans are the cruelest animal on this planet. Sadly, the cruelty and injustice that is meted out each day will not end until we understand that we cannot harm any part of our world without harming ourselves.
Ms. Joy has missed the opportunity to say something new. If she had hoped to draw more supporters to her cause, her name-calling shrillness will probably cost her an audience she might have had if she had fully developed her thesis in a scholarly manner. Lee & Steven Hager are the authors of Quantum Prodigal Son: Revisiting Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Perspective of Quantum Mechanics
Rating: 1 / 5
I went into this book hoping for some exploration of the psychology behind our relationships with various animals, why we eat some and not others, and so forth. I got that, and the author did her research. However, she couched it in a lot of vegetarian propaganda and guilt-tripping. She’s entitled to her position, of course, but the manner in which the information is presented is bound to do less conversion, and more repelling, of her target audience, meat-eaters. What she is saying is valid and has merit, but how she says is is going to lose a lot of people until she’s mainly preaching to the choir.
Rating: 2 / 5
It’s pretty easy to be the leading expert in a field that *you* created. It’s this short of faux intellectual schlock that makes me embarassed to be vegan. Seriously. I at the least expected some sort of well thought out exploration of culture, not the same old song-and-dance that has been written about infinitely more enticing and less agrivating in countless photocopied anarcho zines. Poorly written, filled with that “well, I know everything so there” arrogance that makes the text seem more like parental chastisement than anything else. Is it so much to ask for at least one “idiots guide to veganism” that does make us look like pricks? Boo.
Rating: 1 / 5
The first few chapters of this book are an interesting physiological discussion the reasons we love dogs and eat pigs. After that it quickly disenegrates into equating eating meat with being a Nazi. I was disappointed that such an interesting concept could be distorted into a force feeding of why I should be a vegetarian.
I agree with the author that how we raise and slaughter animals deserves a look. It is very inhumane, and needs additional layers of government regulation and enforcement. The manner in which the information was presented though was counter-productive and made me want to put the book down and stop reading.
Rating: 3 / 5
Yes, it is full of magic. If you get all tingly thinking about PETA and consider the Macrobiotic Diet just wonderful, you will love this book. If you are looking for an answer to the title, either serious or funny, you won’t find it. This book is full of magical thinking–that by naming something, you have controlled it. This is the thinking that believes racial prejudice in American society will go away if we just say ‘colored’no, ‘people of color’ no, ‘black’ no, Afro-American. . . . Changing the name does not change reality. Dropping ‘carnivor’ and calling it ‘carnism’ will not cause Archer-Daniels-Midland stock price to drop even one percent.
Doctor Joy’s answer to the why of the title is ‘because’. Page 17. “Despite the fact that taste is largely acquired through culture, people around the world tend to view their preferences as rational and any deviation as offensive and disgusting.. . . .we fail to make the connection between meat and its animal source. . . . Why are we not averse to eating the very small selection of animals we have deemed edible? The evidence strongly suggests that our lack of disgust is largely, if not entirely, learned.” Not even the barest hint as to what lies behind those cultural differences.
This failure to make the connection between meat and its animal source is only true for the modern urbanite. I am old enough to have participated in killing and preparing on Saturday the chicken that was on the family platter on Sunday. There is no consideration of the many individuals, families, communities in the world today who grow, husband, their meat animals and then personally kill and butcher them for their own consumption.
The book is a strong argument that the factory farm for animal production common in America today is bad for the animals and bad for the consumer. But the argument is emotional and with little else to support it. And it does nothing to explain why we love dogs and wear cows. Besides, America is becoming a nation of cat lovers.
Rating: 1 / 5