animals

The assigned readings provide a great amount of context for our viewing of Earthlings. Earthlings calls for a radical change about how we view the treatment of animals and our own complicity with the violence enacted upon them regularly. One argument frequently used to justify this treatment of animals is that the consumption of animals is natural. Humans are naturally suited to consume other animals. However, this argument is invalid considering many of our presuppositions about animals are formulated by outside sources. If our beliefs about animals are influenced by outside subjectivities, then outside institutions cause us to formulate our beliefs from birth. “When a system is entrenched, it is supported by every major institution in society, from medicine to education; chances are, your doctors and teachers didn’t encourage you to question whether meat is normal, natural, and necessary” (374). The presumption of eating meat is advanced in every realm of society. The example is given that the American Veterinary Medical Association, regarded as the “voice of the veterinary community,” endorsed “gestation crates, two-foot-wide stalls in which sows are confined during pregnancy” (374). This is another revealing example that shows how many of our institutions, even the normalized medical discourses that we see throughout our society, advance certain understandings about meat that may or may not be natural. Instead, they are contingent upon the perspectives of institutions and the sway they hold over us as we engage in political socialization.

The readings also provide other insight to how we should respond to Earthlings. Earthlings functioned to problematize the privileged role that humans have in society. It can be argued that “if we no longer feel entitled to kill and consume animals, our identity as human beings comes into question. Witnessing compels us to view ourselves as strands in the web of life, rather than as standing at the apex of the so-called food chain” (391). However, it is easy to feel uncomfortable with such a realization. If we no longer have the privileged anthropocentric position on the food chain that we previously did, our very existence comes into question. Denial is also another common response to Earthlings. Much of this denial can be explained in psychoanalytic terms as an attempt to justify the status quo that we associate ourselves with. “Freud explains that we attempt to detach ourselves from reality by the use of denial,” and this claim is especially applicable to the issue of eating meat (400). If one were to refuse to eat meat after watching Earthlings, they are responsible for the murder of many animals over the past several years in their new ethical viewpoint. The fear of feeling such despair causes us to develop many psychological coping mechanisms. The only proper way to prevent such a knee-jerk response is by being willing to feel complicit in the violence of animals. It is only by feeling more comfortable with this feeling of pain can we genuinely question our ethical engagement with the animal kingdom.