The Modern Savage- A Review

The Modern Savage- Our Unthinking Decision to Eat Animals, by James McWilliams, St. Martin’s Press, 2015, hard cover, 392 pages, indexed, $25.99.

James McWilliams, a history professor at Texas State University, doesn’t think we as a species should eat animals or animal products- at all. He believes eating animals is morally wrong, and The Modern Savage is basically his argument for that position.

In chapter one he claims the of farm animals lives have emotional richness. Farm animals have consciousness. If you have ever had a pet dog or cat you know they have emotions and personalities, and are certainly conscious of what goes on around them. The same is true of farm animals. This point is well made.

In the second chapter McWilliams discusses what he calls the Omnivore’s Dilemma- that regardless of whether they’re raised on industrial farms or on family farms, the welfare of the animal is not taken into account on the day the animal is slaughtered. McWilliams says that on slaughter day we are taking the life of a sentient being and turning what results into bacon and other commodities, and that, since physiologically we do not need to eat meat, this is morally wrong.

He says, “Most consumers consider eating animals pleasurable and culturally acceptable.” Of course we do! It’s how we evolved!

The wolf doesn’t consider the emotions of the caribou. The wolf is hungry and the caribou is its prey. Shark-fish, hawk-sparrow, predator prey relationships are what the natural world is all about. That the caribou is a sentient being and does not want to die means nothing to the wolf, because he’s hungry. We evolved as both predator and prey, and some of us at least remain predators.

Violence against individuals is what Nature is about. It’s not about right or wrong. It’s about survival. On planet earth things die so that other things can live. I didn’t make this rule, but I’ve watched it operate all my life.

In 1976 I stopped eating all meat. Since then I started eating fish and fowl again. I have participated in the slaughter of one steer, several pigs, chickens, and rabbits, and lots of fish. It’s never enjoyable. Causing death is serious business. But having participated in dealing death to these animals I cannot agree with McWilliams’s assessment that it’s morally wrong. If I killed them for pleasure and left them to rot, that would be morally wrong. If I killed them to eat them, and then I did eat them, that is simply survival. Yes, I could have chosen to eat tofu. What one eats, however, is a personal choice. Each of us has to look in the mirror every day.

I suspect Mr. McWilliams drives a motor vehicle. He has killed sentient beings both directly as an operator of his vehicle(s) and indirectly as a user of roads, parking lots, etc., where animals used to live. Cars are some of the most destructive machines ever invented, and chances are everyone who reads this has one and uses it almost daily.

Mr. McWilliams, if you live in a glass house you shouldn’t throw rocks.

Chapter three is about humane slaughter. Interesting term, humane slaughter. It’s a contradiction. Killing something is a violent act. If you care about the thing you’re killing you try to make its death as quick and painless as possible.

Killing an animal you raised can be an emotionally gut-wrenching experience. McWilliams documents the cases of several family farmers who found it so gut-wrenching they had to get out of the business of raising animals.

McWilliams uses the phrase, “Meat is murder.” It got me thinking about the meaning of the word murder. I looked it up (dictionary.com), and got this: “the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law.” So Mr. McWilliams is misusing the word murder. Meat is killing, and killing is not fun. But killing a cow for food is not murder.

He goes on to discuss conditions in a modern slaughterhouse. They sound truly appalling for everything involved. The animals are brutally killed by people who kill animals for a living eight or nine hours a day, every day, hundreds of animals daily, one after another. As brutal as humans can sometimes be, this is bloody, stinky, dangerous, barbaric. It’s not a job most people are going to want to do. But some people do it anyway.

Mr. McWilliams makes an assumption that people are basically decent, and if they knew how the animals they eat are treated they would choose not to eat them. He is probably right about the decency part, although one evening spent watching the national news will tell you that you certainly can’t take humanity’s basic decency for granted. We seem to look for any reason to kill each other, never mind cows and pigs.

I could not get past the first few pages of chapter four. I found Mr. McWilliams’s continually equating eating meat with immorality just too grating after that.

Many people in the world survive on less than a bowl of rice a day. Feeding cattle 20 pounds of grain to get a pound of meat in the face of that kind of human hunger- that is immoral. Cutting down old growth tropical forests to raise cattle for McDonald’s for a few years- that is immoral.

I think people ought to know exactly how that pork chop got to their plate. It once was part of a live, conscious animal. Maybe everyone should spend a couple days in a slaughterhouse as part of their high school education. That would certainly change people’s outlooks on what food is and what it should or could be.

The Modern Savage is worth a read, because whether you agree with McWilliams or not, more and more people are thinking along the same lines as he. The fact is, with eleven billion people projected to be sharing the planet by 2050, we can’t afford not to look into other food options than a diet loaded with meat.

-John Kumiski

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