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Rundown
This episode was inspired by a great series of questions from one of our listeners, Julian. Julian asked:
Would you want the domesticated races to simply die out (like, after we have achieved full communism and everybody has gone vegan)? Even horses? How do you feel about humans engaging in a kind of idealized farming? Would you agree with me that in traditional farming animals suffer less than they do in the wild? Would you want family farmers in third world countries or pastoral nomads to give up their lifestyle so as to not exploit animals anymore?
To answer these questions, we start by discussing the history of domestication and how humans formed various ‘symbiotic’ relationships with different species of animals. We then explore what alternative (anti-capitalist and/or anti-statist) relationships to animals might look like, focusing in particular on “hill people”, or forest-dwelling communities in the highland forests of Southeast Asia. In this section we highlight how capitalism mediates our relationship with meat and ‘prey’ animals in the Global North. Next, we discuss how domesticated animals may be necessary for the inputs required for widespread vegetarian or vegan practice. We follow this with a discussion of the domestication of pet animals, and how our understanding of them as dependent and incapable of a ‘real’ life without us can reproduce ablest attitudes, as well as how capitalism imbues our relationships with our pets. We finish by trying to sketch out what an alternative, decommodified, and more ‘symbiotic’ relationship with animals might look like as we learn to envision ourselves as animals, very much a part of the ecosystems we participate in.
Sources and Links:
- Crockford, S (2000). Dogs through Time: An Archaeological Perspective.: https://books.google.ca/books/about/Dogs_Through_Time.html?id=fKMYAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y
- Ellis, B (2017). Why vegans should support backyard hens: https://permacultureforthepeople.org/2017/11/13/why-vegans-should-support-backyard-hens/
- Larson, G. (2014). “The Evolution of Animal Domestication” (PDF). Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. 45: 115–36.
- Scott, James (2009). The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300169171/art-not-being-governed
- Taylor, Sunaura (2017). Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation. https://thenewpress.com/books/beasts-of-burden
- Zeder, M. A. (2012). “The domestication of animals”. Journal of Anthropological Research. 68 (2): 161–190: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.3998/jar.0521004.0068.201
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8 thoughts on “7. Should Domesticated Animals Go Extinct? A Radical Vegan Perspective”
Interesting video! This video change my mind on some things, cause I sort of used to be that vegan you describe who calls all benefits from animals exploitation and ignores the question of how we’ll fertilize our crops in a vegan world. And I don’t think we should make pets go extinct, but that we should stop forcefully breeding them (yet not purposely preventing them from naturally breeding offspring.) Thanks for widening my perspective, and the book “Beast of Burden” sounds really interesting I’ll make sure to check that one out <3
Doing research for this episode changed our minds on some things, too. These are questions that the vegan community doesn’t often confront (especially how are we going to fertilize all of our crops). We agree too that forced breeding isn’t ethical. Anyway, much to think about! Thanks so much for your support. You will love Beast of Burden! <3
This was soooo good. You guys brought up so many interesting points and just blew my mind with things I never thought of. The way you talked about hill people having a different relationship with the environment and animals than our colonized minds could even grasp is just so true. It’s so easy to view the world through only one lens but I think this is just so dangerous. And yeahhhh I loved your perspective on pet ownership, I’m conflicted on this one. I tend to have a hard time justifying keeping animals locked up all day while their owners go to work or whatever (I know that’s not the situation for everyone but it is for a lot of people) and plus just the way animals are bread, I mean so many of them have so many health problems, it’s just really sad. Anyways, you gave me a lot to think about, great podcast!
Thanks so much, girl. We both learned a lot in this episode. I think some of our perceptions even shifted mid-discussion. We’re conflicted on pet ownership too, especially the way that we’re doing it now. It is really sad in so many cases.
Much to think about for sure! Love you <3
Good episode, it definitely made me think about a lot of things I hadn’t properly thought about. In regards to the backyard chickens. I’m all for that but I’m just wondering why we would eat the eggs? I thought chickens would eat their own eggs to reabsorb the nutrients they lost.
Thanks, Charlotte! I know many vegans wouldn’t eat the eggs. I think the idea is that for vegetarians or people transitioning or what not, the occasional egg is fine and this is much better than the industrial/capitalist system.
Hi, the occasional egg is NOT fine due to the massive amounts of cholesterol in them, unless an occasional heart attack or stroke is fine too. In addition, the male chicks are all killed before the hens are sold to become backyard egg layers, so that aspect is not eliminated. This “hobby” also treats chickens as commodities to be exploited (which fits perfectly with capitalism), and normalizes eating products that emerge from animal’s bodies. Marine you assert that veganic agriculture requires far more land than using manure, yet this is in conflict with the information in cowspiracy. Can you tell me why vegetation must be passed through an animal’s body to become a powerful fertilizer, rather than just being allowed to compost naturally? Thanks.
Hi Gabriel, thanks for your comment. The occasional egg, like maybe one every couple of weeks, surely would not have the heart attack potential of eating eggs consistently. We said in the episode that vegans would likely not be interested in doing that anyway, but for omnivores who remain attached to certain products, changing our societal relationship with domesticated animals is key, and backyard chickens are extremely environmentally conscious. There are many cultures where chickens roam freely around the entire village – it is not so much a “hobby” as a relationship. We need to start understanding ourselves as part of ecosystems with relationships with various other non-human animals in a way that respects their agency and autonomy, and we argue that this kind of paradigm shift as vegans would not necessarily mean that we would cut ourselves off from having those relationships. We fully understand not wanting to engage in that, but we feel that it is far better for the general populace to move in that direction than to maintain our current industrial-capitalist production system. The relationships that people could have with free-roaming chickens (and that they do have in many places, like in my field sites in Thailand) are entirely outside the capitalist framework.
We admit that we are not farmers, but neither are the folks who wrote Cowspiracy. There is debate as to what is actually possible with veganic farming because it has not been tried large-scale and there is very little research being done currently on its viability. Manure is an extremely effective way to fix nitrogen into soils. While veganic farming may be possible in some instances or places in the world, it remains doubtful that it would be a one-size fix all solution. We would love to see the world operate veganic farming, but we simply wish to point out to people that the conversation needs to be more nuanced and within the bounds of what actually makes the most sense ecologically. We will update everyone as new research on this comes out. Thanks again!