BILL: That moment of slaughter, for me, in my experience-and I would suspect for most sensitive animal husbandry farmers-that's when you understand destiny and dominion. Because you have brought that animal to its death. It's alive, and you know when that door goes up and it goes in there that it's over. It's the most troubling moment for me, that moment when they are lined up at the slaughterhouse. I don't know quite how to explain it. That's the marriage of life and death. That's when you realize, "God, do I really want to exercise dominion and transform this wonderful living creature into commodity, into food?" "And how do you resolve that?" BILL: Well, you just take a deep breath. It doesn't get easier with numbers. People think it gets easier. You take a deep breath? For a moment that sounds like a perfectly reasonable response. It sounds romantic. For a moment, ranching feels more honest: facing the hard issues of life and death, dominion and destiny. Or is the deep breath really just a resigned sigh, a halfhearted promise to think about it later? Is the deep breath confrontation or shallow avoidance? And what about the exhalation? It isn't enough to breathe the world's pollution in. Not responding is a response-we are equally responsible for what we don't do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle.
( Jonathan Safran Foer )
[ Eating Animals ]
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