When people around you think nothing of it

I believe that it is difficult to truly claim any sort of limit as to what humans are morally capable of. We live in a highly structured and conditioned state, and it is far-fetched for the average citizen to understand or project themselves into the psychological experience of killing. Killing and death is a reality to all animals outside of our species, and the direct act has evolved to be completely foreign in our contemporary, modern lifestyle.

I am currently reading an excellent book named, 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', which documents the history of American food industry. An excerpt really caught my attention, especially in relation to our current book. In the novel (and yes this one IS a novel Jeremy), the author visits a small sustainable farm in Virginia, where chicken are being slaughtered for the farmers market. For the first time in his life, he personally takes the life of two dozen chicken and afterwards writes;

"After a while the rhythm of the work took over from my misgivings, and I could kill without thought to anything but my technique. I wasn't at it long enough for slaughtering chickens to become routine, but the work did begin to feel routine, but the work did begin to feel mechanical, and that feeling, perhaps more than any other, was disconcerting; how quickly you can get used to anything, especially when the people around you think nothing of it. In a way, the most morally troubling thing about killing chickens is that after a while it is no longer morally troubling... designers of slaughterhouses have written that it is not uncommon for full-time slaughterhouse workers to become sadistic." (pg. 233)

This is one of the reasons that slaughterhouses are now largely mechanized, they bring out truly shocking behavior in workers, much to the horror of animal-rights groups. I have family in Europe that work in agriculture, and on several occasions I have helped kill and prepare the farm's eating chickens. I can completely relate to the emotions felt by the author above. Committing such a moral crime against another being was something I initially thought beyond imagination, but after a disturbingly short while it summoned no remorse. Now I am no way comparing the slaughter of farm animals to the horrors of holocaust, since they are on completely different moral scopes. Killing farm animals for food is in no way comparable to the systematic murder of millions of innocent men, women, and children.

But it is important to keep in mind some perspective in reading the novel... that we are animals that are heavily trained to think and morally act a certain way, and the barriers keeping us in check are not as concrete as perceived. Murdering without thought as did the battalion does require some sort of special and deeply disturbed psychopathic outlooks, which will never quite be understood. However, on an infinitely smaller scale most common Americans would never expect to ever adopt such comfort in killing a harmless chicken. Although I was extremely disturbed by the idea of slaughter, heavy handed convincing was not necessary in enabling me to kill the birds, and doing so quickly became easy and thoughtless.