Author | Melanie Joy |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Subject | Food and drink |
Publisher | Conari Press |
Publication date | 2009 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) and audiobook |
Pages | 204 pp. |
ISBN | 1-573-24461-9 |
OCLC | 316832932 |
641.36 | |
LC Class | TX371.J69 2010 |
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism is a 2009 book by American social psychologist Melanie Joy about the belief system and psychology of meat eating, or "carnism". [1] Joy coined the term carnism in 2001 and developed it in her doctoral dissertation in 2003. [2] [3] Carnism is a subset of speciesism, [3] : 9–12 and contrasts with ethical veganism, the moral commitment to abstain from consuming or using meat and other animal products. In 2020, an anniversary edition of the book was published by publisher Red Wheel. [4]
Joy, a social psychologist and author, was concerned about linguistic bias inherent in terms like carnivore , which were inaccurate and failed to account for the "beliefs beneath the behavior". Carnivores require meat in their diet for survival, but carnists choose to eat meat based on their beliefs. [5] : 422 [6] : 30 There was no label, Joy discovered, for the beliefs of people who produce, consume, and promote meat eating. She created the term carnism (Latin carn, flesh or body) to name and describe this dominant cultural belief system. "We assume that it is not necessary to assign a term to ourselves when we adhere to the mainstream way of thinking, as though its prevalence makes it an intrinsic part of life rather than a widely held opinion. Meat eating, though culturally dominant, reflects a choice that is not espoused by everybody", Joy writes. [7]
Carnism, according to Joy, is the dominant, yet invisible paradigm in modern culture supporting the choice to consume meat. [8] : 138–139 Carnism is an invisible system of beliefs in both the social, psychological, and physical sense. For example, in the physical sense, an estimated 10 billion land animals are slaughtered for their meat every year in the United States, yet most of the animals are never seen—they are kept in confined animal feeding operations, [5] : 422 invisible to the public and off limits to the media. [6] Joy maintains that the choice to eat meat is not natural or a given as proponents of meat claim, but influenced by social conditioning. The majority of people, Joy claims, care deeply about animals and do not want them to suffer. [9]
Joy argues there is a neurological basis for empathy; most people care about nonhuman animals and want to prevent their suffering. Further, humans value compassion, reciprocity, and justice. However, human behavior does not match these values. To continue to eat animals, Joy argues, people engage in psychic numbing, which alters the perception of our behavior towards animals and uses defense mechanisms to block empathy.
First, carnism denies there is a problem with eating animals; second, it justifies eating meat as normal, natural, and necessary; third, to prevent cognitive dissonance, carnism alters the perception of the animals as living individuals into food objects, abstractions, and categories. [11] People who hold to these beliefs may also be called carnists. [7]
Through this denial, justification, and perceptual distortion, Joy argues, carnism influences people to violate their core values. [12] Animal advocates and cultural studies scholars have implicated both the government and the media as the two primary channels responsible for legitimizing carnist discourse in the United States. [10] : 103
Writer Megan Kearns agrees with Joy's argument that the system of carnism is at odds with democracy, but takes issue with Joy blaming the system rather than the people who make carnist choices: "[The] way we as a society envision eating and animals is contradictory and insidious. Yet it seems incongruous to blame the system and simultaneously hold people accountable to awaken their consciences and exercise their free will." Kearns also notes that not only are there many empathic people who choose to eat meat, but many vegetarians who base their diet on health, not moral reasons. [13]
Helena Pedersen of Malmö University questions whether it is accurate for Joy to treat meat eaters as a homogenous group as there may be many different types of meat eaters all of whom have different reasons for eating meat. [14] : 112 Proponents of the abolitionist theory of animal rights, such as Gary L. Francione, do not accept the concept of carnism as they believe it indirectly supports the animal welfare position by neglecting to call for the immediate rejection of all animal use and for not explicitly promoting veganism. [15]
Journalist Avery Yale Kamila reviewed Joy's book in 2020 and said it has "played a pivotal role" in changing "how humans think about animals." Kamila wrote: [4]
In December, Vox put Why We Love Dogs at the top of its list of "19 books from the 2010s we can't stop thinking about." In January, Joy talked with The Washington Post about "Why that vegan meal at the Golden Globes set off so many critics." And this summer one of three winning essays (out of 1,242 submissions) in The New York Times' annual Student Editorial Contest was headlined "Bringing Ethics to Your Plate" and cited the book in its second paragraph.
The book has also been translated into several languages, including Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, French, Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Danish, Croatian, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Dutch. [16]
A 10th anniversary edition was released in 2020, with a new foreword by Yuval Noah Harari. [16]
Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, rabbits, pigs, and cattle. This eventually led to their use in meat production on an industrial scale in slaughterhouses.
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan.
The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat. In economics, the meat industry is a fusion of primary (agriculture) and secondary (industry) activity and hard to characterize strictly in terms of either one alone. The greater part of the meat industry is the meat packing industry – the segment that handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of animals such as poultry, cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock.
Conversations regarding the ethics of eating meat are focused on whether or not it is moral to eat non-human animals. Ultimately, this is a debate that has been ongoing for millennia, and it remains one of the most prominent topics in food ethics.
Dog meat is the flesh and other edible parts derived from dogs. Historically, human consumption of dog meat has been recorded in many parts of the world. During the 19th century westward movement in the United States, mountainmen, Native Americans, the U.S. Army, as well as the Confederacy during the American Civil War frequently had to sustain themselves on dog meat; the first to be consumed would be the horses, then the mules, and lastly the dogs. In the 21st century, dog meat is consumed to a limited extent in Korea, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Switzerland, and Vietnam, and it is eaten or is legal to be eaten in other countries throughout the world. Some cultures view the consumption of dog meat as part of their traditional, ritualistic, or day-to-day cuisine, and other cultures consider consumption of dog meat a taboo, even where it had been consumed in the past. Opinions also vary drastically across different regions within different countries. It was estimated in 2014 that worldwide, 27 million dogs are eaten each year by humans.
A vegetarian hot dog is a hot dog produced completely from non-meat products. Unlike traditional home-made meat sausages, the casing is not made of intestine, but of cellulose or other plant-based ingredients. The filling is usually based on some sort of soy protein, wheat gluten, or pea protein. Some may contain egg whites, which would make them unsuitable for a lacto-vegetarian or vegan diet.
Karen Dawn is an American animal rights and welfare advocate and writer.
Dugald Patterson McDougall Semple was a Scottish advocate of simple living and animal welfare, naturalist, prolific author, and fruitarian. He is sometimes credited with co-founding the vegan movement in 1944 without using the term "vegan".
Porcine stress syndrome, also known as malignant hyperthermia or PSS, is a condition in pigs. It is characterised by hyperthermia triggered by stress, anaesthesia with halothane or intense exercise. PSS may appear as sudden death in pigs, often after transport. It is an inherited, autosomal recessive disorder due to a defective ryanodine receptor leading to huge calcium influx, muscle contracture and increase in metabolism.
Carnism is a concept used in discussions of humanity's relation to other animals, defined as a prevailing ideology in which people support the use and consumption of animal products, especially meat. Carnism is presented as a dominant belief system supported by a variety of defense mechanisms and mostly unchallenged assumptions. The term carnism was coined by social psychologist and author Melanie Joy in 2001 and popularized by her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2009).
Melanie Joy is an American social psychologist and author, primarily notable for coining and promulgating the term carnism. She is the founding president of nonprofit advocacy group Beyond Carnism, previously known as Carnism Awareness & Action Network (CAAN), as well as a former professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She has published the books Strategic Action for Animals, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows and Beyond Beliefs.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal rights organization based in the United States, has released a number of browser games on its website that have parodied existing video games. Various PETA parodies have been made based on games such as New Super Mario Bros., Cooking Mama 2: World Kitchen, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Meat Boy, Super Mario 3D Land, Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, and Pokémon X and Y. PETA creates these games to spread attention about real-life animal rights and animal welfare concerns and to advocate for vegetarian and vegan diets.
The psychology of eating meat is a complex area of study illustrating the confluence of morality, emotions, cognition, and personality characteristics. Research into the psychological and cultural factors of meat-eating suggests correlations with masculinity, support for hierarchical values, and reduced openness to experience. Because meat eating is widely practiced but is sometimes associated with ambivalence, it has been used as a case study in moral psychology to illustrate theories of cognitive dissonance and moral disengagement. Research into the consumer psychology of meat is relevant both to meat industry marketing and to advocates of reduced meat consumption.
Vegetarian ecofeminism is an activist and academic movement which states that all types of oppression are linked and must be eradicated, with a focus on including the domination of humans over nonhuman animals. Through the feminist concept known as intersectionality, it is recognized that sexism, racism, classism, and other forms of inter human discrimination are all connected. Vegetarian ecofeminism aims to include the domination of not only the environment but also of nonhuman animals to the list. Vegetarian ecofeminism is part of the academic and philosophical field of ecofeminism, which states that the ways in which the privileged dominates the oppressed should include the way humans dominate nature. A major theme within ecofeminism is the belief that there is a strong connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature, and that both must be eradicated in order to end oppression.
Animal welfare and rights in India regards the treatment of and laws concerning non-human animals in India. It is distinct from animal conservation in India.
Animal (De)liberation: Should the Consumption of Animal Products Be Banned? is a 2016 book, written by Jan Deckers and published by Ubiquity Press. The book engages with the work of many scholars who have written on the subject, including Carol Adams, Alasdair Cochrane, Gary Francione, Melanie Joy, Martha Nussbaum, and Peter Singer, as well as with the views of non-specialists, including slaughterhouse workers involved with the film Slaughterhouse: The Task of Blood, released by Century Films in 2005.
Carnage is a 2017 mockumentary directed by Simon Amstell. Set in the year 2067, when veganism is the norm, the film looks back on meat-eating today. It premiered on BBC iPlayer.
Vegaphobia or vegephobia is an aversion to, or dislike of, vegetarians and vegans. The term first appeared in the 2010s, coinciding with the rise in veganism in the late 2010s. Several studies have found an incidence of vegaphobic sentiments in the general population. Positive feelings regarding vegetarians and vegans also exist. Because of their diet, others may perceive them as more virtuous, more principled.
Animal–industrial complex (AIC) is a concept used by activists and scholars to describe what they contend is the systematic and institutionalized exploitation of animals. It includes every economic activity involving animals, such as the food industry, animal testing, medicine, clothing, labor and transport, tourism and entertainment, selective breeding, and so forth. Proponents of the term claim that activities described by the term differ from individual acts of animal cruelty in that they constitute institutionalized animal exploitation.
Vegan studies or vegan theory is the study of veganism, within the humanities and social sciences, as an identity and ideology, and the exploration of its depiction in literature, the arts, popular culture, and the media. In a narrower use of the term, vegan studies seeks to establish veganism as a "mode of thinking and writing" and a "means of critique".
I wrote Why We Love Dogs... for both carnists and veg*ns.
And though I don't use the phrase 'animal rights' I certainly do argue that one species' desire should not trump another species' right to live free from harm.
Later I turned my dissertation into a book for a lay audience.