To Love or to eat?

We don't see things as they are. we see them as we are.

Joy starts her book off with a scenario to explain how we don’t have quite a good answer to that question.

the author in this book, somewhat suggests that our personal experiences, biases, and emotions shape how we perceive and interpret the world, rather than a purely objective reality. The name of the book also refers to this idea. This is really a thoughtful question:

Why we love certain type of animals like pandas,dogs,monkeys , eat pigs and sheep and wear sheep.

Imagine, for a moment, the following scenario: You are a guest at an elegant dinner party. You're seated with the other guests at an ornately set table. there is a strong smells of rich foods emanate from the kitchen. You haven't eaten all day, and your stomach is growling.

After an hour, your friend who is hosting the party emerges from the kitchen with a pot of savory stew and seasonings.

You serve yourself a generous portion, and after eating several mouthfuls of tender meat, you ask your friend for the recipe...

yeah i would be happy to tell you 🤗

he replies.

First, you’ll need five pounds of golden retriever meat, well marinated, and then...

You probably freeze midbite as you consider his words: the meat in your mouth is from a dog.

What now? Do you continue eating? or you disgusted by the feeling of this fact? But let's suppose that your friend laughs and says she was playing a practical joke. it was beef.

How do you feel about your food now? Is your appetite fully restored? Do you resume eating with the same enthusiasm you had when you first began your meal? Chances are you're feeling emotional discomfort. discomfort that might continue to effect your next meal...

So what is going on here? why there is so radically different reactions towards dogs and cows meat? Answer can be summed up by a single word: perception.

The Problem with eating dogs

Our perceptions determine, in large part, our reality.

Most people perceive dog meat very differently than they do beef; therefore, dog meat evokes very different mental, emotional, and behavioral responses.

One reason we have such different perceptions of beef and dog meat is because we view cows and dogs very differently. The most frequent ( and often the only ) contact we have with cows is when we eat them. But in the contrary, for a large number of people, our relationship with dogs is, in many ways, not terribly different from our relationship with other humans:

• We call them by their name. You probably heard some dog being called "Hey Jessie!"
• We say goodbye when we leave and greet when we return.
• We play with them.
• We take them to the doctor.
• We bury them
• They make us laugh

We love dogs and eat cows not because dogs and cows are fundamentally different—cows, like dogs, have feelings, preferences, and consciousness—but because our perception of them is different. And, consequently, our perception of their meat is different as well.

Not only do our perceptions of meat vary based on the species of animal it came from, but different humans may also perceive the same meat differently. Consider Halal meat for example. Halal meat must come from a supplier that uses halal practices. If it does not, it would considered haram for Muslims.

How we feel about an animal and how we treat them, it turns out, has much less to do with what kind of animal they are than about what our perception of them is. We believe it's appropriate to eat cows but not dogs, so we perceive cows as edible and dogs as inedible and act accordingly. And this process is cyclical; not only do our beliefs ultimately lead to our actions, but our actions also reinforce our beliefs. The more we don't eat dogs and do eat cows, the more we reinforce the belief that dogs are inedible and cows are edible.

It is the way things are

Take a moment to think, without self-censoring, of all the words that come to mind when you envision a dog. Next, do the same thing, but this time picture a pig. Now pause and compare your descriptions of these animals. What do you notice? When you thought of a dog, did you think “cute”? “Loyal”? And when you imagined a pig, did you think of “mud” or “sweat”? Did you think “dirty”? "stupid"? "Lazy"? If your responses were similar to the ones here, you are in the majority.

“Why do you say pigs are lazy?” asked Sarah.

“Because they just lie around all day,” replied Tom.

“Do pigs in the wild do this, or only pigs raised for their meat?” she wondered.

“I don't know. Maybe when they're on a farm,” he said.

“Why do you think pigs on a farm—or in a factory farm, to be more accurate—lie around?” she asked.

“Are dogs dirty?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Dogs can do really disgusting things.”

“Why didn't you include ‘dirty’ in your list for dogs?”

“Because they're not always dirty. Only sometimes.”

“Are pigs always dirty?”

“Yeah, they are.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because they always look dirty.”

“When do you see them?”

“I don't know. In pictures, I guess.”

“And they're always dirty in pictures?”

“No, not always. Pigs aren't always dirty.”

“You said dogs are loyal, intelligent, and cute. Why do you say this? How do you know?”

“I've seen them. I've lived with dogs. I've met lots of dogs.”

"Has anyone here ever met a pig?"

(Except for some exceptional men, the majority had not met a pig.)

“So where did you get your information about pigs from?”

“Books.”

“Television.”

“Ads.”

“Movies.”

“I don't know. Society, I guess.”

“How might you feel about pigs if you thought of them as intelligent, sensitive individuals who are perhaps not sweaty, lazy, and greedy? If you got to know them firsthand, like you know dogs?”

“I'd feel weird eating them. I'd probably feel kind of guilty.”

“So why do we eat pigs but not dogs?”

“Because pigs are bred to be eaten.”

“Why do we breed pigs to eat them?”

“I don't know. I never thought about it. I guess, because it's just the way things are.”

It's just the way things are. Take a moment to consider this statement. Really think about it. We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are.

What could cause an entire society of people to check their thinking caps at the door—and to not even realize they're doing so? Though this question is quite complex, the answer is quite simple: carnism.

Carnism

We all know what a vegetarian is—a person who doesn't eat meat. And today many of us know what a vegan is—a person who eschews all animal products.

Though some people may choose to become vegan (or vegetarian—the focus of this book, though, is on veganism for reasons that will become clear) to improve their health, many vegans stop eating animals because they don't believe it's ethical to do so.

Most of us realize that veganism is often an expression of one's ethical orientation, so when we think of a vegan, we don't simply think of a person who's just like everyone else except that they don't eat animals. We think of a person who has a certain philosophical outlook.

If a vegan is someone who thinks that eating animals are unethical, then, what do we call a person who believes it's ethical to eat animals?

You got it? we don't have any ideological name for that! by ideological i mean that are ends with *.ism like Feminism or Racism.

So what about “everybody else”? What about the majority, the mainstream, all the “normal” people that eat animals? Where do their beliefs come from?

Currently, we use the term “meat eater” to describe anyone who is not vegan or vegetarian. But how accurate is this?

I think this invisible belief system is what i call "Carnism".

****Carnism is the belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals.

We tend to view the mainstream way of life as a reflection of universal values. Yet what we consider normal is, in fact, nothing more than the beliefs and behaviors of the majority.

Before the scientific revolution, for example, mainstream European beliefs held that the sky was made up of heavenly spheres that revolved around the earth, that the earth was the exalted center of the universe. This belief was so ingrained that to proclaim otherwise, as did Copernicus, and later Galileo, was to risk death.

So what we refer to as mainstream is simply another way to describe an ideology that is so widespread—so entrenched**—that its assumptions and practices are seen as simply common sense.**

When an ideology is entrenched, it is essentially invisible.

Wrapping up

This was roughly the summary of the first two chapters of the book.

The question "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows" may seem really silly and trivial at first for majority of people. At least for most of my friends.

Some of them simply deny the whole idea of veganism, using arguments that imply, "It's just the way things are":

CaUsE iTs A DoG DuDe!

I don't know really what to say about this. Well, yeah it's strange at first for someone who eats sheep meat in his daily basis.

Similarly, some of them also debunk veganism by saying that:

It's 'woke.' You just want to be different. You think you're superior for choosing a path that isn't followed by the majority.

Again, I'm just don't understand from when we are using the term 'woke' to describe anything that makes us uncomfortable.

Anyway, i do think Joy’s book is compelling and mostly dispels any of the usual arguments in favor of meat-eating, which is not seen by the mainstream as an ideology because it’s a norm...