Why I'm a pescatarian who's very pro-hunting:
I've heard people who eat farmed meat say hunting is cruel. What baloney! Le'ts take the most generous interpretation: we're comparing a small farm (where livestock graze and then get killed) to a forest (where animals run around and then get killed). Is there really such a difference? The only difference is the animal hunted generates some more adrenaline in the moments just before it's being chased. That's it! Of course, the real scenario is that hunting is being compared with images like these. If anyone can say hunting is more cruel with a straight face they're set for a career in food politics.
- Every time you hunt for your meat you're diverting some funds away from factory farming. Where would this money be going to? Well if more people hunted we would need a lot more living and sustainable ecosystems -- this is the "pernicious" side effect of choosing hunting.
- Certainly people in the "western" world (and some so-called "third world" countries are catching up too!) can use the extra exercise from the hunt.
- A world where more meat was obtained from hunting would de-automate the process and probably lead to less meat consumption overall. Given the overwhelming consensus that we as a society eat way too much meat, not a bad thing either.
- The world is currently in a food crisis in terms of staple grains. At the moment billions of tonnes of these are grown to be used as cattle feed! 75% of EU grain, actually. A forest animal quite literally feeds itself.
- You can process an animal and take the meat, throwing the carcass on the ground. The ecosystem provides a free janitorial service.
- If more people hunted they would not become desensitised to where their meat is actually coming from. They'd experience reality as it is -- never a bad thing methinks. Without fostering some false noble savage mythology, 'twill do us all some good to become more mindful of what's involved in eating meat. I think a lot of urban-industrial-society-dwellers would be unable to take an animal life (whether a farm or hunt setting). This is hubristic and helps put us in the destructive bubble that says "humans aren't animals" that's causing harm to society.
Of course hunting will never be scalable enough to provide humanity with the levels of meat it needs. But that's a good thing! And even though we should of course be coming up with better farming systems as well I don't see why hunting can't increase in scale. The organic/free-range movements have been embraced by yuppies of all walks. I don't see why hunting can't become a similar boutique-style adventure camp for the affluent. In any case, if you hunt unendangered, non-human animals for food in a reasonably non-destructive manner then I think that's great.
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Especially in this country with our home grown BBQ favourite. Kangaroo is leaner than beef, high in protein like beef and tastes damn fine. Plus, there’s millions of the bastards. Combine that situation with organised hunts for roo meat and you’re onto a winner.
Except - the large majority of people, if they had to not only hunt their own meat, but also prepare it from carcass to plate, would very quickly embrace vegetarianism. Or pescatarianism at least.
Yes, millions of kangaroos get killed anyway with the meat wasted.
I think rather than be vegetarian people would simply modify their “ickyness levels” just like virtually all societies before them have done. (Plus most of the world is still rural and hence kills its own meat, or at least is close enough to the process so as not to be in a bubble)
Michael,
Kudos from a stranger who happened upon your blog, in the night. Intelligent and intellectually honest stuff. Keep up the good work.
On the specific content of this latest entry… I think there’s an interesting paradox related to the distancing of the average person in modern western societies from the killing of his own meat. On the one hand, as you say, it removes him from one aspect of reality (and this may have some negative ramifications); on the other, it helps prevent the average person from becoming desensitized to the taking of life.
Although such broad speculations don’t lend themselves to proof, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a causative relationship between a society raising generations in which most people no longer kill animals, and that society also becoming ever more concerned about various aspects of human rights. (Usually for the good, but sometimes maddeningly overdone.)
Of course, modern war has involved rather less direct killing, too. The bomber pilot, or missile silo commander, does not directly slit the throat of any living thing–does not see its eyes or smell its blood. Still, modern warfare can kill more people more quickly than ever before. So remaining sensitized to the direct act of killing is no guarantee of preventing slaughter, even slaughter on a grand scale.
Still, the argument can be made (though I don’t necessarily agree with the argument) that some moral ground has been won if people experience horror at the direct experience of taking life…even if, by eating meat from the grocery store, they’re still supporting and benefiting from the taking of life.
Yes.
Hi Michael from Great Plains — thanks for the encouragement!
Good point about desensitisation but I think you can make the argument going the other way: if people with modern sensibilities (that DO value human rights etc. a lot more than people did say 500 years ago) kill their meat more they might be even more conscious of taking a human life. (Since they are more aware of the reality of killing). I’ve heard this from descriptions of kosher and halal slaughter and even if most of these stories are bogus there may be something to it.
The problem with desensitisation is people associate hunting with the right wing which they associate with being pro-violence anyway (rightly or wrongly). If more moderate people join in this association may not hold.
Hehe, impressively cryptic Jess
Yes to people being desensitized (comment above) and hence boo to hunting or yes to stalking fresh game in forests beautiful (no bias here!)?
The latter.
And with spears.
And catch birds with lassos.
IN FORESTS WIDE AND BEAUTIFUL
(I might sound whimsical but I am being totally serious!)
I’m a vegetarian. I just hunt for the sport of it!
-Elmer Fudd
Perhaps more the modern method of hunting is frowned upon and perhaps hunting in this age is wrong because of situation not the action in its own right. Our digestive system is now designed for meat consumption. In fact farming is more cruel than hunting. The hunter gather lifestyle is more compassionate to animals as a whole. Breeding and rasing and keeping animals purely for death is as perverse as it is if it were done for humans. farming can’t be moral till we would make piece with the same done to us. Hunting allows chance into equation. Its fair, its on a small scale. The most simple methods of hunting are fair and perhaps a return to this would be better but who can say no with our vast human numbers it may be uncontrollable.
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