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Published on Visualizing Ecology (http://www2.evergreen.edu/visecowinter)

Aileen Milliman - Week 7

“'You have just dined,' Emerson once wrote, 'and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.'” (Pollan 227).


The generally detached view of slaughterhouses in America is disturbing because it separates the consumers from the reality of their choices. Since food is what fuels the body and eventually makes up one's own flesh, it should not be as impersonal as it has become. Most people, happily eating a cheeseburger at McDonald's, would not give a thought to where the food came from or what it came from. This detachment is necessary for factory farms to keep their profits up and avoid any sort of scandal. Luckily for the factory farms, most people do not even care to know because it might hinder the blissful ignorance of their existence as they blindly suck the planet dry. After Pollan's close encounter in the slaughtering process, he still proclaims repeatedly to still be a meat-eater. As morally damaging as he describes his experiences, he continues to indulge in, and therefor facilitate, this industry when he goes to McDonald's with his family. People tend to think that if they do not know of the dangers of factory farms, or if they are not employed by them, then they are completely removed from the situation. In reality, they are part of the public demand that supports this industry and encourages its growth. Once one accepts that meat is not born in the supermarket, then it might follow that one might have to feel guilty for their actions. The price sticker on roast beef does not reflect the huge government corn subsidies that make its current production possible. It also does not include the environmental impacts of the factory farm the cows were raised on, or the amount of fossil fuel that goes into its processing. Emerson reminds us that elected ignorance does not remove responsibility, and that humans need to start being held accountable for their actions and impact.


‹ Kruger, david week 7 [0]

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