A Benevolent Exploitation?
Several years ago, while sitting in an Agrarian Studies seminar at Yale, I listened to an Indian student remark that that first two things that an Indian family does when it reaches the middle class is “eat meat and buy a pet.” This comment stuck with me, initially because of my interest in the first habit (eating meat) and now for the second (getting a pet). The implication behind this comment, which I assume is probably true, is that bringing a companion animal into the household is a clear mark of bourgeois respectability, a sure sign that an urbanized patriarch can dominate not only the human, but the non-human world as well. Sit. Stay. Fetch.
It’s an interesting hypothesis, one that I gather many scholars generally support. John Berger (“Why Look at Animals?”) has written critically of pet keeping as something people do in order to re-establish the natural intimacy we have lost with animals as we’ve become more enmeshed in the fabric of urban capitalism. Owners tend to believe that they are treating “their” animals with the utmost dignity and care when, Berger suggests, they are more like zookeepers who have denied their animals basic freedoms in order to indulge in the pleasures of fixing our gaze upon them or, even better, having others fix their gaze on them. And then us.
I like this argument a lot and, I imagine, there’s a great deal of psychological and sociological merit to it. But I just don’t feel it. I mean, as the keeper of several companion animals, I often wonder to what extent I would have experienced the (relatively) enlightened (this might be the wrong word) view toward the non-human animal world had I not the chance to interact, most notably, with my dogs on a daily basis.
As Berger would agree, humans have become radically detached from animals. His hypothesis is that pet ownership is a false salve to ease the pain of that loss, one that necessarily ends in exploitation for the animal. While I do not deny this argument, I cannot help but wonder, due primarily to my own interactions with the dogs with whom I share my space, if these (usually) wonderful animals haven’t provided me at least some of the foundation upon which I question the entire notion of human superiority over the non-human world. I’m curious to what extent ethical vegans grew up with companion animals.
At the least, even if Berger is right, I think we need to acknowledge this powerful benefit of sharing space with and caring for companion animals. These animals, who are relentlessly insistent about illuminating the meaning of sentience, encourage us to dissolve species barriers and rethink relational arrangements. They force us to, as Kari Weil puts it in Thinking Animals, to reject “the exceptionalism of the human condition.” Few people I know who have lived with companion animals for any period of time—unlike many farmers I’ve interviewed about their relationship with farm animals—would deny that companion animals have distinct, undeniably distinct, personalities. This may be especially true for children.
If this claim is right—the claim that living with animals helps humans reconsider the significance of the species barrier—I think it must be factored into Berger’s claim that keeping pets is zookeeper-like behavior representing yet another of the myriad ways in which humans dominate non-humans to our own advantage. There are millions of animals held up in shelters seeking a decent caregiver and companion. Should that companion “save” one of those animals and, as a result, become attuned to the reality of animal sentience and, in turn, go vegan, I would say that this is a form of exploitation that I could live with. I would call it a benevolent exploitation.
I agree. One of my first experiences in life was a friendship with my grandfather’s collie. As an infant and during my second year of life, we lived with my grandparents while my father was overseas in military service. The story goes (and I actually remember some of it), that the first thing I did in the morning was run to the dog, lie on her, suck my thumb and rub her hair. The dog was said to be very attached to me as well and a watchful babysitter.
I have been an animal advocate as long as I can remember. I’ve dedicated much of my time to animal advocacy and activism. How much did that early relationship with that dog have to do with this? Who knows, but I suspect it may have had a lot to do with it.
Most people I know who do not have relationships with companion animals are also either apathetic to animal issues in general or downright hostile to them. I know this has no real scientific basis, but I simply do not trust people who have not opened their hearts or homes to animals. There is a lack of empathy I have noticed that I find disturbing. Of course, I am generalizing, but this has been my experience. On the other hand, I know people who love their dogs and treat them well, and have no compunction about hunting or eating factory farmed animals, so…
“I know people who love their dogs and treat them well, and have no compunction about hunting or eating factory farmed animals, so…”
I would say the vast majority of people who keep companion animals of whatever species also eat animals. And feed animals to their animals.
The suggestion that keeping animals in your private zoo-home leads people to “become attuned to the reality of animal sentience” (as James says) is palpably without evidence.
Boohoo, you and I have had conversations about this before, and while I agree your view has much merit, I still hold that your defense of it comes more from of a place of antipathy for dogs than anything else. Comments such as “lick-on-demand fluffbundles” and other comments you’ve made in the past still cause me hold to this belief; although it might only partially be true, I’ll give you that.
However, as I’ve been thinking more about this subject and reading others’ comments, I still think that having a companion animals is key in coming to animal activism and eventually veganism.
I was thinking of a friend of mine recently in regards to this. About five years ago she bought a pure-bred dog from a breeder. Last year she got a shelter dog as companion to this dog and her family. Very recently, she went vegan. People can and do evolve and I believe companion animals can and do play a large roll in that evolution. Happy New Year!
I grew up with parents who always adopted rescued pets and helped companion animals in need, while freely consuming other animals for all imaginable purposes. I was in my 30s when I adopted my zillionth rescued cat, and something about Bailey woke me up. I began looking into the condition of cats in the world, then of other nonhuman beings — then of human beings. As I went vegan, I began recognizing the intersection of all kinds of exploitation and oppression.
“Keeping pets” seems to me to be our responsibility as long as there are companion animals still living. They need homes, not to be killed or released into a shrinking wild that, in any case, has been bred out of them. As for humans breeding more companion animals, though . . . I hope we someday face a “shortage” of pets and must face this question for real.
I too look forward to a future of no human breeding of pet animals for our own divertissement.
Great post. This is something I think about often. My companion animals are responsible for my being vegan. I grew up on a farm; we loved our dogs and cats, but we slaughtered our cows, chickens, and pigs. Now I live in a city and my cats are indoor-only, yet my relationship with them is much stronger than with the dogs and cats of my childhood on the farm. A few years ago, I walked into my house to find one of my cats dying under the bed. He looked at me, pleading for me to help him (which I did). At that moment, I had a vision of the pleading eyes of a calf in a blizzard years ago that my family struggled to keep alive. That was the moment I became a vegan. And I would not have had that connecting “vision” had I not had companion animals.
The wonderful documentary, “The Witness”, is a perfect example of how interaction with companion animals can open hearts otherwise closed to non-human animals. Well worth a watch: http://vimeo.com/5209895
Thank you Fireweed for the link to this video. Watching it made me cry and want to hold these dogs with us even tighter. Eddie’s personal transformation from omni to vegan activist was so honest and self-aware.
I grew up not as vegetarian but we had dogs, (cats in my earlier years but not for long,) a rabbit, a duck in my later school years. I loved my “pets” and I feel took good care of them. In adult life, I had two dogs in succession when I was married. Since then, I have had no dogs. The first vegan I met when I was just going vegan, was a strict vegan and didn’t believe in having “pets” at all. He thought it was exploitive to them and heck, ya had to (most likely) feed them dead animals, and so support the dog/cat food industry. I wouldn’t say he had a great love for dogs and cats…he was just a more ‘practical’ person–a vegan for both health and ethical reasons. His feelings towards not having an animal companion (and animal exploitation) made an impression on me–one who had a dog companion for most of her life. Being “dogless” now for about 14 years, I have no desire to have one sit at home while I have to go work or otherwise, nor whom I’d have to feed commercial dog food unless I went to the extra effort of having him/her be a vegan dog. Ahhh, but perhaps though when I’m retired and have more time at home, I will feel differently and vegan dogs will be more mainstream. Just another perspective.
I respect your position and agree that if you work all day, you do not have the proper situation to have a dog. Keep in mind though, that at this point rescuing a dog that needs a home from a shelter is not the same thing as supporting breeding. Especially if one advocates for spay/neuter while helping our shelter animals that would otherwise be put down.
BTW, I’m a vegan and I make my own dog food. It’s basically what I eat with some things added and subtracted here and there.
I agree with James as having my dogs helped me think of other animals BUT I’ve also adopted my dogs out and won’t get any other any time soon because I don’t like making them stay home alone, cooped up all day while I go to work. I don’t think that’s fair to them and it is a bit exploitive considering I have them there for my enjoyment while I’m at home but they’re locked up while I go do what I need to do each day. I’ve seen evidence that supports both sides of this discussion.
At the very least, the keeping of companion animals has created a “soft spot” in people for those animals, which i think does further the cause for all animals.
Look at how abhorrent people think maltreating a dog is. This does not directly carry over to “farm” animals, but its certainly as step in empathy towards non-humans.
I agree.
I don’t think there is anything conflictual about ethical vegans living with rescued companion animals. I believe it is in keeping with the belief that animals are not expendable commodities. I do agree with others that hopefully there will come a time when breeding of companion animals, and the need to rescue animals from shelters will be a thing of the past. Hopefully, in the future there will be many more avenues open to people that will lead them to become ethical vegans, rather than having companion animals. An good discussion of this issue (and so much more) is included in two of Gary Francione’s books, “Animals as Persons” and “The Animal Rights Debate.”
Taking into account both Berger’s and James’ positions, as well as the commentators, I think it is a total fantasy to believe that “keeping” companion animals, or as the majority of people would refer to them as, pets creates a “soft spot” or any other such notion that would pave a path towards veganism. Actual lived experience, now and historically, sows quite another story… many stories, using your pets as hunting animals being just one of them, another being the anecdote James started his essay with.
It is a nice fantasy to have, but people as pet owners in the history of capitalism is much more complicated; how many times have I had to witness the fawning love someone has for their dog only to then watch them devour their hambuger, etc. etc.? The vapid disconnect is a fact. Address that.
That’s the way the numbers appear to fall. For every 100 people who go down the path of animal keeping, 1 has a conversion and appears to properly ‘get’ animal rights, while the other 99 learn that animals are there to be owned, used as status symbols, dressed up in degrading ways for lolcat photos, etc. and in all ways become subject to human whims.
Thanks Lori. Yes, three of four childhood and adulthood dogs were all rescue dogs indeed. And that’s definitely the route I’d go if again for some day. I get home late often (and up early often and heading out) and barely have time to fix something for myself. So for now, I’d not have a dog companion. Sigh.
I think that feeding is an important marker of the nature of your relationship. You feed a child because a child is dependent on you. At some point, a child learns to feed him/herself, and becomes something closer to an equal.
I think the same applies to animals. If an animal is free to move about throughout the day and gather his/her own food (plus, perhaps, your table scraps, since that played a central role in the evolution of dogs), you may have something resembling a relationship of equals. If, however, an animal is enclosed most of the day, and depends on you for imported “feed,” it is hard to see how this is a benevolent relationship, likely to open your eyes to the world of animals.
Needless to say, most pet/companion relationships are the former, not the latter. It does seem possible, though, for a benevolent/beneficial relationship to exist.
Let’s take the hypothetical argument into practice of not keeping dogs with us in contained environments. How is it practical to ask people on one hand to adopt all of the shelter animals (not breed them) and not engage in a top-down relationship, i.e., don’t even keep an animal? There are so many people who are irresponsible and there has to be a stopgap to help the millions of animals who die in shelters every year. Why in the world would vegans (supposed animal lovers of the world) recommend not engaging in these relationships with dogs and cats? It is our legacy. What is the practical alternative? I wish they could be independent but it’s not possible and I wish I could walk with them without leashes. One of mine took off after a rabbit and ran in front of a car who stopped for her when the leash came loose.
These dogs helped me to become vegan because one was diagnosed as pre- Cushinoid and she started having a host of other problems. The vet recommended that she go on a vegetarian diet. I switched her food and looked at all of the animal by-products in the other dog food and it got me thinking how unhealthy it really was. In addition, her physical therapy forced me to manipulate her legs a lot. This constant contact with her forced me to try and see more through her eyes. I had to understand if what I was doing hurt her. It was after her physical therapy was over that I became vegan.
Thanks for your wonderful story, Jennifer.
Of course, there is no one path to veganism for everyone. Sometimes contact with a companion animal for the first time in someone’s life is a major game changer. As in Eddie’s case, too (in “The Witness”), it was the beginning of expanded consciousness. Others remain locked in a more insular way of viewing the world that doesn’t necessarily extend beyond their own ‘tribe’.
Understanding that facilitating relationships with others based on care and compassion- whether the ‘other’ is human or non-human- can change the way some view the world and conduct themselves in it, is certainly vitally useful to our work as vegan activists.
This little animation to a Jeremy Rifkin presentation about empathy is well done. (Please note that there is an early reference in the clip to animal studie.experiments on the topic, but otherwise I think other readers here might also enjoy it).
Fireweed – Thank you for sharing this presentation. The idea of tribalism extended across all species is powerful.
This dog is not my first companion animal but she is the first one who has required a lot of attention. Another thing that I forgot to mention that the vet physical therapist kept referring to this dog’s long hair around her knees as “feathers” and when she was shy about giving up her injured leg for therapy the vet would say, “Give me your chicken leg.” After one of the sessions, I was removing fat off of chicken thighs for a dinner at home. My mother-in-law complimented me on how clean I got them but I just felt so gross and couldn’t eat them. I was not as self-aware as Eddie or other people and it took me awhile to get there.
The deeper I get into the companion animal rescue world, the more vegans and vegetarians I recognize. Is it my own scewed moral reasoning that these people are good people who care so much animals and I am willing to recognize more of them? Or are there really more vegan and vegetarians in the animal rescue world and is it because they witnessed suffering (like I have) in nonhuman animals that allowed them to extend their empathy beyond their own tribe? Boohoo makes a statement above that dog and cat lovers are generally not vegan and I find that to be true too (anecdotally). This topic is real compelling to me.
I absolutely agree with you Jennifer. We owe these animals who are in shelters. We owe the rescued farm animals that live on sanctuaries. It is our legacy for the animal eating world humans created. It may be tempting to focus on if a relationship with an animal can ever be truly benevolent but the reality is that we have millions of animals that are killed because they are unwanted. I concede that my dog cannot leave the house anytime he wants and he doesn’t get to choose his menu but he also is not dying alone in a shelter or suffering on the streets. It isn’t a perfect world. I wish all animals could live free but the reality is that today they cannot. So I will try to do my part and care for as many of the refugees (as Fracione calls them) as I can either by taking them into my home or donating to those organizations that can help.
Jenny Brown said in her book The Lucky Ones, “I am looking forward to a day when I have to shut our doors because there are no farm animals to rescue, when animal cruelty is an embarrassment of the past, when our society looks upon the mistreatment of animals the way it looks on the mistreatment of women or children, or people with disabilities. And when no bubble is necessary. I have no illusions that I will see this change overnight.”
Without getting all scientific, I am an animal lover — and relatively new vegan — who lives in an urban area, and works outside the house, etc. etc. I could not possibly look after farm animals — nor do I know the first thing about doing so. But if I had the space and money — and some training — I would. I would be a Jenny Brown (my hero) and rescue farm animals and give them much-needed love and comfort. In the meantime, living in my urban dwelling, I have a dog a two cats. I’ve had animals all my life, and they are absolutely part of the reason I went vegan, and they are a constant reminder as to why it’s iimportant I stay vegan. Seeing their different personalities — their quirks, their likes and dislikes, and their immense affection — reminds me that other animals don’t have it so good, and that they need our help. Having grown up with animals, I developed a keen sense of their needs, their innocence, their vulnerability… things that people who have never had pets seem to lack. I see the same awareness now in my 2 teenaged kids — and at the same time, I see friends of theirs who don’t have pets, and who sometimes are rough and uncaring around ours. I couldn’t imagine these animals not in my life, and I couldn’t imagine having lived life without them.