Newsweek 7/18/05, George Will column: What We Owe What We Eat - Why, Matthew Scully asks, is cruelty to a puppy appalling and cruelty to livestock by the billions a matter of social indifference?

[Guest guest]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525632/site/newsweek/

 

What We Owe What We Eat

Why, Matthew Scully asks, is cruelty to a puppy

appalling and cruelty to livestock by the

billions a matter of social indifference?

By George F. Will

Newsweek

 

 

July 18 issue - Matthew Scully, a former

speechwriter for President George W. Bush, is the

most interesting conservative you have never

heard of. He speaks barely above a whisper and

must be the mildest disturber of the peace. But

he is among the most disturbing.

 

If you value your peace of mind, not to mention

your breakfast bacon, you should not read

Scully's essay ''Fear Factories: The Case for

Compassionate Conservatism-for Animals. " It

appeared in the May 23, 2005, issue of Pat

Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative-not

where you would expect to find an essay arguing

that industrial livestock farming involves vast

abuses that constitute a serious moral problem.

 

The disturbing facts about industrial farming by

the $125 billion-a-year livestock industry-the

pain-inflicting confinements and mutilations-have

economic reasons. Ameliorating them would impose

production costs that consumers would pay. But to

glimpse what consumers would be paying to stop,

visit factoryfarming.com/gallery.htm. Or read

Scully on the miseries inflicted on billions of

creatures ''for our convenience and pleasure " :

 

" ... 400- to 500-pound mammals trapped without

relief inside iron crates seven feet long and 22

inches wide. They chew maniacally on bars and

chains, as foraging animals will do when denied

straw... The pigs know the feel only of concrete

and metal. They lie covered in their own urine

and excrement, with broken legs from trying to

escape or just to turn ... "

 

It is, Scully says, difficult, especially for

conservatives, to examine cruelty issues on their

merits, or even to acknowledge that something

serious can be at stake where animals are

concerned. This is partly because some

animal-rights advocates are so off-putting. See,

for example, the Feb. 3, 2003, letter that Ingrid

Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals-animals other than

humans-sent to the terrorist Yasir Arafat,

complaining that an explosive-laden donkey was

killed when used in a Jerusalem massacre.

 

The rhetoric of animal " rights " is ill-conceived.

The starting point, says Scully, should be with

our obligations-the requirements for living with

integrity. In defining them, some facts are

pertinent, facts about animals' emotional

capacities and their experience of pain and

happiness. Such facts refute what conservatives

deplore-moral relativism. They do because they

demand a certain reaction and evoke it in good

people, who are good because they consistently

respect the objective value of fellow creatures.

 

It may be true that, as has been said, the

Puritans banned bearbaiting not because it gave

pain to the bears but because it gave pleasure to

the spectators. And there are indeed degrading

pleasures. But to argue for outlawing cruelty to

animals because it is bad for the cruel person's

soul is to accept, as Scully does not, that man

is the only concern.

 

Statutes against cruelty to animals, often

imposing felony-level penalties, codify society's

belief that such cruelty is an intrinsic evil.

This is a social affirmation of a strong moral

sense in individuals who are not vicious. It is

the sense that even though the law can regard an

individual's animal as the individual's property,

there nevertheless are certain things the

individual cannot do to that property. Which

means it is property with a difference.

 

The difference is the capacity for enjoyment and

suffering. So why, Scully asks, is cruelty to a

puppy appalling and cruelty to livestock by the

billions a matter of social indifference? There

cannot be any intrinsic difference of worth

between a puppy and a pig.

 

Animal suffering on a vast scale should, he says,

be a serious issue of public policy. He does not

want to take away your BLT; he does not propose

to end livestock farming. He does propose a

Humane Farming Act to apply to corporate farmers

the elementary standards of animal husbandry and

veterinary ethics: " We cannot just take from

these creatures, we must give them something in

return. We owe them a merciful death, and we owe

them a merciful life. "

 

Says who? Well, Scully replies, those who

understand " Judeo-Christian morality, whose whole

logic is one of gracious condescension, or the

proud learning to be humble, the higher serving

the lower, and the strong protecting the weak. "

 

Yes, of course: You don't want to think about

this. Who does? But do your duty: read his book

''Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of

Animals, and the Call to Mercy. " Scully, a

conservative and hence a realist, knows that man

is not only a rational creature but a

rationalizing creature, putting his intellectual

nimbleness in the service of his desires. But

refraining from cruelty is an objective

obligation. And as Scully says, ''If reason and

morality are what set humans apart from animals,

then reason and morality must always guide us in

how we treat them. "

 

You were warned not to read this. Have a nice day.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

 

© 2005 MSNBC.com

 

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525632/site/newsweek/

--

 

 

[Guest guest]

I highly recommend Scully's book, " Dominion.. " . If anyone in Hong Kong

wishes to read it, I can lend it to you.

 

Fanny

 

From Hong Kong

 

 

aapn [aapn ] On Behalf Of

Kim Bartlett

2005ǯ7·î14Æü 7:41

aapn

Newsweek 7/18/05, George Will column: What We Owe What

We Eat - Why, Matthew Scully asks, is cruelty to a puppy appalling and

cruelty to livestock by the billions a matter of social indifference?

 

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525632/site/newsweek/

 

What We Owe What We Eat

Why, Matthew Scully asks, is cruelty to a puppy

appalling and cruelty to livestock by the

billions a matter of social indifference?

By George F. Will

Newsweek

 

 

July 18 issue - Matthew Scully, a former

speechwriter for President George W. Bush, is the

most interesting conservative you have never

heard of. He speaks barely above a whisper and

must be the mildest disturber of the peace. But

he is among the most disturbing.

 

If you value your peace of mind, not to mention

your breakfast bacon, you should not read

Scully's essay ''Fear Factories: The Case for

Compassionate Conservatism-for Animals. " It

appeared in the May 23, 2005, issue of Pat

Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative-not

where you would expect to find an essay arguing

that industrial livestock farming involves vast

abuses that constitute a serious moral problem.

 

The disturbing facts about industrial farming by

the $125 billion-a-year livestock industry-the

pain-inflicting confinements and mutilations-have

economic reasons. Ameliorating them would impose

production costs that consumers would pay. But to

glimpse what consumers would be paying to stop,

visit factoryfarming.com/gallery.htm. Or read

Scully on the miseries inflicted on billions of

creatures ''for our convenience and pleasure " :

 

" ... 400- to 500-pound mammals trapped without

relief inside iron crates seven feet long and 22

inches wide. They chew maniacally on bars and

chains, as foraging animals will do when denied

straw... The pigs know the feel only of concrete

and metal. They lie covered in their own urine

and excrement, with broken legs from trying to

escape or just to turn ... "

 

It is, Scully says, difficult, especially for

conservatives, to examine cruelty issues on their

merits, or even to acknowledge that something

serious can be at stake where animals are

concerned. This is partly because some

animal-rights advocates are so off-putting. See,

for example, the Feb. 3, 2003, letter that Ingrid

Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals-animals other than

humans-sent to the terrorist Yasir Arafat,

complaining that an explosive-laden donkey was

killed when used in a Jerusalem massacre.

 

The rhetoric of animal " rights " is ill-conceived.

The starting point, says Scully, should be with

our obligations-the requirements for living with

integrity. In defining them, some facts are

pertinent, facts about animals' emotional

capacities and their experience of pain and

happiness. Such facts refute what conservatives

deplore-moral relativism. They do because they

demand a certain reaction and evoke it in good

people, who are good because they consistently

respect the objective value of fellow creatures.

 

It may be true that, as has been said, the

Puritans banned bearbaiting not because it gave

pain to the bears but because it gave pleasure to

the spectators. And there are indeed degrading

pleasures. But to argue for outlawing cruelty to

animals because it is bad for the cruel person's

soul is to accept, as Scully does not, that man

is the only concern.

 

Statutes against cruelty to animals, often

imposing felony-level penalties, codify society's

belief that such cruelty is an intrinsic evil.

This is a social affirmation of a strong moral

sense in individuals who are not vicious. It is

the sense that even though the law can regard an

individual's animal as the individual's property,

there nevertheless are certain things the

individual cannot do to that property. Which

means it is property with a difference.

 

The difference is the capacity for enjoyment and

suffering. So why, Scully asks, is cruelty to a

puppy appalling and cruelty to livestock by the

billions a matter of social indifference? There

cannot be any intrinsic difference of worth

between a puppy and a pig.

 

Animal suffering on a vast scale should, he says,

be a serious issue of public policy. He does not

want to take away your BLT; he does not propose

to end livestock farming. He does propose a

Humane Farming Act to apply to corporate farmers

the elementary standards of animal husbandry and

veterinary ethics: " We cannot just take from

these creatures, we must give them something in

return. We owe them a merciful death, and we owe

them a merciful life. "

 

Says who? Well, Scully replies, those who

understand " Judeo-Christian morality, whose whole

logic is one of gracious condescension, or the

proud learning to be humble, the higher serving

the lower, and the strong protecting the weak. "

 

Yes, of course: You don't want to think about

this. Who does? But do your duty: read his book

''Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of

Animals, and the Call to Mercy. " Scully, a

conservative and hence a realist, knows that man

is not only a rational creature but a

rationalizing creature, putting his intellectual

nimbleness in the service of his desires. But

refraining from cruelty is an objective

obligation. And as Scully says, ''If reason and

morality are what set humans apart from animals,

then reason and morality must always guide us in

how we treat them. "

 

You were warned not to read this. Have a nice day.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

 

© 2005 MSNBC.com

 

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525632/site/newsweek/

--