John Keats criticized Lord Byron for treating serious things lightly and light things seriously. The latter is the lesser of the evils and not at issue here.  As to the former, Byron’s treatment of shipwrecked, starving sailors resorting to cannibalism in “Don Juan” is a good example.  There is nothing of the truth of the suffering, anguish, desperation, or horror of such a plight, but rather a jaunty rhyme with a humorous tone. The disunion of topic and style reminds me of certain songs where the lyrics address serious subjects like child abuse but are conveyed by a rollicking tune in a major key. There are two possible literary justifications for making light of horrible circumstances: satire and black humor. Serious and even horrible events are presented with humor fueled by exaggeration or understatement in order to expose human foibles, such as hypocrisy, ignorance, intolerance, and so many more. Candide comes to mind as the standout example of that.  Second, black humor has a deeper purpose than simply treating awful things in a funny manner. With a nihilistic bent, writers of black humor look at suffering as absurd rather than pitiful, purposefully turning away from the usual and natural emotional reaction to make a point about pointlessness. However, satire is not Byron’s objective or effect at least in those scenes such as the shipwreck, and Keats did not exculpate Bryon by considering him satirical rather than grossly insensitive. Not only does Byron not come across as a satirist, he does not qualify as a nihilist. He is too truly a Romantic to be a nihilist.

Keats’s criticism of Byron came to mind while I was reading a moderately engaging and alternately off-putting novel by Jane Smiley, Moo University, because I found myself reacting to her description of the life and death of a pig as Keats did to Byron’s shipwrecked sailors.  In this novel, horrible things are happening to a pig, but the author insists on treating the situation with levity suitable for outright comedy, tricking the uninitiated into thinking that there is nothing wrong with the treatment of the pig. The pig has a name and is taken out of commodity-status and made individual not only by having a name but by having thoughts that the omniscient narrator relates, just as she does the thoughts of the humans in the story.  Purportedly getting into the mind of nonhuman animals is something of a signature for Smiley but she betrays them at every turn in this novel and might not even be close to right about their thoughts in her other novels, such as Horse Heaven. In the novel in question, the pig is kept hidden in total isolation, inside, on a concrete floor without any contact except a student who shows up to clean out his stall and give him food, and such food is part of the abuse because he is overfed purposefully to the point of causing him pain throughout his legs and feet. A climax of one of the story lines occurs when the building in which the big has been imprisoned is bulldozed; the terrified creature runs across campus and drops dead. He then is butchered and eaten.  As I write those bare incidents, it would seem very difficult to portray any humor in that situation, so I suppose it is to Smiley’s credit as a writer that she can pull that off (assuming she does and readers join in the “fun”); but it is equally to her discredit if she does so succeed and that she uses her talents to that end. If Smiley thought that readers were insightful and thoughtful enough to see past her overtly light-hearted treatment of the pig to realize that she was actually encouraging readers to see the evil, she is wrong — there is no evidence to suggest she aimed at leading readers to conclude that treating pigs as commodities is cruel. If she intended some form of satire, she fails because most readers will take it at face value. In this novel, the abuse of the pig is nothing and it is merely mildly humorous how he gets free and runs despite how grossly fat he is and, hee! hee!, winds up as bacon!

Shame on you Jane Smiley. Anyone who has the ability to affect the way the ordinary person considers nonhuman animals has an opportunity—you not only missed it, you added to the ignorant immorality rife among us.

Meat propaganda spikes at holiday time, as we have just witnessed with this 4^th of July and the usual media barrage of meat-equals-celebration messages: you must consume heavily spiced scraps of dead pigs and cows formed into tubes (even have contests to see what cultural robot can eat the most), ground up cow flesh, and dead bird parts.

This particular holiday, in addition to encouraging the typical thoughtless consumption of stuff resulting from misery and death, also perpetuates thoughtless consumption of a cultural narrative devoid of any real thought about the reality of our history.  When considering our past, which runs up to the present, I think we could use a day of atonement more than a day of celebration: Atonement Day sales at Macy’s would work just as well.  With independence from England we were free to maintain slavery longer than any place else in the Western world; with independence, we denied anything close to equal rights or opportunities to women and never did pass an equal rights amendment; we broke treaties with and nearly annihilated the native Americans; we dropped two atomic bombs; we have so many horrific mass shootings with assault rifles that they have become commonplace. All the hoopla and glee about July 4^th is based on a near mythical narrative and reveals a collective penchant for not thinking that is childlike. One kind of thoughtlessness deserves another, so as long as we aren’t thinking about history in any kind of accurate way, we can also not think about what we are putting in our mouths.  Nobody likes to think that pigs are born to live a life crammed in a crate unable to even turn over, forced to give birth only to have their young taken away at the greatest distress and misery; nobody likes to think about the cattle on the truck, crammed in and terrified and prodded to the killing floors of the slaughter house.  Nobody likes to think about geese kept immobile their entire lives so they can be force fed until their livers are near bursting.  The hot dogs you eat and the ribs on the grill and the burger on the bun were tormented creatures, not unlike our beloved dogs or even in many ways not that unlike ourselves. We relish and wallow in and exalt in not thinking. I would like to watch the fireworks display that celebrates a real revolution, one based on awareness and kindness for all.

I just finished Wuthering Heights for the umpteenth time, leaving Lockwood poetically musing at the graves of Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff, those quiet sleepers in the quiet earth. Those final lines are the culmination of a poetry-infused final section of roughly twenty pages, in which Heathcliff’s character as the greatest mourner in literature comes to the fore as he wills himself to death in order to achieve his heaven, reunion with Catherine, the only person in his tormented life with whom he has ever known happiness.

Emily Bronte was first and foremost a poet, not a writer of prose, although she had blended storytelling with poetry, penning long story poems, harbingers of her great prose work; however, I sense that having gotten through writing most of Wuthering Heights, in the end, she relapsed into poetry, especially when it came to her favorite poetic topic, death. Thus, we have those mellifluous words, haunting words, sonorous and rhythmic phrases gracing the final pages.  Start reading where Nelly Dean tells Lockwood, when he happens to be in the vicinity of Gimmerton and returns to Wuthering Heights, how Heathcliff’s death came about; then, we are privy to Heathcliff’s previous eighteen year-long, unrelenting grief. It requires Bronte’s poetry for Heathcliff to explain the phenomenon of living with a dream of death so sustained that it finally consumes his existence, defeating even his desire for revenge.

I can read a novel more than once, indeed several times, although I must ration it so as to not to completely wear it out — but, who can wear out poetry? Lines of verse are like scripture for the religious. One can memorize them and refer to them and reflect and call them to mind when needed. Amen. That evergreen quality of poetry helps explain why I can read Wuthering Heights limitlessly, but that does not mean to discount the novelistic aspects that I enjoy undiminished by great repetition: I study how the plot fits together, particularly over the complicated temporal landscape of two generations; I cozy up to my old friends and enter the world of two remote houses in the 18^th century. It is not a welcome or desirable world, but it has the comfort of the familiar. Of the two houses, I, as a spoiled native of suburban comfort, would prefer to live at the Grange, with Nelly Dean to make up the fire, bring me soup, and tell me stories. Despite those  elements of narrative, character, and setting that hold up well to repeated use, it is the poetry above all that will support and sustain the pleasure of having the novel in my hands yet again even now, right after putting it down. I know of no other book that I can say that about.  I know of no other book comparable to Wuthering Heights. I am still in the phase of coming out from under the spell. “Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish how will I seek the empty world again.”  Bronte wrote that in the voice of a mourner in a poem with the first lines, “Cold in the earth and the deep snow piled above thee.”  Yes, I have to seek the real world again.

In considering the question whether horseback riding is wrong under an anti-specieisist morality, I have developed a two-part test. However, before applying it to that case at hand, I will briefly reiterate what an anti-specieisist approach to nonhuman animals entails. Peter Singer clarified that all animals have different interests, but that differences in interests are not the relevant consideration in determining how to treat nonhuman animals; the question is “do they suffer.” Humans are not morally entitled to regard their own species as the only species whose suffering matters — ethical concerns should not begin and end with the human species.  We are all animals, we all suffer, and, unless we want to embrace a philosophy of “might makes right,” our conscience should operate for other species, not just our own.  Such is his theory, or, at least, as I understand and apply it.

How an anti-speciesist viewpoint translates to the everyday is clear in many respects: vivisection, meat production, separating a mother from its young, hunting — all manner of treatment that is defended on the grounds that it is acceptable when done to “just animals,” but which would be abhorrent if perpetrated on humans. There are some areas of human / nonhuman interaction that require more thought. A case in point is horseback riding.

One might argue that demanding a horse to do the bidding of a human “uses” the nonhuman animal, which is per se immoral because we would not do such a thing to a human. First, in relying on what we do to humans as a guide for what we do to nonhuman animals, we must understand the degree to which we also use humans and how relevant our use of a human is as a point of moral reference in determining the morality of using a horse. Emmanuel Kant, the 18^th century philosopher whose statements on morality make up most of Philosophy 101, established that people should not be a means to an end, i.e. we should not use humans. However, we do exactly that routinely. Think about hiring someone to do a job. Kant makes an exception when both parties freely agree to a mutually beneficial arrangement; in such cases the injunction against using people as a means to an end does not pertain. Is it possible, though, for a nonhuman (in this case, a horse) to agree to a mutually beneficial arrangement? One would say no because the two parties do not have equal bargaining power. Therefore, we cannot use a nonhuman because it cannot feely agree – such is the conclusion that follows in equating horses with humans. However, equines are not human, having, as Singer established, different interests. For example, horses do not mind and seem to enjoy standing in a large field at night in cold temperatures, whereas a human and many other species would not like that or even survive the night. Therefore, we cannot use a human standard about interests in evaluating everything that a horse does or might be asked to do. Also, there are even humans for whom Kant’s free- agreement paradigm does not apply.  Children do not feely agree to many demands put upon them, but it is not considered immoral to compel them to do a great many things. Further, to rebut Kant for a moment, it is debatable whether humans actually have the free will to make the choice to be in many of the “using” arrangements that occur in life. Factor in DNA, heredity, nurture, environment, and happenstance and the question of just how free our will is, just how freely we enter into “using” arrangements, is not at all so determinable in favor of free will. Whether we are freely exercising choice in life is certainly questionable.

We would not need a two-part test to answer the horseback riding question if the standard by which we judge is solely by equating horses to human: they cannot freely enter into the arrangement, therefore it is immoral. However, based on the fact that horses and humans do have different interests, I suggest that we need to go farther, and that is where the two-part test comes in. For the first part, we must ask: are we treating the nonhuman as an individual or a commodity.  To understand commoditization, I will relate an anecdote that brought home to me the evils of that practice. David Foster Wallace in an essay about his visit as a journalist to a Midwestern state fair,  tours the farm animal exhibits and brings the reader along with him. The  reality of the swine hall haunts me. He describes how one pig exhibited great distress, such that he thought the creature was suffocating.  He felt an innate alarm and looked around for the owner to alert him that the pig was suffering, maybe about to die –then he realized that the “exhibitor” could hardly be bothered about one pig’s suffering.  They were all going to be killed; were raised to be killed. Incidentally, after the “Swine Hall,” he felt great relief when he visited the equine hall and knew that the “winner” would not be hauled off to the slaughter house.)  What that anecdote from the essay shows is creatures viewed as commodities. That pig was not an individual; it did not have a name; no human was concerned about its individual welfare; any veterinary treatment it had ever received was part of a program not for its welfare, but for the mass; its death would either be a monetary loss or gain. It is born for profit, is kept alive for profit, and dies for profit.

Even creatures whom we name, give veterinary treatment, and recognize as having something of an individual identity might still not be anything more than a commodity. Race horses come to mind in this category; they certainly have names, the vet is called for any lameness, they have a groom and riders, and a great deal of attention paid to them; however, none of that counters the underlying view of them as a commodity.  They are like gladiators—well treated only to the degree that it enhances their usefulness as a money-making proposition. Of course, there are exceptions for the few famous horses.  But for each Seabiscuit or Secretariat or Barbaro there are thousands of thoroughbred horses put through the mill and discarded. That means that they are still viewed as a commodity.  All creatures raised for food are soundly in the commodity category, and some other nonhumans – such as horses and dogs used for sport —  might or might not be. Even if a creature does not fall into the category of a commodity, it of course can still be abused; hence the second part of the test, which asks: are we treating the nonhuman with kindness that approximates a golden rule-type principle befitting the interests of the kind of creature. Perhaps even more than our tendency toward commoditization, we have a great tendency to be abusive. We abuse many creatures who are often not viewed as commodities – children, spouses, elders, whomever is vulnerable. That reminds me, as an aside, that the movement for prevention of cruelty to animals sprung up in England in the 19^th century after the publication of the novel Black Beauty; the leaders of that movement addressed cruelty not only to horses but also to children.

So, let’s apply the test – am I treating the nonhuman as a commodity and am I being cruel or kind to that creature. Here is one case at one end of the spectrum: the beloved family dog. No vegan or ardent animal rights advocate would question that having the company of a dog is morally wrong. Why? Because the last thing the dog is for us is a commodity.  The well-cared for dog has a name, which goes beyond identification like the name of a racehorse: its name expresses our view of the creature’s identity and his or her special place in our lives. The dog is well fed (sometimes clothed), given veterinary attention, love, and respect for its wishes.  When he or she dies, we mourn. We do not view his or her passing as an economic boon or as dinner on the way. Although there is always the potential for abuse, under the second prong of the test we would say that they are treated with kindness; we walk them, caress them, get them comfy beds, and care that they are living a good life. Now, there are dogs, however, who are “used” by humans.  They are educated from puppyhood to perform for human benefit; they are bomb sniffing dogs, police dogs, rescue dogs, sled dogs, seeing eye dogs, medical alert dogs, comfort dogs, guard dogs. Is that acceptable to an anti-speciesist morality? I think that under the typical vegan-animal rights evaluation, such uses of the dog would pass muster, assuming that the dog was well-treated.  It cannot pass muster on the basis that the dog agreed to perform any given role, which is the standard we would propose for a human in a using arrangement.  It must be, therefore, that application of the two-part test reveals that working, per se, in not inimical to vegan ethics. We humans are coerced in a sense to work.  We are not entitled to do nothing. I could regard putting on panty hose, carrying a heavy load of documents, navigating mass transportation to a day of confinement in an office with short breaks to maintain my sanity as less than my ideal way of life, but such was the work I had for many years and such is life. Let’s remember Darwin who observed carefully and came up with the all-encompassing truth that life is a struggle.  For me, then, I think that having a job is not repugnant, even if the dog did not request it; however, in that inherently unequal using arrangement the demands on kindness by the more powerful party are exceptionally high. Indeed, there is no situation in life that requires our kindness more than when dealing with a nonhuman because it is the most vulnerable of creatures.

The working dog example, in addition to suggesting that work imposed on a nonhuman is not necessarily morally repugnant nor so dissimilar from what humans do, also reveals the constructive quid pro quo defining the existence of the domesticated nonhuman animal — the arrangement of “this for that” even if not actually agreed to. It is true that the dog is acting at the behest of another without having overtly accepted the assignment, yet it cannot be said that he does not benefit from the arrangement. As lives go, he might and can be seen to exhibit every indication of content in his job. It is obvious when a creature is suffering and not so much less obvious when he is satisfied with the state of things. That situation describes the idea of the imputed contract of domestication—nonhumans lend humans a hand and humans give back in return with food, shelter, care, attention, affection and a home free of the harshest aspects of living in the wild. On that latter point, let us not forget that nature is very harsh.

From working dogs, we move to working horses, since a horse can be said to be working when it is ridden. To what degree does using a horse for riding equate to the uses listed for dogs? Is it moral under the two-part test? I posit that if using dogs passes muster, then, a fortiori, using horses for riding does as well because dogs have a place in the human world purely as companions that horses do not have. So, if we can accept using our idle companions, we can come to terms with using a creature that would not exist if not for use. (With regard to that last assertion, few are the people who have a horse just as a companion.  The requirements for land, the upkeep of at least one other horse to satisfy the horses need for equine companionship, and the cost of room and board are so great that they must fit into some other scheme than a companion creature.)

Positing a horse owner of the type that I am, I will proceed with applying the test. First,  the human who keeps a horse does not view the horse as a commodity. The horse is not owned for the purpose of monetary gain—as I write that I wonder if the gross understatement will be recognized (anyone who has a horse will get it). The riding horse is not kept to fetch a good price or to serve as a main course.  The horse has a name and a very distinct identity – what does the individual like to eat, how many blankets does he need, how often does he get shoes, what weather does he do best in.  The concerns for his welfare are too numerous to list. The death of a horse occasions some of the most intense grief I have ever witnessed, which attests to the strength of its individuality and the bond with the human. The foregoing itemization of individual needs also addresses the second part of the test: is the horse treated kindly in accordance with its equine interests. There the individual human makes a difference; there are abuses, but that a situation can be abused is not an argument against its existence.  That statement is a rather facile argument, however, which would not hold up if there were rampant abuse, such that even if some people could be kind, so many were not such that it would be best to abolish riding horses altogether. I am of the view that the abuses are not so great as to justify the end of riding on that basis alone, and would prefer combatting the abuses.  However, whether the abuse outweighs the ostensibly good aspects of riding is an empirical question for which I have no data, just anecdotal experience of my own.

Therefore, if the horse is not a commodity and it is treated kindly, riding him or her is not immoral unless, as with the dog, imposing a job on the horse per se is immoral. The job alone might be a problem for many, although I don’t know how such people would come out on the question of working dogs.  As for horses, there is a popular opposition to the carriage horses in New York City. Oddly though, I have not heard the same concerns for police horses. I would rather stand in the traces and saunter slowly around the park than stand around with a cop on my back.  Of course, as required by the second part of the test, these horses must be treated with kindness consistent with their interests, and that is where I see the problem equally for both of these working horses.  It is not that they work during the day, if the job is subject to reasonable standards as should apply to any worker human or nonhuman, but rather that the horses never get to enjoy a pasture or field where they can indulge their natural behaviors.  If they live in the metropolitan area, they live in a stall.

The horse whose job is carrying a human around for pleasure and sport, I would conclude, is not inherently treated immorally. It is not commoditized and is treated well –at least by me.  And it is my actions that concern me most in writing this analysis.  I don’t think for a moment that I am persuading anyone that riding a horse is or can be squared with an antispeciesist-vegan morality.  I know from experience that I am powerless to convince anyone of anything. If I can show a generally decent person how farm animals are treated and that person still feels okay with participating in that atrocity, then I certainly cannot convince anyone on a question having as much nuance as this one. In addition to not seeking to persuade, I do not need to mount a case to protect my continued enjoyment of my equine activity; no one threatens that. I have meandered through this issue for myself.  As the Stoic Seneca said, “Don’t ask why you learned this thing, you did it for yourself.”  Beyond Stoic self -sufficiency, I am wary of being the fish that does not know he is swimming in water.  I have for so much of my life, like most people, accepted whatever culture handed out as the way to live, only to finally realize that just knowing what part of culture to question is a huge first step.  I know not to think that just because we have ridden horses for centuries it must be okay to do it.  If something has been done for centuries it has all the indicia of very much needing to be questioned. I am open to the possibility that I will someday decide that I was wrong. So, I have questioned. Now I will quit cogitating and drive to the barn with my large bag of carrots, brush my horse, rub his face and behind his ears with a towel, show him my love and then respectfully request that he indulge me for an hour.

Re: When Meat is Your Destination by Pete Wells New York Times February 8, 2017

Dear Mr. Wells,

Your review of the restaurant White Gold Butchers certainly is long overdue. I have been searching for a place to find meat, meat, and more meat. I was beginning to think there was a shortage and that those pesky animal rights advocates had started to illuminate people about the torment of farm animals. But no, thank god—the torment still goes on.  Kudos to the chefs for buying whole animals, but you didn’t say whether they buy them alive or dead. Why not give diners a real treat and let them choose the live animal and kill it then and there? How fresh its flesh will be!  Who cares about screams and blood flowing and the aroma of death filling the room.  Death is so good when it happens to something we can sink our teeth into. We can stand by and not just watch but grab some bread to sop up the blood—why not? we love it when it drips from the chunk of flesh on our plate. While eating, we diners can visualize what the meal looked like before its final agony to our greater enjoyment, since suffering adds that special zest to any meal.

I will be calling for my Valentine’s reservation today, not only because I love animals (ha ha to eat!) but because my health is still a little too good.  I am still working on my gout, heart decease, and high bad cholesterol. I have a huge gut and am a good thirty pounds overweight, but I don’t care if I am starting to look like my dinner when it was alive. Who cares that meat has no fiber and I will get chronic constipation taking me to diverticulitis; I have had the pleasure of eating hearts and guts (offal they are called as you point out– what a quaint anglo-saxon word that sound just like the adjective that describes it) and know that I have the privilege as a homo sapien of tormenting and taking the life of other creatures and gobbling them up like the charming ogre of fairy tales. (Big grin showing my yellowing choppers, which are not exactly made to tear through flesh but work fine once the flesh is tenderized for my herbivore molars).

I will make sure to meet these creative chefs who have devoted their lives to cutting up animals and finding new ways to simmer the legs of babies (and the little ones do taste best—give me lamb and calf and piglet—the mother didn’t want her offspring anyway—better off in my tummy!)

Thanks again Mr. Wells, see you in the ICU and in hell (aka, White Gold Butchers)

Sincerely,

Laura Inman