Bridging the gap

Today was a first for me - I got a comment on a blog post from someone I didn't know! Exciting, even if it was on a blog post written by someone else.

The post was from a vegan woman in Florida named Bea who objected to our killing and eating of Number 16. She raised a couple of important points that I wholeheartedly agree with. First, that "food animals" are a cultural construct (that is, I will eat my cow but not my dog, which is the opposite of some countries), and, second, that we must stop factory farming. I thought this was enough to give us some common ground, even though we disagree on the ultimate fate of well cared for farm animals.

I was reminded of some comments I heard a while back regarding ranchers, farmers, and the environmental movement. It seems that in our effort to save the land, we demonized those who care for the land, arguably, better than the rest of us. Granted, they care for it from the perspective of productivity rather than wilderness protection. But, they benefit more than anyone from having the land and water free of toxic waste. Yet, somehow, even though the environmentalists and the farmers/ranchers could agree on this much, that wasn't enough to band together and stop the coal plant from being built, or the tailings pile from being dumped in the river. Rather, it was more important for each group to be right, to have their values upheld completely. What could have been a powerful partnership led to more division, and, ultimately, the polluters won.

Which brings me back to Bea's comments. Clearly we have differing views on what is compassionate or necessary for the proper care of livestock. But we can both agree that factory farming must stop.

Is it possible to agree to disagree until that goal is reached? And then take up the further task of reconciling our differences?

Maybe if the vegans, vegetarians, and cattle ranchers banded together on this, we could put an end to the sick practices of factory farming. We could make small, family farms viable again and make some progress toward a saner food system.

Then we can argue about whether or not we should be eating animals...