Coetzee Part I

Although I've always inherently understood the logic behind the decision to eat meat or abstain from it, until now I've never heard the arguments presented to me in plain English. Thus far the writer has presented two opposing lifestyles, laid out argumentation for both sides, and allowed you your own opinions. This is to me why Elizabeth is so far characterized as so disagreeable a character. The author isn't allowing you to side with a specific character, and thus presents their opposing views as objectively as possible. Although I love animals, I have ever been a meat eater, until now never forced to confront the implications of valuing my own or specific animals' lives over others'. I lived with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it came to knowing how the meat provided me arrived at the table. Hearing the author attribute this same subconsciously purposeful ignorance to those whom allowed Nazi death camps to operate near them was a jarring comparison. "It marked those citizens. . . who had committed evil actions, but also those who, for whatever reason, were in ignorance of those actions." (Anthology 139) This does seem a bit of an overstep, and obviously made the audience defensive. But the object of the analogy was not to insult, but to raise a specific question. what inherently makes the killing of a fellow human abhorrent, and the death of animals commonplace? What, if anything, makes their lives worth so much less than ours, that which legitimately sets them beneath us?

The answer that was given and then debated was reason. The narrator's wife, Norma, responds to Elizabeth's insistence that reason is not what sets us apart from animals-- as reason is a human created way of grasping the universe and cannot be projected onto a being that cannot agree or understand-- with a certain amount of derision. "There is no position outside of reason where you can stand and lecture about reason and pass judgement on reason." (Anthology 153) Norma seems also to believe that "You cannot, in the abstract, distinguish between an animal mind and a machine stimulating an animal mind." (Anthology 152) While all of this is interesting, any conclusion one could draw is secondary to its application: whether they can reason or not, does proving that you are "above" another being make it acceptable to slaughter them in droves? Thats the real question to be answered, the real question Elizabeth is asking. Superiority should not automatically lend itself to total domination, much less to consumption of the other species. Humans do not eat animals because they feel it is morally correct or obligatory (okay some do, but those would be the more conservative or super-religious of individuals.) We eat meat because it is natural, at times necessary, and because we can. While that may be true, it is distinctly unnatural to treat them as we do, or slaughter with no apparent respect for life. This is why I struggle with eating meat in today's world.  It's cruelty. Whether an animal can reason or not, it most certainly can feel. To be frank, if I killed myself what I ate, doing so as humanely as possible, I would have no trouble. We are omnivorous animals, evolutionarily designed to ingest meat, just as a lion or a wolf is. I would never force an animal to eat only vegetables, as it would be unhealthy for many of them. But the manner of treatment makes all the difference. Compassion, that ever present word, should be in everything we do. The native Americans used to praise the animals they killed, a sign of respect and equality, and never wasted a bit. Yet we no longer live in this world, and instead stand by as animals are tortured unnecessarily for our benefit. It's time we stopped ignoring it.