The Banality of Carnism

The following is an essay that I did for my class, Contemporary European Moral and Political Philosophy.

I will argue that Arendt is correct in believing that thinking is crucial for preventing evildoing such as animal oppression and carnism, however this issue also highlights the limitations of her analysis. To begin, I explain Arendt’s view of thinking and non-compliance as preventing evildoing in times of crisis. I will put forth her view of unthinkingness as a common and blissful default in our society. I will explain her view of evildoing as potentially banal in cases where it is the product of unthinkingness. Next, I will explain and justify our case study of animal oppression. I will argue that eating animals is a result of unthinkingness, and could thus be considered banal in Arendt’s sense. I will argue that thinking can and does condition us against the evildoing of eating animals, since evildoing is the default and overcoming it requires action to be suspended. Finally, I show how animal oppression reveals that Arendt’s analysis is flawed since evildoing is not only a problem in rare times of crisis, and a destabilizing view of thinking does actually lead to nihilism compatible with evildoing.

In Thinking and Moral Considerations, Arendt argues that, without thinking (the habit of examining and reflecting) we cannot judge in particular cases and we will not develop a conscience. It is further argued that, in times of political crisis, these faculties are important in avoiding evildoing. “Its political and moral significance comes out only in those rare moments in history when things fall apart”[Arendt, R&J p188] or “those rare moments when the chips are down”[R&J p189]. The alternative is an unthinking, parochial compliance with social and political norms, which could just as easily be replaced with monstrously harmful norms and instructions. As Arendt states, “If somebody should then show up who […] wishes to abolish the old “values” or virtues, he will find it easy enough provided he offers a new code, and he will need no force or persuasion — no proof that the new values are better than the old ones — to establish it.”[R&J p178]

Arendt argues that unthinkingness “is not the “prerogative” of those many who lack brain power but the ever-present possibility for everybody”. It often does befall us, largely because the process of thinking is disruptive, in that it requires action to be suspended. “[T]he paralysis of thought is twofold: it is inherent in the stop and think, the interruption of all other activities” — something particularly scarce in an attention-based tech economy. Thought is also daunting, since we may have thoughts that are self-critical. These thoughts destabilize things that we find pleasant and comforting, such as the idea of permanent and objective concepts that accurately correspond to reality, as in Socrates’ use of thinking. In some cases, it will require changing something about ourselves to placate our conscience.

I will focus on our treatment of animals as a case study for the power of thought or its absence. Our treatment of animals is best understood as oppressive. Not only those confined in factory farms, but every animal subject to commercial exploitation for their body and the products of their labour are being mistreated for interests of ours that are trivial at best. The suffering involved for these 74 billion land animals each year is staggering, and they are then deprived of a possible peaceful life in an animal sanctuary. Since demonstrating this is not the point of this essay, I will progress on the assumption that participation in our mistreatment of animals is ‘evil’, to use Arendt’s preferred term [Singer, Regan, Nibert, Huemer, McPherson]. Instead of the Nazi “desk murderers” we are the carnist ‘grocery murderers’. I am not the first to link Arendt’s thesis of unthinkingness to animal oppression. An ethicist Michael Huemer finished his book, Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism by quoting her “sad truth” presented earlier [Huemer p96]. Outside of this brief mention, there is surprisingly no academic activity attempting to develop this link.

Animal oppression is banal since almost everyone participating in animal oppression (most participants are consumers, making up 99.4% of the adult population) do not have evil motives. For some, it is due to callousness. However, for the vast majority it is due in part to a lack of thinking. Psychologist Melanie Joy has developed an understanding of how it is that almost everyone participates in such harmful behaviour. This concept is called carnism: the subconscious belief that it is morally acceptable to unnecessarily harm and kill animals and eat them [Joy, Why We Love Pigs…]. Carnism is maintained through socialization, advertising propaganda, euphemisms, motivated reasoning, perceived self-interest, and more. The feature of carnism most relevant to our discussion is that it is invisible. Joy’s work was published only as recently as 2010 — until then a non-vegan was just a person without any position on the issue. This invisibility, this default, reflects the fact that eating animals, including factory farmed animals, is the path of least resistance. People face a litany of social issues when they refuse to participate, and people anticipate this [Horta; MacInnis et al; Markowski et al]. In other words, unthinkingness is possibly the main force behind carnism, which is hegemonic in both senses: dominant and an ideological commitment that goes against our true self interests.

Unthinkingness is built into the concept of carnism, which initially posed a problem for Joy’s framework. If carnism was inherently subconscious, how could we describe the people who eat animals in full conscious acceptance of their treatment of animals, having been made aware of vegan and anti-speciesist arguments to the contrary? This has since been corrected, making space for a conscious, reactive version of comfort with animal exploitation: neo-carnism [Joy, Critical Perspectives on Veganism]. The existence of neo-carnism is proof that merely raising the issue is not sufficient for preventing evildoing. An account of unthinkingness which argues that thinking is sufficient is doomed to fail. However, we can say that in a society where evildoing is a hegemonic norm, thinking is necessary to avoid evildoing, even though it is not sufficient.

Since carnism is hegemonic, and the path of least resistance, unthinkingness will always lead to carnism. Like poor reasoning, unthinkingness can lead you to any possible conclusion. If it happens to get you somewhere good, that was just dumb luck, and the weak foundations make it precarious dumb luck. Only thinking and good reasoning will tend toward something better. Thinking and good reasoning is not a guarantee of getting somewhere better (take, for example, Heidegger and Schmitt), but it’s the best tool that we have. Thinking does lead to neo-carnism in some cases, but unthinkingness is a guarantee of carnism, and thinking provides the only chance for resistance to evildoing.

Arendt’s description of thinking as necessarily suspending actions is particularly important for carnism. We have powerful tendencies not to consider the ethical dubiousness of issues and phenomena from which we are beneficiaries. Since all of us consume animal products, and are pessimistic about alternatives, we perceive ourselves as beneficiaries of their production. As research has shown, experimentally giving respondents beef as snacks rather than nuts makes them attribute lower mental capacities to farmed animals [Loughnan et al]. As described earlier, thinking can be daunting because it hold the potential to stir our conscience, “a very obnoxious fellow”, which might require changes in our future behaviour and a less flattering autobiography. In other words, we live in “anticipated fear of such afterthoughts”, so we resist thinking that could undermine our continued actions. This suggests that in order to be able to think properly about the issue we must first suspend our participation in it. We must stop eating animals before we can have the discussion with ourselves and others — it is a mistake (or impossible) to begin this process while an animal is being consumed at a social event, at least without backfiring.

Arendt is mistaken to claim that unthinkingness is only dangerous in a time of crisis. As some scholars have suggested, our treatment of animals could be characterized as an ‘Eternal Treblinka’, revealing that what Arendt considers the paradigmatic political crisis is really business as usual for our society [Patterson]. As our treatment of animals has become increasingly brutal and clandestine [Pachirat], we have all begun to lie to ourselves about how farmed animals really fare. The bucolic imagery used in marketing, children’s books and tour-farms does not reflect how animals are really treated, and we’re all to happy to believe this lie without further questions. Although Arendt is alert to the dangers and harms of the modern, self-deceptive lie [Arendt, T&P], her characterization of thinking as useful merely in episodes of crisis seems to reveal that she has underestimated the scope and duration of some modern lies, such as ‘humane farming and slaughter of animals’. For animal, the chips are always down.

Arendt is also mistaken in her claim that thinking cannot be used to improve our understanding of morality, or that we should not engage thinking with the expectation of coming to have an improved morality. Hume claimed that reason cannot help but be a slave to the passions, meaning that reasoning can only be instrumental, it cannot tell us what it is we should value, or our final objectives. Although she rejects an instrumental approach to reasoning [Yar], Arendt seems to be somewhat Humean in her view of thinking as mostly a destabilizing process rather than a constructive process. It is not clear on her account that thinking could lead to a preferable morality in place of what it implicates. This point is one of her three main theses, as “[W]e cannot expect any moral propositions […] from the thinking activity”[R&J p167] and “Thinking is equally dangerous to all creeds and, by itself, does not bring forth any new creed”[R&J p178]. However, I believe that thinking can do more than destabilize and provide instrumental value. I believe that thinking can revise our ethical judgements in particular cases and broadly as principles. If this is the case, thinking should not only throw carnism into suspicion. Thinking should form the basis of a new ethical approach to animals in general, one based on recognition of equality in suffering and equality in deprivation of future positive experiences. If Arendt is committed to thinking as destabilizing, then it’s not clear how she could justify resisting evil regimes and norms. Her fears about nihilism follow directly from her view of thinking. A purely destabilizing form of thinking cannot be the basis for resisting evildoing.

After sketching Arendt’s views of thinking and its relationship to evildoing, I argued that we must think to end the oppression of animals. I argued that animal oppression is properly understood as banal, since almost none of the participants have evil motives or have thought about the issue. Carnism especially is an issue of unthinkingness, as it is inherently subconscious and unreflective. I argued that thinking is the best tool we have for getting to better practices with less risk of regression, although it isn’t perfect. Suspension of action was found to be crucial in the case of animal oppression, since we all perceive ourselves to be regular beneficiaries of it. I showed that Arendt was flawed in believing that banal evil can only happen in rare times of crisis, as animals are oppressed everywhere constantly. Finally, I showed that Arendt’s fears about nihilism should follow directly from her view of thinking as unable to construct moral foundations for resisting evil, something we should reject.

References

Arendt, H. “Thinking and moral considerations. I Responsibility and Judgement, red. J. Kohn.” (1971): 159–189.

Arendt, Hannah. “Truth and politics.” Truth: Engagements across philosophical traditions (1967): 295.

Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in jerusalem. Penguin, 2006. Chapter 2: The Accused.

Castricano, Jodey, and Rasmus R. Simonsen, eds. Critical perspectives on veganism. Springer, 2016. Foreword, Melanie Joy and Jess Tuider.

Horta, Oscar. “Discrimination Against Vegans.” Res Publica 24, no. 3 (2018): 359–373.

Huemer, Michael. Dialogues on ethical vegetarianism. Routledge, 2019.

Joy, Melanie. Why we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows: An introduction to carnism. Red Wheel, 2020.

Loughnan, Steve, Nick Haslam, and Brock Bastian. “The role of meat consumption in the denial of moral status and mind to meat animals.” Appetite 55, no. 1 (2010): 156–159.

MacInnis, Cara C., and Gordon Hodson. “It ain’t easy eating greens: Evidence of bias toward vegetarians and vegans from both source and target.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 20, no. 6 (2017): 721–744.

Markowski, Kelly L., and Susan Roxburgh. ““If I became a vegan, my family and friends would hate me:” Anticipating vegan stigma as a barrier to plant-based diets.” Appetite 135 (2019): 1–9.

McPherson, Tristram. “Why I am a vegan (and you should be one too).” Philosophy comes to dinner: Arguments about the ethics of eating (2015): 73–91.

Nibert, David. Animal rights/human rights: Entanglements of oppression and liberation. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002.

Pachirat, Timothy. Every twelve seconds: Industrialized slaughter and the politics of sight. Yale University Press, 2011.

Patterson, Charles. Eternal Treblinka: Our treatment of animals and the Holocaust. Lantern Books, 2002.

Regan, Tom. The case for animal rights. Univ of California Press, 2004.

Singer, Peter. Animal liberation. Random House, 1995.

Yar, Majid. “Hannah Arendt.” (2001). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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