Toward Rational, Authentic Food Choices | Melanie Joy | TEDxMünchen
Melanie Joy on Carnism and other food choices.
Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Ed.M. is a Harvard-educated psychologist, professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a noted speaker, and the author of "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows." Melanie is a recipient of the Institute of Jainology’s Ahimsa Award. Her work has been featured by numerous media outlets including the BBC, Germany’s ARD, ABC Australia, the New York Times and Spiegel Online. Melanie has given her carnism presentation on five continents. She is also the founder and president of the organization Beyond Carnism (formerly Carnism Awareness & Action Network) and the project Karnismus erkennen (German-speaking countries).
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
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Transcript (English — en)
Translator: Emile Dingemans
Reviewer: Rik Delaet
Every day we engage in a behavior
that is completely contrary
to how we would optimally function.
And I'm not talking
about a modern technological practice
such as posting embarrassing snapshots
of one's unsuspecting partner on Facebook.
I'm talking about
an integral human behavior.
I'm talking about
a deeply intimate behavior.
Every day we engage
in a behavior that requires us
to distort our thoughts, numb our feelings
and act against our core values,
and which enables a global atrocity
that can make even the most stoic
of us weep in sorrow.
And every day we could choose
not to engage in this behavior,
except we don't realize
that it's irrational.
We don't see that it's destructive
and we don't even know we have a choice.
How can some of the most frequent
and important choices we make,
appear not to be choices at all?
How can the irrationality and destruction
of a widespread behavior
be virtually invisible?
These are the questions I asked when I
began my nearly two decades of research
on the psychology of eating animals.
And what I discovered was
not at all what I had expected.
As it turns out,
there's a distinct underlying factor
that both drives our behavior
and prevents us
from recognizing its irrationality
and the destruction it causes.
I identified and codified this factor
and I'm here to share
my findings with you.
And the good news is that simply
becoming aware of this factor
enables us to reclaim our rationality
and freedom of choice
and become more active participants in
creating a humane and just world.
My journey of discovery began in 1968,
25 years before I set foot
in my first Harvard lecture.
And nearly fifty years before
I received the Ahimsa Award
at the British House of Commons
for my work on global non-violence.
I'm 48.
Thank you.
(Laughter)
My family adopted a puppy we named Fritz.
Now, Fritz was my first dog and
he was also my first friend.
We did everything together.
We played together.
We napped together.
And we even vomited together
once during a sickening road trip.
And Fritz was also my first heartbreak
when he died at the age of 13
of liver cancer.
What I didn't realize back then
was that my connection with Fritz
would lead to a discovery
that would transform my worldview.
So I cared about Fritz
and I'm not unique.
Most of us care about animals.
We teach our children
to be kind to animals.
Our hearts leap
when we witness them at play.
We recognize the injustice and feel
outraged when they are abused.
We empathize with animals.
We share their fear,
their joy, their sorrow.
And how many of you have cared
about a certain animal in your life?
Just raise your hand.
Now look around the room.
That's a whole lot of caring.
So to explain how
my connection with my dog
led me to this stage,
I'd like to do a thought experiment.
Imagine that you're a guest
at a dinner party
and your host serves you
a dish that looks like this.
Consider whether you find
this delicious or disgusting.
For those who would find it delicious,
imagine you find it so delicious
that you ask your host for the recipe.
And she replies the secret is in the meat.
You use three pounds of well-seasoned -
Golden Retriever.
Now take a moment to reflect
on your thoughts and feelings.
Chances are, what you had
just thought of as food,
you now think of as a dead animal.
What you just felt was delicious,
you now feel is disgusting.
Chances are, your experience
of the meat dramatically changed.
Even though nothing about the meat
itself actually changed.
So what changed?
Well, what changed
is your perception of the meat.
When it comes to eating animals
our perception is shaped
largely, if not entirely, by our culture.
In meat-eating cultures around the world,
out of over seven million animal species,
people tend to classify
only a handful as edible.
All the rest are inedible
and disgusting.
So the question is,
why are we not disgusted
by the select species we have learned
to think of as edible?
And why don't we ever ask why?
Have you ever wondered why you might
eat certain animals but not others?
Have you ever wondered
why you haven't wondered?
For much of my life I never wondered
about my choice to eat certain animals
because I never even knew I had a choice.
No one had ever asked me
if I believed in eating animals.
Eating animals was just a given.
So, I never thought about
how strange it was
that I could pet my dog with one hand,
while I ate a pork chop with the other.
A pork chop that had once been an animal
who was at least as sentient
and intelligent as my dog.
And frankly I didn't want to think
about this contradiction;
it was just easier not to.
It wasn't until 1989
that I started asking why.
I had been hospitalized after eating
what would be my very last hamburger.
A burger that was contaminated
with the dangerous bacteria Campylobacter.
After being so sick I swore off meat.
And then something interesting happened.
When I stopped eating animals
I had a paradigm shift.
In other words,
I didn't see different things,
I saw the same things differently.
Beef stew seemed no different
than golden retriever stew.
And everywhere I turned I saw people
putting the bodies of dead animals
into their mouth as though
nothing at all were wrong.
So I became very curious as to how
rational caring people, like myself,
could just stop thinking and feeling.
Well, two advanced degrees later,
I had my answer.
And this is what I discovered:
There is an invisible
belief system or ideology
that conditions us to eat certain animals.
And I named the system: Carnism.
We tend to assume that only vegans and
vegetarians follow a belief system.
But when eating animals is not a necessity
- which is the case
in much of the world today -
then it is a choice.
And choices always stem from beliefs.
Now carnism is a dominant ideology.
Meaning that it's so widespread,
its doctrine is seen as a given
rather than a choice.
Eating animals is just the way things are.
And it is a violent ideology.
Meat cannot be procured without violence.
And egg and dairy production cause
extensive harm to animals.
Ideologies such as carnism
run counter to core human values.
Values such as compassion,
justice and authenticity.
And so they need
to use defense mechanisms
that distort our thoughts
and numb our feelings
so that we act against our values
without fully realizing what we are doing.
Now, the main defense
of carnism is denial,
which is expressed largely
through invisibility.
The ideology itself is invisible
and so are its victims.
For instance, 1.2 billion farmed animals
are slaughtered globally every week.
So in one week
more farmed animals are killed
than the total number of people killed
in all wars throughout history.
But how many of these animals
have you seen?
Where are they?
Approximately 98 percent of the meat,
eggs and dairy we eat
comes from animals
who were raised in factory farms.
Windowless sheds in remote locations
that are virtually impossible
to obtain access to.
Yet, although these animals
are treated as commodities,
they are in fact sentient,
intelligent individuals
with lives that matter to them.
In a moment I'm going
to show a two-minute video
of animal factories
which can be difficult to watch.
So I want to remind you that my intention
is simply to raise awareness.
So I have to make the invisible visible.
I've selected material that I think
is sufficient to inform you,
without traumatizing you.
But if it's too difficult to watch,
just close your eyes and plug your ears.
(Video)
Piglets are castrated by workers
who cut into their skin
and rip out their testicles.
(Piglet squeal)
Next the workers chop off their tail.
Once pigs have reached market weight,
they are sent to slaughter.
At the slaughterhouse pigs are knocked
in the head with a steal rod,
hung upside down
and have their throats slit.
(Pig squeal)
Improper stunning condemns many pigs
to having their throats slit while
they are fully conscious and suffering.
Because male chicks don't lay eggs,
and do not grow quickly enough
to be raised profitably for meat,
they are killed
within hours after hatching.
The females have it even worse.
Workers use a hot blade or laser
to remove part of the chicks' beaks.
At the slaughter plant,
the birds are dumped from their crates,
then roughly snapped upside down
into moving shackles
by their fragile legs.
They are then pulled across a blade
which slices their throats
causing blood to pour from their necks.
Calves on dairy farms are dragged away
from their mothers and violently killed.
The majority of today's dairy cows
are confined on factory farms.
Workers subject young cows
to painful mutilations and amputations.
Unreliable stunning practices
at the slaughterhouse
condemn many cattle
to having their throats cut,
their limps hacked off
while still alive and conscious.
Massive trawling nets
indiscriminately drag hundreds of tons
of fish and other animals
along the ocean floor.
They are then tossed on board,
where the surviving fish either suffocate
or are crushed to death.
Melanie Joy: Thank you.
I know it can be painful to see that.
Fortunately for us the hard part is over.
But before we move on
I want to just point out
that this footage focuses
on standard industry practices
including in so-called humane
or bio facilities.
And I also want to point out
that there is a gift in our pain.
Our pain is the mirror in which we can see
the reflection of our humanity.
So, clearly the animals pay
for our carnism.
But we are also victims of the system.
We pay for our carnism with our health,
as eating an animal-based diet
can lead to serious disease,
while eating a plant-based or vegan diet
can optimize health.
And we pay for our carnism
with our hearts and with our minds,
with our dampened empathy
and diminished objectivity.
But, of course, invisibility alone
cannot maintain the system.
Hints of the truth surround us.
So another defense is necessary:
Justification.
And the way that we learn to justify
eating animals is by learning to believe
that the myths of meat, eggs and dairy
are the facts of meat, eggs and dairy.
These myths are expressed
largely through what I refer to as:
The 3 N's of Justification.
Eating animals is -
What do you think?
You're good.
That. Great. Okay.
Normal,
Natural - and -
Necessary.
And haven't we heard
this somewhere before?
Slavery is normal, natural and necessary.
Male dominance is normal,
natural and necessary.
Heterosexual supremacy
is normal, natural and necessary.
And as with other
dominant violent ideologies,
the myths of carnism
are institutionalized.
So carnistic bias is embedded
within the very foundations of the system.
And when we are born into an
institutionalized system, such as carnism,
we inevitably internalize it;
we learn to look at the world
through the lens of carnism.
And carnism uses a set of defenses
that distort our perceptions
of farmed animals.
For instance, carnism teaches us to see
farmed animals as abstractions,
as lacking any individuality or
personality of their own.
A pig is a pig and
all pigs are the same.
And carnism blinds us
to the absurdities of the system.
Voltaire was right.
If we believe absurdities,
we shall commit atrocities.
And carnism is but one
of the many atrocities,
one of the many violent ideologies,
that are an unfortunate part
of the human legacy.
And although the experience
of each set of victims
will always be somewhat unique,
the ideologies themselves are similar,
the mentality that enables
such violence is the same.
It's the mentality of domination
and subjugation.
Of privilege and oppression.
It's the mentality that causes us
to turn someone into something,
to reduce a life to a unit of production.
It is the might-makes-right mentality
that makes us feel entitled to wield
complete control over the lives and deaths
of those with less power -
just because we can.
And to feel justified in our actions
because they are only:
savages,
women,
animals.
It is the mentality of meat.
And so if we fail to pick out
the common threads
that are woven through
all violent ideologies,
then we will recreate
atrocities in new forms.
But if we identify
these common threads,
then we can unravel atrocities
in all forms.
And so, this brings us
to our final question.
What is the solution?
How can we lead more authentic
and freely chosen lives
and bring our optimal selves
into the world?
Well, it turns out the solution
is already in our grasp.
Seventeen minutes ago you may not
have been aware of carnism,
the invisible ideology that disconnects us
from our rationality,
our feelings and our values.
And which enables
a massive global injustice.
You couldn't see carnism.
Now you can.
Now you are aware.
Your awareness is
the first step of the solution.
And acting from your awareness
is the rest.
And awareness has always been
the antidote to violent ideologies.
Virtually every atrocity was made possible
because the populace
turned away from a reality,
they felt was too painful to face.
And virtually every revolution,
every social transformation,
was made possible
because of those who chose awareness
and who acted on what they had learned.
And the good news is that there is
an alternative to carnism.
The vegan movement,
which is the counterpoint to carnism,
is one of the fastest growing
social justice movements
in the world today.
And the good news is also
that we can make minor changes
that will have a major impact.
We can reduce and ultimately eliminate
our consumption of meat, eggs and dairy.
To start, we can eat
just one vegan meal a day,
or one vegan day a week.
And we can spread carnism awareness,
which is the mission
of my organization: Beyond Carnism.
It's simple.
If each of us shares this talk
with everyone we know,
and they do the same,
carnism awareness will inevitably
reach critical mass,
and will bring about
a global paradigm shift.
So we have the potential
to change the world,
if you believe that carnism awareness
is an idea worth spreading.
Thank you.
(Applause)