“What a lucky man,
To see the earth before it touched his hand.
What an angry fool,
To condemn.”
-Neil Young
I finally saw Babe. Those long-time (long-suffering?) readers may remember my diatribe against Babe being nominated for Best Picture. I was flabbergasted that a piece of junk like that got nominated. Until I realized that I was thinking of Gordy. I hadn’t seen Babe.
I did see Babe recently, and I thought it was fantastic. I guess it was good enough to be a Best Picture, although I’m still surprised that it was nominated. It definitely deserved the special effects award, because as the winner said at the Oscars, animals don’t really talk.
What I liked about Babe was that it had a lot in common with the consensus movement, the concept of coevolution, and a lot of other ideas that have grown out of the ‘60’s. In the movie, Babe, a naive pig, suggests a whole new way of doing things on the farm. He suggests removing fear as a control element, and instead replacing it with cooperation and respect. The old way of thinking is that all the other animals are dumb, and the only way to get them to do the right thing is to force them. Babe demonstrates that if the animals respected each other, they could communicate their wishes, and things would move smoothly.
I don’t want to go into too much detail, for those who haven’t seen the movie. But the wonderful part of Babe’s tale (no pun intended, really) is not him trying to avoid being eaten (a la Gordy) but him defying the old barnyard traditions. He refuses to accept the maxim that each animal must do as it was born to do, and that each job must be done the way that it has always been done. He learns that if you are naive (or wise) enough to ignore the rules of society, you may discover that you can accomplish things thought impossible. And everyone may be better off because of it.
I have been forced by circumstance into the opinion that taking time off from college is a necessity. It apparently gives you time to become sure of what you want to do. And to then go on and apply yourself to that purpose with renewed vigor. From watching the people that I grew up with, I feel that’s the best strategy.
Of my small circle of friends in high school, virtually all have left college at one point. Most have gone back. And most have benefited greatly from the whole experience. The six of us who are still close friends all left college. Of those only I have stayed away. And with one possible exception, we’ve all come out better than we started. We all gained a clearer understanding of what we were going to college for, and changed our behavior accordingly.
I think the reason for all this, among kids who were very bright students, is that we are corralled in high school into going onto college. It’s not something you even talk about if you are deemed college material. None of us spent much time deciding whether or not we would go to college. We just went. After a while we all ran into something that made us stop and think about what we were doing. And for one reason or another we all took time off. Either because of grades, or money, or by choice.
What did that time off accomplish? A lot of change apparently. I stopped going to school, and most of the others changed majors. Several of my friends moved to majors that truly interested them, rather than what they thought they should study. I think we all became happier people. In a way, we became adults. It’s as if we did the college process over again, this time making the decisions ourselves.
I don’t know whether time off is for everyone. It certainly was the right thing for us, and I can’t help but think it would be the right thing for a lot of other friends. We were all sure about what we wanted to study at school, but most of us proved ourselves wrong. I’m sure there are people who correctly believe that they know what they want to study. But even so, how could it hurt to spend some time away from school to be sure. That then allows you to go back of your own will, to make it your own decision.
My friends’ experiences are curious to me. They run counter to what we are made to expect. And I think they offer a glimpse into what is really happening during these college years. They inspire me because of the good that has come of them. I offer them up as inspirations to you. Question authority. Don’t believe the hype. Think for yourself. Most of all, give yourself the freedom to think.
Snowflakes take their lazy time falling.
Denying gravity.
Like a prisoner who ignores the stare of the guard,
And saunters to the killing wall
As if of his own volition.
Smiling in the face of fate.
“Eaters, that is, must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the earth is used.”
-Wendell Berry
Why am I a vegetarian? It’s a question I get a lot. The real answer is that I’m not. To me, being a vegetarian means a lot more than just not eating meat. It is a devotion to eating in a way that is best for yourself and for the world. First of all, it involves eating mostly vegetables, mostly raw. That’s why it’s not called being a non-meatarian. I eat mostly breads and pasta, not nearly enough vegetables. Until I begin to eat nutritionally I’m not really a vegetarian, I’m in a middle ground. I see it as a progression. First I get rid of the meat, no I’ve got to replace it with something more nutritious.
One reason I became a vegetarian of course is ethical. I also come short on that aspect. I still eat dairy products, which if anything ask more of the animal than eating its meat does. Theoretically the cows could at least run free until they were slaughtered. But dairy cows are asked to give every day in order to feed me. I would feel better about this aspect if I knew I got my dairy products from a farm that treated the animals well. That is at least a first step, although it’s still a questionable practice in my mind. I’m not fanatic on the idea that animals must not be killed. I admire Wendell Berry’s stance on the issue:
“Though I am by no means a vegetarian, I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable in order to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasure, with good water nearby and trees for shade.”
In a situation like this, I would have much less guilt about eating an animal than I would about eating any food from a farm that ruins the environment. Still, I feel that as an intelligent and able species, we humans can certainly do better. Eating meat may not be horrible, but it’s certainly not necessary. And if killing another creature is not necessary, I see no reason to do it.
While the ethics of meat-eating is debatable, I feel the ecology is not. I could give you statistics all day long of how our carnivore diet is killing us, and the earth. Basically, our industrial farming methods are an ecological disaster, and they are mostly used to grow feed for our livestock. In fact, one half of the earth’s land mass is grazed by livestock. Think of the people we could feed with that land, think of what else we could do with it. Sixty-four percent of the U.S.’s cropland is used to grow livestock feed. Only two percent is used for fruits and vegetables. So the easiest way to have an effect on our agricultural methods is to stop supporting the meat industry.
The meat industry is amazingly destructive in terms of resources and the environment. To give you some random facts: A large amount of our beef is imported from Central and South America, where the rainforest is cleared to graze cattle. Every quarter pound of rainforest beef raised results in the release of 500 pounds of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas), the equivalent to the exhaust from a 25 mile drive. Meanwhile cattle produce 20% of the world’s methane, another greenhouse gas. And imagine the waste disposal problems created by the U.S. livestock industry, which produces 230,000 pounds of excrement a second. The groundwater losses that the West has experienced could be eased with the removal of livestock. An edible pound of carrots requires 33 gallons of water to grow. One pound of beef requires 5,214 gallons, and even chicken requires 815.
What’s most amazing is how inefficient the consumption of livestock is anyway. The food chain guarantees that the nutrients we feed the cow are going to be 90% lost to us. Livestock requires huge amounts of energy to raise, and in return gives us little. Each calorie of protein from beef consumed 78 calories of fossil fuels in the making, versus 2 calories required by soybeans. All that cropland used to grow feed is being wasted. The acre of farmland we use to produce 250 pounds of beef could have produced 50,000 pounds of tomatoes. Despite this inefficiency, 70% of the grain the U.S. grows is fed to livestock. We waste 16 pounds of grain and soy on each pound of beef that we produce. All this in a world of starving people. It’s certainly true that the problem that the starving face is political, not agricultural, but consider this. During the Ethiopian famine, while thousands died each day, the Ethiopians still raised and exported millions of dollars of livestock feed to the Europeans. And consider this: If Americans reduced their meat intake by 10%, we could feed an additional 100 million people with our resources. In a world where the population grows exponentially, and overpopulation threatens all of our lives, these facts can’t be ignored.
Those were my main reasons for forsaking meat, but as I said, I don’t consider myself a vegetarian yet. The trouble is that most American farms are ecologically and nutritionally damaging, not just the ones that grow feed. Just as the thought of the cattle living its life knee deep in excrement in a feedlot inspires me not to eat meat, so should the thought of square miles of lettuce dependent on toxic chemicals dissuade me from eating anything from an industrial farm. Chances are that even the vegetables I consume are destructive to the environment and myself. The real change that needs to be made is that I need to buy my food from local organic farms, so as to do no harm, and reduce the resources used in production and transportation. Until I make that move I’m being hypocritical in my stance on meant. More importantly, I’m being ineffective. If any of this interests you, and you’d like to see some of the readings I got all this info from, or you just want to talk about it, let me know.
Sidenote: Veal
This didn’t really fit in the discussion, but may I just remind you meat-eaters how disgusting veal is. Many are obviously not disgusted by the vision of the lives that our livestock leads, in their industrial farms. But I can’t see how anyone could not be horrified by the production of veal. Yet I still see people eating it. Let me clarify this for those of you who may not know it. Veal is the meat of a calf. The meat is so tender because the calf has been raised inside a box for its entire life. A box so small it can’t even turn around in it. That’s why it’s so tender, the animal has never had the chance to use a muscle. Don’t fool yourself. Every time you eat veal you are telling the meat industry that you support this process, that they should go on with it, or even increase its practice. If you only make once change, at least do not eat veal. If you want to make another one, watch the movie Baraka. You may never eat chicken again.
“No eternal reward will forgive us now
For wasting the dawn.” -The Doors
The End