In the first article, what strikes one is the objectification of the animals, the way in these "abattoir" their death is perceived as a function of their forms. The argument of stunning and bleeding furthers this functionality of "to die".
Parallels to Greek sacrifice are considered, but what about parallels to Mayan sacrifice? The poet Charles Olson showed how Mayan sacrifice (human sacrifice) is comparable to the way the machine of capitalism of necessity "eats up" certain humans a la a sacrifice to appease itself.
As for the second article, that's difficult. Of course we continue the objectification, commodification to a new level, but to several different purposes.
Found it all fascinating of course. Remembering Marshall McLuhan, when she describes the "phantom limb" effect among people with "autism." And the technological hubris with which she describes "her" mind: "Internet search engine"; "programming a computer"; "a VCR" et cetera. Temple is modernism's irrationality incarnate!
All playfulness aside, we feel a sympathy for Temple.
While some readers may think this vulgar, I ask them to consider the correlation between these two utterances.
"Unfortunately I never had an opportunity to try trigonometry or geometry. Teachers and parents need to develop the child's talents into skills that can eventually turn into satisfying jobs or hobbies."
"Unfortunately, people often try to correct these problems with force instead of by understanding the animal's behavior. My connection with these animals goes back to the time I first realize that the squeeze machine could help calm my anxiety."
A subtle conveyance for someone who considers themselves "non-verbal"--whether intended or not.
Grandin's hierarchical language (high- and low-functioning, the step metaphor) is at odds with her plurality in describing "ways of thinking".
---
The comparison of her first-person immersion into the animal experience with "virtual reality" is problematic; however, that problem is illuminating. Hers is the ultimate subjective experience. Virtual reality necessarily models empirical, testable data into an objective representation that is then perceived subjectively. Without embarking into any thickety epistemology, we can say for now that, clearly, both modes of thought/inquiry/problem-solving have a place in design. If her success as a designer of slaughterhouses is any indication...
---
Clay, your amalgam is a good catch and quite interesting from an anthropogenic distance, but the aftertaste is bitter.
---
Vialles' is a story of disassociation. Every detail serves to reinforce the overarching metaphor: that physical constructions and psychological constructions are inexorably entwined. Linguistically and conceptually, Vailles ties the past to the present with sublime accuracy.
Also ... what would be Temple's metaphor for describing her mode of thought if she lived in the days before cameras, pictures, VCRs, etc? Daguerreotypes? Oil paintings...
I found both articles to be really interesting. I found the Vialles article to be extremely informative, and almost the more scientific angle to the same subjects as in Omnivor's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation. The piece had a way of making these "abattoirs" seem somehow more humane. This writing seemed to have less of an agenda than the other two books, more so Fast Food Nation. Because around 1818 "killing animals in towns became unacceptable" (Vialles 20). "Henceforth slaughtering became invisible" (Vialles 20). This seemed an easy way for people to just eat without caring or knowing where their meat came from. It's like no one really wanted to know. The facade of the good suited them. Overall I found the content pretty similar to the books we've read but the language chosen to express it, is different.
The second article by Grandin I found very unique. it made me actually really happy that this person was being so reasonable. Everyone is always trying to END bad things such as slaughterhouses but this person realizes they cannot destroy slaughterhouses all together so why not work to improve them? It is a brilliant idea. I also really liked the psychological aspect to this piece in terms of the visual thinkers and how that relates to the cattle.
In THINKING IN PICTURES: Temple Grandin explains how her autism has helped her to communicate with animals and in doing so has helped her to create slaughterhouse cattle handling systems that are more sympathetic to animal emotion/behavior. Grandin notes that sometimes it is the simplest adjustment that will transform the animals expereince, for example: the use of materials. Modern industry uses steel, because it is "heavy duty" and easy to clean, but grandin insisted on the use of cement for cattle chutes, and lo and behold, ---the cattle walk Voluntarily to their death.
The notion of voluntary submission in the case of animal slaughter is somewhat problematic. How can you judge this,--even if you have autism, and are able to expereince as a cow *(per se) does a cow have notions of voluntary and involuntary. I suppose a way to judges this is through the notion of Force: but force is a matter of degree-- the chute is a system of force, as it guides the cattle into a desired end. That it is less "forcefull" does not mean that it all of a sudden voluntary.
Grandin's narrative style is interesting and somewhat bizarre: the reference to video tapes, cds, internet: as compared to the functioning of her brain. she thinks in images: this is beautiful, but the need to reduce that to analogy with Tv or vcr....? i find that this weakens her argument.
She also makes constant reference to herself as simultaneously defective and beneficially sensitive, in opposition to "normal" people. Her sensitivity to changes in habit as a cause for anxiety (that is similar to the anxiety created in cattle when processed through the slaughterhouse) has allowed her to create designs that soften the system. This is great but as she is sure to mention, even the softest systems are worthless if misused. The human element of the slaughterhouse is after all still the most powerful. Even the "best equipment in the world is worthless unless management control the behavior of plant employees."
Gentility in butchery, that is what Grandin achieves.
Michael Pollan questions the place of animals in our society, sometimes making an exception to value a chimp’s life over a retarded child’s life. He argues that a retarded child should be sacrificed instead of an ape “because the ape has a greater capacity for pain”(311). Through out her early life Temple Grandin was categorized as retarded before autism was fully understood. Rather than “retarded” as Michael Pollan might have categorized Grandin, she is instead highly sensitive. She has done wonders to sensitize the equipment used in slaughterhouses so that the experience of the cattle is more “humane” humane? Hmmm how ironic.
Author Noellie Vialles starts his historical account in the article "Animal to edible" at the dawn of the nineteenth century as "the prohibition of private slaughtering coupled with the obligation to have slaughtering performed in municipal establishments built far from urban centres" gave shape to what is now known as "the dissociation of slaughtering and butchery" (p.17). And though this a topic which suggests a certain degree of unpleasantness, to my surprise, I found myself intrigued and interested to learn more about the functions of the abbatoir as well the restrictions, failures, etc. An important point was made towards the begging of the reading; Vialles says that "meat-like bread-has been and still is subject to a level of supervision that makes it a political commodity...because it comes to us by way of the killing of animals, meat is necessarily 'politcal' (p.18). Because of the implicit politicization of meat it automatically becomes a point of contention. What regulations are to be mandated for such establishments, matters that regard solely hygiene, or also ones of moral concerns? In a way, lawmakers were alluding to the latter by creating a level of annonymity among the animals in which humans kill for mass consumption. For centuries now the slaughtering of animals has been exiled to outside both rural and metropolitan areas to ones of utter confinement and secrecy. By doing this it was not only satisfying the uncleanliness grounded in the antiquated way of slaughtering, but also by physically removing that which reminds the public of how their dinner came to be makes distance between the eating and eaten. Vialles proposes that "the disjunctions are necessary: urbanisation and the consumption of large quantities of meat lead directly to the creation of abattoirs as places set apart" (p.31). The description of the slaughterhouse that followed later in the article was hard to read because of its accurate and vivid language; the 'dirty sector' section actually gave me visceral pain to read. Mention of all the machinery used to kill the animals made the second article comforting, comparitevly speaking. Because I come from a family where 3 out of the 5 members are psycologists, I know a lot about autism and have actually read "Thinking in Pictures" a few times now. Every time, however, I find her discription of having a visual catalog of memories tremendously fascinating, very heart-felt, and extremely self-observant. The way in which she uses her associational thought process in order to better design slaughter equiptment and spacial structure is truly impressive. However, as she points out, no matter how advanced or humane the electronics get, "mistreatment by people is the number-one cause of animals becoming frightened." (p.175)
Grandin's claim that her autism helps her understand the perceptions of animals, and thus develop more humane slaughterhouses, was slightly difficult. The objectification (Vialles uses the term "vegetization") of the meat animal is still present, though Grandin seems to be doing all she can to regard and respect the animal. However, the animal is still only the means to the end--a living being which ultimately will be turned into a substance to be consumed. Therefore the animal itself is commodified, since it is only useful after its life has been taken. Vialles discusses this "vegetization" in some detail, mostly focusing on the linguistic oddity of the words used to describe abbattoirs and their practices--an interesting focus in my opinion, although he does of course explore many other aspects of the abbattoir.
I guess my only skepticism of vegetarianism - myself, respectfully not one - is in the constitution of life. I don't mean this strictly in the conservative sense, but in a way I do.
Simply, is the only reason we have organizations invested in the ethical treatment of animals & not plants, a matter of animal connection? We are able to rationalize our treatment of animals and then place ethical value for a number of reasons, but often the most compelling tend to be the emotional. Rarely do people reply - after visualizing a hydraulic piston puncturing the skull of an animal - remark on anything other than the visceral and aesthetic qualities of the death. Our ethics seem to be inequivocally tied to sensuality, which, is the obvious pressing argument. Pain, suffering, and torture - all of which out of the animals control. I by no means argue against such ethics, I'm just wondering why the same circumstances of life - the biological process - are not applied to plants.
Is it due to an evolutionary reality of plants predating animals - of the sun giving light to plants, to give fuel to animals, the basics of natural processes. An onion feels no pain when plucked from the earth, as opposed the pain an animals would receive. I understand this is an old argument of ideologies, I'm just curious as to the ethics of ending biological life - we view it as a matter of death and renewal - I destroy the plant so the I may live, a cyclical relationship. I don't espouse that we eat nothing nor that ethics should play no part in diet - just curious as to the ethics of ending life to self-interest, at base: natural, but are the boundaries only of reflection and consciousness?
Vialles account of moving the killing of animals to outside the rhelm of the public sphere is akin to the way punishment was moved from the public square to the courtroom. On the one hand, this movement was important in "civilizing" such practices...giving people a standard for punishment and animals a standard for slaughter. Arguably...these punishments/slaughters were better than SOME of the practices that preceded them. However, it also makes the inevitable moral conundrum of treating humans and animals less than they deserve an invisible one, a question that few beg to ask anymore because they cannot see injustice. If you are a prisoners up for parole or an animal up for slaughter you suffer a similar fate-- being treated less like a living being, and more like a by-product of a profit-driven ideological framework. People, instead of thinking about the moral implications of a prisoners fate or an animal's fate think more about consuming meat to support the economy (just look at the beef lobby if you don't believe me) and creating prisoners to stamp out dissent and the inevitable sicknesses that come about in such a highly economically polarized society.
The chapters of Grandin's book bring up interesting parallels between the treatment of animals and the treatment of humans. She very clearly articulates how her mode of comprehension differs from the majority of people, and how society's ignorance or unwillingness to consider her difference may have alienated and affected her unfairly. Interestingly, she applies her experience to animals. In her designs, she tries to understand animals' perception, to accomdate them in a way that she was denied. She seems to be advocating an ethics that reckons with difference- between humans and humans, humans and animals- without equating them together under equality, which she anectdotally shows to be problematic.
But currently, most slaughterhouses, and the societies in which they're a part of, do not use this approach which preserves an acknowledgment of life. As Vialles' ethnography explains, instead of cultivating awareness, the so-called humane reforms undergone by the the meat industry actively separate and deny the killing of animals. The industrialization in itself imposes anonymity on the masses of animals it processes. The remote location of slaughterhouses, the stigmatization of their workers, and their internal organizations, remove humans from the fact of killing as much as possible. Even the moment of the actual kill is diluted between people in the process. These separations are telling of our anxieties towards meat, which we clearly possess and repress at the same time.
Temple Grandin is certainly an interesting lady. She brings further legitimacy and awareness to the fact that many people think and communicate in unconventional ways. Some people communicate through music. Some can only think through verbalization, Grandin thinks visually. Her mnemonic techniques are impressive, and could probably be used to design useful things aside from platforms for death. Her ability to relate to cattle through her lifelong experience with autism makes me question her motivations for her endeavors in the slaughterhouse. I understand the impulse to make killing conditions more humane, which demands at the least a bit of respect, but I think the end result is not far off than from before she intervened. If anything, it just makes the killing more efficient, abundant, and less a reality to those who witness it and to those being killed. I think the idea of cattle voluntarily walking toward death is kind of absurd, especially when the structure in place systematically inhibits them from being aware of their impeding doom.
Vialles emphasis on animal slaughters switch of location from the public to private realm is important in understanding our distant relationship with what we eat. It puts those aware of the realities of slaughter minds at ease, but it also shrouds the minds of people who have since birth been consuming meat that has been subject to this kind of practice, concealing truth and further propelling unethical consumption.
In the first article by Vialles the author talks about how slaughter houses were accessible to the public during the middle ages. They were located in the middle of the town square for everyone to see. Now slaughter houses are hidden from public view. This seems to imply that something awful is taking place there. Something that would discourage people from eating meat. Most people eating the meat never see the animal that they are eating while it is alive and do not see how it's being treating right before it dies. The saying "out of sight out of mind" applies to the modern slaughterhouse. I believe we can't get rid of slaughterhouses because the demand for meat is increasing, so the best thing to do is to make the slaughterhouses more humane. Grandin claims that she empathizes more with animals than with most people. She claims she is able to "understand" what the farm animals are experiencing and she wants to help alleviate their misery. Grandin helps design slaughterhouses so that the animals feel less stress.
My initial reaction to Temple Grandin’s “Thinking in Pictures” was slightly skeptical. Not only is the text highly anthropomorphic, but experience researching animal behavior in a strict scientific environment has taught me not to apply human emotions and characteristics to animals, as it is both unprofessional and impossible to prove based on outside observation alone. However, I do find Temple’s unique perspective on animal emotion and thought process intriguing, especially because of the positive responses her improvements to farm equipment and the physical handling of animals invoked. In addition, Grandin’s description of “translating” spoken and written language into full color movies and images does seem to correlate with animal perception: because animals lack vocal skills and cannot develop any form of complex language structure, they are unable to communicate through words the way humans do. They are, however, able to react physically, emote through facial expression and body language, remember previous events, dream, and—in some cases—even problem-solve. All of these actions imply some form of thinking, remembering, and planning without language skills. On the other hand, autism is associated with an acute inability to express emotion, difficulty understanding tone of voice and body language, and an inability to take on another’s perspective, or empathize. Not only do most of these symptoms contradict animal behavior and communication (for instance, most domesticated animals including cows, horses, pigs, dogs, or cats respond to tone and often imperceptible body cues) but, because Temple most likely has difficulty empathizing, I find her ability to “see through a cows eyes” somewhat difficult to grasp. When she described the slaughtering of cattle as “so horrible she could not stand to watch it” I had to wonder whether or not she was actually sympathizing with these animals on an emotional level, or if she is merely able to see from their perspective because she responds to similar stimuli. If Grandin could truly grasp the emotional capability of factory-farm animals, would she really choose to simply lead them into death more passively?
16 comments:
In the first article, what strikes one is the objectification of the animals, the way in these "abattoir" their death is perceived as a function of their forms. The argument of stunning and bleeding furthers this functionality of "to die".
Parallels to Greek sacrifice are considered, but what about parallels to Mayan sacrifice? The poet Charles Olson showed how Mayan sacrifice (human sacrifice) is comparable to the way the machine of capitalism of necessity "eats up" certain humans a la a sacrifice to appease itself.
As for the second article, that's difficult. Of course we continue the objectification, commodification to a new level, but to several different purposes.
Found it all fascinating of course. Remembering Marshall McLuhan, when she describes the "phantom limb" effect among people with "autism." And the technological hubris with which she describes "her" mind: "Internet search engine"; "programming a computer"; "a VCR" et cetera. Temple is modernism's irrationality incarnate!
All playfulness aside, we feel a sympathy for Temple.
While some readers may think this vulgar, I ask them to consider the correlation between these two utterances.
"Unfortunately I never had an opportunity to try trigonometry or geometry. Teachers and parents need to develop the child's talents into skills that can eventually turn into satisfying jobs or hobbies."
"Unfortunately, people often try to correct these problems with force instead of by understanding the animal's behavior. My connection with these animals goes back to the time I first realize that the squeeze machine could help calm my anxiety."
A subtle conveyance for someone who considers themselves "non-verbal"--whether intended or not.
Grandin's hierarchical language (high- and low-functioning, the step metaphor) is at odds with her plurality in describing "ways of thinking".
---
The comparison of her first-person immersion into the animal experience with "virtual reality" is problematic; however, that problem is illuminating. Hers is the ultimate subjective experience. Virtual reality necessarily models empirical, testable data into an objective representation that is then perceived subjectively. Without embarking into any thickety epistemology, we can say for now that, clearly, both modes of thought/inquiry/problem-solving have a place in design. If her success as a designer of slaughterhouses is any indication...
---
Clay, your amalgam is a good catch and quite interesting from an anthropogenic distance, but the aftertaste is bitter.
---
Vialles' is a story of disassociation. Every detail serves to reinforce the overarching metaphor: that physical constructions and psychological constructions are inexorably entwined. Linguistically and conceptually, Vailles ties the past to the present with sublime accuracy.
---
Or maybe I'm reading too much into it...
Also ... what would be Temple's metaphor for describing her mode of thought if she lived in the days before cameras, pictures, VCRs, etc? Daguerreotypes? Oil paintings...
I found both articles to be really interesting. I found the Vialles article to be extremely informative, and almost the more scientific angle to the same subjects as in Omnivor's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation. The piece had a way of making these "abattoirs" seem somehow more humane. This writing seemed to have less of an agenda than the other two books, more so Fast Food Nation. Because around 1818 "killing animals in towns became unacceptable" (Vialles 20). "Henceforth slaughtering became invisible" (Vialles 20). This seemed an easy way for people to just eat without caring or knowing where their meat came from. It's like no one really wanted to know. The facade of the good suited them. Overall I found the content pretty similar to the books we've read but the language chosen to express it, is different.
The second article by Grandin I found very unique. it made me actually really happy that this person was being so reasonable. Everyone is always trying to END bad things such as slaughterhouses but this person realizes they cannot destroy slaughterhouses all together so why not work to improve them? It is a brilliant idea. I also really liked the psychological aspect to this piece in terms of the visual thinkers and how that relates to the cattle.
There is an interesting BBC special on Ms. Grandin: SEE BELOW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ycu3JFRrA
________________________________
In THINKING IN PICTURES: Temple Grandin explains how her autism has helped her to communicate with animals and in doing so has helped her to create slaughterhouse cattle handling systems that are more sympathetic to animal emotion/behavior. Grandin notes that sometimes it is the simplest adjustment that will transform the animals expereince, for example: the use of materials. Modern industry uses steel, because it is "heavy duty" and easy to clean, but grandin insisted on the use of cement for cattle chutes, and lo and behold, ---the cattle walk Voluntarily to their death.
The notion of voluntary submission in the case of animal slaughter is somewhat problematic. How can you judge this,--even if you have autism, and are able to expereince as a cow *(per se) does a cow have notions of voluntary and involuntary. I suppose a way to judges this is through the notion of Force: but force is a matter of degree-- the chute is a system of force, as it guides the cattle into a desired end. That it is less "forcefull" does not mean that it all of a sudden voluntary.
Grandin's narrative style is interesting and somewhat bizarre: the reference to video tapes, cds, internet: as compared to the functioning of her brain. she thinks in images: this is beautiful, but the need to reduce that to analogy with Tv or vcr....?
i find that this weakens her argument.
She also makes constant reference to herself as simultaneously defective and beneficially sensitive, in opposition to "normal" people. Her sensitivity to changes in habit as a cause for anxiety (that is similar to the anxiety created in cattle when processed through the slaughterhouse) has allowed her to create designs that soften the system. This is great but as she is sure to mention, even the softest systems are worthless if misused. The human element of the slaughterhouse is after all still the most powerful. Even the "best equipment in the world is worthless unless management control the behavior of plant employees."
Gentility in butchery,
that is what Grandin achieves.
Michael Pollan questions the place of animals in our society, sometimes making an exception to value a chimp’s life over a retarded child’s life. He argues that a retarded child should be sacrificed instead of an ape “because the ape has a greater capacity for pain”(311). Through out her early life Temple Grandin was categorized as retarded before autism was fully understood. Rather than “retarded” as Michael Pollan might have categorized Grandin, she is instead highly sensitive. She has done wonders to sensitize the equipment used in slaughterhouses so that the experience of the cattle is more “humane” humane? Hmmm how ironic.
Author Noellie Vialles starts his historical account in the article "Animal to edible" at the dawn of the nineteenth century as "the prohibition of private slaughtering coupled with the obligation to have slaughtering performed in municipal establishments built far from urban centres" gave shape to what is now known as "the dissociation of slaughtering and butchery" (p.17). And though this a topic which suggests a certain degree of unpleasantness, to my surprise, I found myself intrigued and interested to learn more about the functions of the abbatoir as well the restrictions, failures, etc. An important point was made towards the begging of the reading; Vialles says that "meat-like bread-has been and still is subject to a level of supervision that makes it a political commodity...because it comes to us by way of the killing of animals, meat is necessarily 'politcal' (p.18). Because of the implicit politicization of meat it automatically becomes a point of contention. What regulations are to be mandated for such establishments, matters that regard solely hygiene, or also ones of moral concerns? In a way, lawmakers were alluding to the latter by creating a level of annonymity among the animals in which humans kill for mass consumption. For centuries now the slaughtering of animals has been exiled to outside both rural and metropolitan areas to ones of utter confinement and secrecy. By doing this it was not only satisfying the uncleanliness grounded in the antiquated way of slaughtering, but also by physically removing that which reminds the public of how their dinner came to be makes distance between the eating and eaten. Vialles proposes that "the disjunctions are necessary: urbanisation and the consumption of large quantities of meat lead directly to the creation of abattoirs as places set apart" (p.31). The description of the slaughterhouse that followed later in the article was hard to read because of its accurate and vivid language; the 'dirty sector' section actually gave me visceral pain to read. Mention of all the machinery used to kill the animals made the second article comforting, comparitevly speaking. Because I come from a family where 3 out of the 5 members are psycologists, I know a lot about autism and have actually read "Thinking in Pictures" a few times now. Every time, however, I find her discription of having a visual catalog of memories tremendously fascinating, very heart-felt, and extremely self-observant. The way in which she uses her associational thought process in order to better design slaughter equiptment and spacial structure is truly impressive. However, as she points out, no matter how advanced or humane the electronics get, "mistreatment by people is the number-one cause of animals becoming frightened." (p.175)
Grandin's claim that her autism helps her understand the perceptions of animals, and thus develop more humane slaughterhouses, was slightly difficult. The objectification (Vialles uses the term "vegetization") of the meat animal is still present, though Grandin seems to be doing all she can to regard and respect the animal. However, the animal is still only the means to the end--a living being which ultimately will be turned into a substance to be consumed. Therefore the animal itself is commodified, since it is only useful after its life has been taken. Vialles discusses this "vegetization" in some detail, mostly focusing on the linguistic oddity of the words used to describe abbattoirs and their practices--an interesting focus in my opinion, although he does of course explore many other aspects of the abbattoir.
I guess my only skepticism of vegetarianism - myself, respectfully not one - is in the constitution of life. I don't mean this strictly in the conservative sense, but in a way I do.
Simply, is the only reason we have organizations invested in the ethical treatment of animals & not plants, a matter of animal connection? We are able to rationalize our treatment of animals and then place ethical value for a number of reasons, but often the most compelling tend to be the emotional. Rarely do people reply - after visualizing a hydraulic piston puncturing the skull of an animal - remark on anything other than the visceral and aesthetic qualities of the death. Our ethics seem to be inequivocally tied to sensuality, which, is the obvious pressing argument. Pain, suffering, and torture - all of which out of the animals control. I by no means argue against such ethics, I'm just wondering why the same circumstances of life - the biological process - are not applied to plants.
Is it due to an evolutionary reality of plants predating animals - of the sun giving light to plants, to give fuel to animals, the basics of natural processes. An onion feels no pain when plucked from the earth, as opposed the pain an animals would receive. I understand this is an old argument of ideologies, I'm just curious as to the ethics of ending biological life - we view it as a matter of death and renewal - I destroy the plant so the I may live, a cyclical relationship. I don't espouse that we eat nothing nor that ethics should play no part in diet - just curious as to the ethics of ending life to self-interest, at base: natural, but are the boundaries only of reflection and consciousness?
Vialles account of moving the killing of animals to outside the rhelm of the public sphere is akin to the way punishment was moved from the public square to the courtroom. On the one hand, this movement was important in "civilizing" such practices...giving people a standard for punishment and animals a standard for slaughter. Arguably...these punishments/slaughters were better than SOME of the practices that preceded them. However, it also makes the inevitable moral conundrum of treating humans and animals less than they deserve an invisible one, a question that few beg to ask anymore because they cannot see injustice. If you are a prisoners up for parole or an animal up for slaughter you suffer a similar fate-- being treated less like a living being, and more like a by-product of a profit-driven ideological framework. People, instead of thinking about the moral implications of a prisoners fate or an animal's fate think more about consuming meat to support the economy (just look at the beef lobby if you don't believe me) and creating prisoners to stamp out dissent and the inevitable sicknesses that come about in such a highly economically polarized society.
The chapters of Grandin's book bring up interesting parallels between the treatment of animals and the treatment of humans. She very clearly articulates how her mode of comprehension differs from the majority of people, and how society's ignorance or unwillingness to consider her difference may have alienated and affected her unfairly. Interestingly, she applies her experience to animals. In her designs, she tries to understand animals' perception, to accomdate them in a way that she was denied. She seems to be advocating an ethics that reckons with difference- between humans and humans, humans and animals- without equating them together under equality, which she anectdotally shows to be problematic.
But currently, most slaughterhouses, and the societies in which they're a part of, do not use this approach which preserves an acknowledgment of life. As Vialles' ethnography explains, instead of cultivating awareness, the so-called humane reforms undergone by the the meat industry actively separate and deny the killing of animals. The industrialization in itself imposes anonymity on the masses of animals it processes. The remote location of slaughterhouses, the stigmatization of their workers, and their internal organizations, remove humans from the fact of killing as much as possible. Even the moment of the actual kill is diluted between people in the process. These separations are telling of our anxieties towards meat, which we clearly possess and repress at the same time.
Temple Grandin is certainly an interesting lady. She brings further legitimacy and awareness to the fact that many people think and communicate in unconventional ways. Some people communicate through music. Some can only think through verbalization, Grandin thinks visually. Her mnemonic techniques are impressive, and could probably be used to design useful things aside from platforms for death. Her ability to relate to cattle through her lifelong experience with autism makes me question her motivations for her endeavors in the slaughterhouse. I understand the impulse to make killing conditions more humane, which demands at the least a bit of respect, but I think the end result is not far off than from before she intervened. If anything, it just makes the killing more efficient, abundant, and less a reality to those who witness it and to those being killed. I think the idea of cattle voluntarily walking toward death is kind of absurd, especially when the structure in place systematically inhibits them from being aware of their impeding doom.
Vialles emphasis on animal slaughters switch of location from the public to private realm is important in understanding our distant relationship with what we eat. It puts those aware of the realities of slaughter minds at ease, but it also shrouds the minds of people who have since birth been consuming meat that has been subject to this kind of practice, concealing truth and further propelling unethical consumption.
In the first article by Vialles the author talks about how slaughter houses were accessible to the public during the middle ages. They were located in the middle of the town square for everyone to see. Now slaughter houses are hidden from public view. This seems to imply that something awful is taking place there. Something that would discourage people from eating meat. Most people eating the meat never see the animal that they are eating while it is alive and do not see how it's being treating right before it dies. The saying "out of sight out of mind" applies to the modern slaughterhouse.
I believe we can't get rid of slaughterhouses because the demand for meat is increasing, so the best thing to do is to make the slaughterhouses more humane. Grandin claims that she empathizes more with animals than with most people. She claims she is able to "understand" what the farm animals are experiencing and she wants to help alleviate their misery. Grandin helps design slaughterhouses so that the animals feel less stress.
My initial reaction to Temple Grandin’s “Thinking in Pictures” was slightly skeptical. Not only is the text highly anthropomorphic, but experience researching animal behavior in a strict scientific environment has taught me not to apply human emotions and characteristics to animals, as it is both unprofessional and impossible to prove based on outside observation alone. However, I do find Temple’s unique perspective on animal emotion and thought process intriguing, especially because of the positive responses her improvements to farm equipment and the physical handling of animals invoked. In addition, Grandin’s description of “translating” spoken and written language into full color movies and images does seem to correlate with animal perception: because animals lack vocal skills and cannot develop any form of complex language structure, they are unable to communicate through words the way humans do. They are, however, able to react physically, emote through facial expression and body language, remember previous events, dream, and—in some cases—even problem-solve. All of these actions imply some form of thinking, remembering, and planning without language skills. On the other hand, autism is associated with an acute inability to express emotion, difficulty understanding tone of voice and body language, and an inability to take on another’s perspective, or empathize. Not only do most of these symptoms contradict animal behavior and communication (for instance, most domesticated animals including cows, horses, pigs, dogs, or cats respond to tone and often imperceptible body cues) but, because Temple most likely has difficulty empathizing, I find her ability to “see through a cows eyes” somewhat difficult to grasp. When she described the slaughtering of cattle as “so horrible she could not stand to watch it” I had to wonder whether or not she was actually sympathizing with these animals on an emotional level, or if she is merely able to see from their perspective because she responds to similar stimuli. If Grandin could truly grasp the emotional capability of factory-farm animals, would she really choose to simply lead them into death more passively?
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