The agribusiness companies have their eyes firmly set on the bottom line. But they cannot see there is yet a deeper bottom line. Although they cannot see the more far-reaching consequences of their actions, these consequences nonetheless exist. None of us is immune from the repercussions of our actions and choices. As we sow, so shall we reap.
There is a destiny that makes us brothers,
None goes his way alone–
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN
I don’t know what shall be the destinies of those responsible for the animal factories of today. But regardless of the future, it is already sadly true that they live in a heartless world. Treating animals like machines, they are profoundly separated from nature, deeply alienated from kinship with life. They are already in a kind of hell.
If we buy and eat the products of this system of food production, are we not colluding with them in creating this hell? Is that how we want to vote with our lives?
3. THE MOST UNJUSTLY MALIGNED OF ALL ANIMALS
Whenever people say “we mustn’t be sentimental,” you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, “we must be realistic,” they mean they are going to make money out of it.
—BRIGID BROPHY
There is a single magic, a single power, a single salvation, and a single happiness, and that is called loving.
—HERMANN HESSE
In our human blindness concerning the feelings, intelligence, and sensitivity of animals, there is one in particular about whom we’ve been most wrong. If it were possible to measure our misunderstanding about our fellow creatures on some giant scale, our ignorance of this particular animal might well be the greatest of all. This is an animal who has been abused and ridiculed by people for centuries but who is actually a friendly, forgiving, intelligent, and good-natured animal when he isn’t mistreated. I am talking, you may be surprised to find out, about the pig.
The Hidden Truth about Pigs
To call a man a pig, or a woman a sow, is one of the worst insults in our common speech. This fact testifies not to the nature of pigs but to our beliefs about them and only shows how far out of touch we are with these animals. The commonly held image of pigs as greedy, fat, and filthy creatures, gross beasts who eat anything that isn’t fastened down, and who selfishly indulge their basest instincts without a trace of sensitivity, could hardly be further from the truth.
Pigs actually have one of the highest measured I.Q.s of all animals, surpassing even the dog’s. They are friendly, sociable, fun-loving beings as well. One person very familiar with pigs was naturalist W. H. Hudson. He wrote in his acclaimed Book of a Naturalist:
I have a friendly feeling toward pigs generally, and consider them the most intelligent of beasts, not excepting the elephant and the anthropoid ape… I also like his attitude toward all other creatures, especially man. He is not suspicious, or shrinkingly submissive, like horses, cattle and sheep; not an impudent devil-may-care like the goat; nor hostile like the goose; nor condescending like the cat; nor a flattering parasite like the dog. He views us from a totally different, a sort of democratic standpoint as fellow-citizens and brothers, and takes it for granted, or grunted, that we understand his language, and without servility or insolence he has a natural, pleasant, camerados-all or hail-fellow-well-met air with us.1
In the common mind, pigs are disgusting creatures, but in fact the only thing disgusting about pigs is our attitude toward them. They are playful, sensitive, friendly animals who like to roll around and rub on things and consider the earth their home and not something with which to avoid contact. In a state of nature, pigs love to wallow in the mud, just as stags and buffaloes and many other animals do. But pigs don’t love mud for its own sake. They use it to cool themselves off and to gain relief from the flies. They enjoy themselves exuberantly because it is their way to enjoy what they do with robust good nature. People who have seen them in mud have accused them of being filthy animals, not understanding their simple love of the earth. However, when living in anything even remotely resembling their natural conditions, pigs are as naturally clean as any other forest creature.2 If at all possible, they will never soil their own bedding, eating, or living areas.
But for many years it was the belief in Europe that the filthier the state in which a pig was kept, the better tasting the pork would be. Hence it became commonplace for pigs to be kept in a fashion that made it impossible for them to stay clean. Even then, though, they would often go to great lengths to maintain as clean a living situation as they could manage.
Hudson’s Pig
Did you know that pigs recognize people, remember individuals clearly, and appreciate human contact when it is not hostile? The naturalist W. H. Hudson wrote a beautiful account of a pig:
Not knowing my sentiments, [the pig] looked askance at me and moved away when I first began to visit him. But when he made the discovery that I generally had apples and lumps of sugar in my coat pockets he all at once became excessively friendly and followed me about, and would put his head in my way to be scratched, and licked my hands with his rough tongue to show that he liked me. Every time I visited the cows and horses I had to pause beside the pigpen to open the gate into the field; and invariably the pig would get up and coming toward me salute me with a friendly grunt. And I would pretend not to hear or see, for it made me sick to look at his pen in which he stood belly-deep in the fetid mire; and it made me ashamed to think that so intelligent and good-tempered an animal should be kept in such abominable conditions…
One morning as I passed the pen he grunted—spoke, I may say—in such a pleasant friendly way that I had to stop and return his greeting; then, taking an apple from my pocket I placed it in his trough. He turned it over with his snout, then looked up and said something like “Thank you” in a series of gentle grunts. Then he bit off and ate a small piece, then another small bite, and eventually taking what was left in his mouth he finished eating it. After that, he always expected me to stay a minute and speak to him when I went to the field; I knew it from his way of greeting me, and on such occasions I gave him an apple. But he never ate it greedily; he appeared more inclined to talk than to eat, until by degrees I came to understand what he was saying. What he said was that he appreciated my kind intentions in giving him apples. But, he went on, to tell the real truth, it is not a fruit I am particularly fond of. I am familiar with its taste as they sometimes give me apples, usually the small unripe or bad ones that fall from the trees. However, I don’t actually dislike them. I get skim milk and am rather fond of it; then a bucket of mash, which is good enough for hunger; but what I enjoy most is a cabbage, only I don’t get one very often now. I sometimes think that if they would let me out of this muddy pen to ramble like the sheep and other beasts in the field, or on the downs, I should be able to pick up a number of morsels which would taste better than anything they give me. Apart from the subject of food, I hope you won’t mind me telling you that I’m rather fond of being scratched on the back.
So I scratched him vigorously with my stick and made him wriggle his body and wink and blink and smile delightedly all over his face. Then I said to myself: “Now what the juice can I do more to please him?” For though under sentence of death, he had done no wrong, but was a good, honest-hearted fellow mortal, so that I felt bound to do something to make the miry remnant of his existence a little less miserable.
I think it was the word “juice” I had used—for that was how I pronounced it to make it less like a swear-word—that gave me an inspiration. In the garden, a few yards back from the