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The animal on our plate: an anthropological perspective on meat eating Abstract Meat-eating and vegetarianism stand at the opposite and many are the reasons and implications behind the choice, or non-choice, of our diet. What is the symbolism behind such a common act? This essay will have as a starting point Adams' theory of the 'absent referent' and will evaluate its applicability to Western society. The mode of production and consumption of meat implies an objectification of the animals which are to become our food. The discussion will touch moral, ethical and symbolic issues of meat consumption and animal domination. Is it possible to have a morally acceptable meat to eat? Is vegetarianism the best alternative choice? Keywords: meat-eating, absent referent, meat consumption, animal domination, moral eating. Carol J. Adams is an American author, who was defined by Rebecca Myers-Spiers as the “queen of feminist-vegetarian critical theory”: Adams dedicated herself to working with victims of domestic violence and challenging the meat-eating society she lives in (1999: 6). Adams developed the theory of the 'absent referent' through a number of articles and books, arguing that the way society objectifies food animals is similar to the way it objectifies women, therefore feminist women need to make the connection of their oppression to that of animals, and take action becoming vegetarians (ibid.). This essay will evaluate Adams' theory of the 'absent referent' first illustrating what she means with the term and how it applies to her society. In the subsequent discussion, I will analyse possible cultural limitations to her theory, the mode of production and consumption of meat in American society and moral issues linked to those, finally I will discuss if it is morally acceptable to produce meat by ethical hunting. Adams is especially interested in analysing the human-animal relationship with regards to the activity of meat-eating. She argues that when we eat meat, animals become absent: they are made absent through their death to be transformed into the food we call meat. She defines this concept as the absent referent: 1 Animals in name and body are made absent as animals for meat to exist. If animals are alive they cannot be meat. Thus a dead body replaces the live animal and animals become absent referents. Without animals there would be no meat eating, yet they are absent from the act of eating meat because they have been transformed into food. (1991: 136) Animals are made absent in three ways: the first one is literally through their death as just described by Adams' words. The physical absence is also accentuated by butchery and the modern meat market: the animal is dismembered in a way that its parts are no longer recognizable as the body parts of an animal, but are transformed into an edible substance. This is also connected to the modern division of labour and urbanization, since the life of the farmed animals and the process by which they become meat is hidden from the view of people living in the city (Knight, in progress: 1). Furthermore, there is a definitional absence through language, as cow becomes beef, pig becomes pork, and all animals become meat. Knight cites Robbins explaining how changing the names of the animals permits us to further remove the animal presence from our food allowing us to forget about their spirit (ibid.: 6). Adams explores the use of the 'it' pronoun when talking about animals or their meat: 'it' not only refers to both objects or living beings whose gender is irrelevant or unknown, but also “erases the living, breathing nature of the animals and reifies their object status” (Adams 2010: 93). Finally, the metaphorical absence as animals become metaphors for human experience such as the abuse suffered by women; Adams reports the example of women saying they felt like “a piece of meat” when they were experiencing sexual abuse (ibid.: 66). Adams' theory of the absent referent is an etic interpretation of meat-eating that uncovers the patriarchal symbolism and the dynamic of domination of human animals over nonhuman animals, as well as that of domination of men over women. The emic perception of meat, instead, sees it as a rich source of nutrition, often linked with wealth and hospitality, and it is perceived as linked with cultural forms: 'Meat is a cultural construct made to seem natural and inevitable' (Adams 1991: 135). In Adams view, what we do to animals, kill them to feed on them, has been culturally negated as animals are ontologised as food, letting people lose all consideration of their role in meat-eating (ibid.: 137). But Adams' theory and analysis only refers to Western society, in particular the urban American one, exposing a possible limit of its generic application to customs of meat2 eating around the world. Igor de Garine (2005) helps us understand better the human habit of meat-eating comparing different societies around the world and the symbolism attached to it. His first point is that humans are omnivores. He underlines how meat is rarely a staple food, while more frequently it is consumed on special occasions only, which are, therefore, charged with symbolism. He also compares definitions of meat: for instance, while in Africa the term 'meat' includes all parts of the animal – flesh, blood, offal, fat –, in the Western world the term is applied only to the flesh as that is considered the most nutrient part. In addition, he compares the consumption of meat in Western societies for 'gastronomic delectation', while in traditional societies the consumption of meat usually happens during social or ritual occasions, which emphasizes its symbolic value (2005: 43). His comments reinforce Adams' general view that meat-eating is a cultural constructed habit that expresses human domination on the natural world; on the other hand he also underlines Adams' theory's cultural and geographical limits in relation to language. Furthermore, it is of note that in non-Western societies one of the reasons for eating meat is to incorporate the animal's properties (ibid.: 41), therefore I argue that the animal is far from absent or forgotten, instead its presence, spirit and qualities become central to the meaning of the act of eating its meat. Returning to Western societies, a number of authors have analysed meat consumption. Pollan's premise is that humans are omnivorous animals, part of the food chain as any other animal: the omnivore's dilemma humans have to face is to decide what is safe to eat when you can potentially eat anything. He then interprets culinary traditions and taboos as a way to mediate the dilemma and accuses Americans of lacking a dominant culinary culture, a fact that renders them vulnerable to the seduction of marketing (2006: 296-99). Pollan makes it look like the main culprit is the meat industry and its marketing strategies. It is the industry that makes the animal an absent referent: farms and slaughterhouses are located in isolated areas, where the conditions in which farm animals live and are killed, are not visible to the public. The capitalist economy transforms animals into 'meat-machines' causing them intense suffering: “The industrial animal factory offers a nightmarish glimpse of what capitalism is capable of in the absence of any moral or regulatory constraint whatsoever” (ibid.: 318). It appears to be in the interest of the industry to keep the consumer as removed as possible from the cruelty of 3 meat production, in the fear that people would eat less - or no - meat if they knew where it comes from. It seems to me that Pollan stands quite in the same position of Adams, when talking about animals as absent referents on our tables, and how human domination over them is brought to the extreme when live animals are already considered objects: absent when they are still alive. He uncovers yet another dynamic of domination, the one of the capitalist economy over the consumer, a consumer that is unaware of what is going on in reality, a consumer that is intentionally kept in the dark by marketing strategies devised by the dominant capitalist hegemony in the purest Gramscian terms. The result is a schizophrenia in the American relationship with animals: on one side stand the pets that receive Christmas presents, on the other stand the forgotten bacon-tobe pigs. Pollan reasons that the only way to tolerate this situation is to completely remove the animal from the meat (ibid.: 306). The moral dissonance is impossible to deny: so how do we justify killing and eating animals if our diet can adapt to alternatives? The choice is between looking away or become vegetarian (ibid.: 312). The evolution of modern ethics, as described by Singer, implies to elevate non-human animals to the plane of persons. He argues that we have to grant non-human animals the same rights and respect we grant ourselves. He states that it is morally wrong to make animals suffer even if their selfawareness is different from our own; he compares the self-awareness of animals with that of children and mentally disabled people to make the point that animals do not need to have a perception of themselves similar to our own to be worthy of respect (2006: 247). Pallotta aims to prove that human empathy with animals is innate, as children often show resistance to eating meat when they make the connection with the live animal: the utilitarian attitude towards animals is acquired during the process of socialization that develops during childhood (2008: 162). Children experience a social pressure from parents who believe that meat is a necessary nutrient, with the result that the first impulse of becoming vegetarian remains latent during their childhood, as reported by Pallotta's informants (ibid.: 155). Pallotta's articles further underline the existing conflict in humananimal relationships citing Plous: 'American children are taught to both love and consume animals, “conflict ... is avoided in part by de-emphasizing consumed animals as objects of affection”' (ibid.: 163), they are in fact reduced to absent referents, as Adams explains. His 4 view further underlines how the relationship with animals is culturally constructed, supporting Adams, and gives factual evidence to Singer's philosophy that humans innately consider animals to be standing on the same moral plane as themselves. Other authors have replied that there are other possible ways of producing meat that are morally acceptable, and attempted to contrast the absent referent theory. Cahoon (2009) tried to demonstrate that hunters are morally superior to any other meat-eater and even to vegetarians. He argues that modern American hunters follow strict ethical rules on how to hunt and underlines how successful hunts are numerically very few: 'only 25 per cent of American deer hunters succeed in taking a deer in a given year' (ibid.: 74). He further explains that a death by hunt is far less painful than a life and death in a slaughterhouse, and that hunted animals at least have the opportunity to live their lives in the wild, sparing them the stress and pain of a farm life (ibid.: 75-76). He contrasts hunting with farming, arguing that 'agriculture kills animals' (italic original, ibid.: 79) by destroying natural habitat, by using machinery that kills small animals living on the fields, and by using pesticides. Therefore, he states that a vegetarian diet kills even more animals than a carnivore diet (ibid.: 80). It appears from his account that, morally, ethical hunters are superior to vegetarians because they take responsibility for their actions: 'in those cases where ethical hunts kills fewer animals for the same nutrition than do farming and vegetarianism, eating hunted meat would be not only morally justified but morally preferred' (ibid.: 82). Furthermore, he points out that hunters face the animal they are about to kill and take full responsibility for its death and butchery, therefore the animal is far from being absent, it is rather present when the hunter realize they have taken a life and treat the animal with respect trying to avoid any superfluous suffering. The same feeling of responsibility for taking lives are shared in the hunters community as it is also described by Cerulli (2012), a vegetarian turned hunter, that realized that his vegetarian diet of homegrown vegetables was killing animals nonetheless, and chose to hunt to improve his diet and health. To conclude, I think Cahoone has definitely a point when he says that agriculture cause collateral deaths of animals which are not considered by Adams' analysis, and when he argues that animals killed and eaten by hunters are a present referent during the whole process of hunting, killing, butchering and eating. But he fails to face Adams’ main discourse: human-animal domination over nonhuman-animals dismissing it with the 5 comment: 'Eating is a necessity' (2009: 82). Adams' fight against meat-consumption is a metaphorical fight against oppression. In her discourse, meat-eating is a symbolic act, as is vegetarianism: she takes the side of the oppressed, animals and women, and rebels against a society that have become used to the objectification of individuals, both human or nonhuman. It is in these terms that we need to interpret her theory, humans and animals share the same moral plane while meat is the objectification of animals, in this sense the theory can be applied to all Western meat-eating, without distinction as to how the meat is produced, because no matter how 'ethical' the production is, it always implies an objectification and an absent referent. 6 Bibliography Adams, C.J. (1991) 'Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals', Hypatia, 6(1), pp. 125-145. Adams, C. J. (2010) Sexual Politics of Meat: a Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com.queens.ezp1.qub.ac.uk/lib/queensbelfast/docDetail.action? docID=10422448 (Accessed: 3rd November 2013). Cahoone, L. (2009) 'Hunting as a Moral Good', Environmental Values, 18(1), pp. 67-88. Cerulli, T. (March 11, 2012) Eating strangers, Eating friends, Available http://www.tovarcerulli.com/2012/03/eating-strangers-eating-friends/ (Accessed: November 2013). at: 7th de Garine, I. (2005) 'The Trouble with Meat: an Ambiguous Food', Estudios Del Hombre, 19, pp. 33-54 Available at: http://148.202.18.157/sitios/publicacionesite/pperiod/esthom/esthompdf/esthom19/3354.pdf (Accessed: 5th November 2013) Knight, J. (work in progress) 'Hunting the Absent Referent: Reflections on the Association of Meat with Animals'. Available at: QOL (Accessed: 5th November 2013). Myers-Spiers, R. (1999) 'Not a Piece of Meat: Carol J. Adams and the Feminist-Vegetarian Connection', Off Our Backs, 29(11), pp. 6-7. Pallotta, N.R. (2008) 'Origin of adult animal rights lifestyle in childhood responsiveness to animal suffering', Society and Animals, 16(2), pp. 149-169. Pollan, M. (2006) The omnivore's dilemma: a natural history of four meals, New York; London: Penguin. Singer, P. and Mason, J. (2006) The ethics of what we eat : why our food choices matter, Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale. 7