In chapter twelve of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan visits a slaughterhouse in hopes to learn more about how animals go from the farm to the consumer. During this experience Pollan receives the opportunity to kill chickens to see what it is like to do such a thing. While slitting the throats of many chickens Pollan discovers that it is more of a senseless murder, and this is what caught my attention most from the reading. What bothers me is that how we live in such a society that can so easily and senselessly kill living things for their own satisfaction. I mean, I’m not one to claim that I’m not going to eat a hamburger because a cow had to suffer, but I do think that it is something that we as a society have taken for granted. It is sad to me that our own selfish hunger can drive us to eat animals that have been killed by the thousands without even a thought or conscious awareness of what actually happened. It is as if there is a curtain between the slaughterhouse and our plate, and we were never meant to look or even want to look in order to know the truth. I just feel like it is our responsibility to reflect, understand, and be grateful for what goes into nourishing our bodies.
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Is it "senseless," or merely "de-sensitization?" The former implies that in performing the act of killing, one loses any recognition, while the latter only means that one becomes less emotionally involved. Or is there a difference?
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