Andrew Potter hits another Homer
Amen to this post.Natural behaviour? Cows aren’t natural entities. Like dogs, they’re completely artificial. They’re basically living meat sculptures, shaped by humans, for human purposes, over thousands of years.
This reminds me of other discussions I find bizarre when I visit Austria, and people there use the term 'natural' to describe the land there, almost entirely converted to human purposes, agriculture and skiing. (Not fair to pick on Austria, as lots of Canadians seem to have the same notions.) Do people really think farm fields are 'natural'?
Well, actually, I do. As are cities. They are the construct of this wild little species, that has asserted itself so widely across the planet. But the distinction people like to make between cities and farms seems utterly fraudulent to me. As is any distinction among the various things we have done to shape our world.
posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:44 PM
6 Comments:
Wow dan really has a point here. I think I have taken a position that makes the word 'natural' useless. Well, that might be good, actually - I know of no cases where use of the word has added any value. Still, it is uneconomical to have the language littered with words with no real meaning. Any suggestions?
Cows left on their own have a better life? Huh? That I seriously doubt. Seems to me they get a really good life until we decide to kill them. I guess it depends on what you think is better.
I think Dan may be referring to how badly livestock are (often, though not always, thankfully) treated on farms. Matthew Scully (Bush's former speechwriter) and even, to my happy surprise, George Will, have written about this.
Ah yes, the point of the comparison is where we are likely talking past one another. I guess on my weekend drives I see cattle out in the fields protected from predators, supplied with food, etc., but there are less nice ways to raise them.
Yes, "literal" as now used has roughly the same quality.
Actually I do think "natural" reasonably describes the life of the wildebeest that has to migrate thousands of miles to keep up with food supplies, facing threats from lions and the like, or from drowning corssoing rivers, at any moment. I am not sure whether it is worse than being one of the cattle I see out in the fields - I think we might have to ask both creatures, and each of them might prefer its life to that of the other.
However ineptly, I think I was meaning to say just what you say. (Your George Bush reference is, as usual, utterly gratuitous and irrelevant.)
As for free-range chickens, I had the amusing experience of being with someone recently who refused the offer of free-range chicken-based food - "I grew up with free-rnage chickens - have you seen what they eat!? I will stick with grain-fed, thanks". (And no his concern was not the quality of life of the chicken, rather his own.)
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