Book Review - The Pig Who Sang to the Moon
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, the best selling author of many books including "When Elephants Weep" and "Dogs Never Lie About Love" has a new book out: "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals." It intersperses heartwarming vignettes from the lives of various types of farmed animals, with some gruesome information on the way those animals generally live and die in our society.
He writes, "To the extent that you prevent an animal from living the way he or she evolved to live, you are creating unhappiness for that animal." He describes pigs who, when given the opportunity, will follow visitors around farm sanctuaries trying to score tummy rubs, affectionate chickens, who take obvious pleasure in dust-bathing, goats playing games of tag and peek-a-boo around trees, and ducks who will baby-sit each other's eggs. Then he reveals the ways in which modern farming robs such creatures of the opportunity to express their natural selves.
Perhaps my favorite chapter is the one on cows. In the book's introduction, Masson gives us a preview by writing "An animal who has given birth and is then deprived of the opportunity to give expression to her inborn maternal urge cannot be happy. If you were made pregnant against your will and then your child was taken from you and served the next night for dinner, would you be happy? If you think a cow never gives a second thought to her missing calf, ask any farmer how long a newborn calf and her mother call for each other. One farmer told me that as long as they can see each other, they will call till they are hoarse, indefinitely." In the chapter "Till the cows come home," he gives us an example of such maternal yearning, relaying a cow's display as described by a senior scientific officer of the RSPCA: "When the calf was first removed, she was in acute grief; she stood outside the pen where she had last seen her calf and bellowed for her offspring for hours. She would only move when forced to do so. Even after six weeks the mother would gaze at the pen where she last saw her calf and sometimes wait momentarily outside of the pen."
People often think of vegans as fanatical vegetarians or purists. There may be an assumption that no vegans think we have the right to use other species even in a mutually beneficial way. Masson makes it clear that a cow on a modern dairy farm does not benefit from the arrangement; she leads a life of tremendous suffering, which ends, like those of her cousins raised for beef, at the slaughterhouse.
The chapter on chickens presents a similarly strong argument against eating eggs. I therefore found a few points made in the concluding chapter problematic.
Masson's final chapter, "On Not Eating Friends" states that we should not eat meat, chicken or fish, or drink milk, or eat dairy products or eggs, or wear clothing made from animal products. He writes, "Becoming vegetarian was easy for me.....I have to be honest: my research leaves me no doubt whatsoever that to prevent animals from suffering unbearable agony we must become not only vegetarian but vegan. But it has not been easy for me to make the transition from vegetarian to vegan, still a project under construction." He notes that Cesar Chavez told him that if he is interested in preventing animal suffering, the first thing he should give up is eggs and milk.
Good so far. The beauty of the book is that in detailing the emotional lives of cows, chickens, ducks and sheep, and then the suffering we inflict upon them in order to use their products, it lays the groundwork for Chavez's stance. When one thinks it through, one realizes that if one were to eat chickens raised on old fashioned farms where they led decent lives, one would contribute to less suffering than one does when eating factory farmed eggs. The same argument could be made for free-farmed beef over the milk of an abused cow who will eventually be hamburger meat (or even modern feedlot farmed beef, since steers fare slightly better than other animals - at least they spend the first six months of their lives grazing).
Unfortunately Masson then writes that if a farmer wanted a recommendation for raising animals with less suffering, the only recommendation would be "to stop killing them." He writes that it simply seems "profoundly wrong" to give them a decent life, only to be slaughtered. Yet, a farmer making such an inquiry would be considering a truly significant gesture that could alleviate much animal suffering. And what is missing from Masson's honest account of his own diet is something he shared with some activists when we met him during his book tour -- he was raised vegetarian --- there was no "becoming vegetarian." So, though Masson spent time with and developed affection for farmed animals while researching his book, he does not seem to have moved far in terms of his own behavior (while over a million other Americans have managed to go vegan). Yet he would offer no encouragement to a farmer willing to overhaul his farm in order to abandon the cruelest practices. I think it is important that we support any step one is willing to take to alleviate suffering (while always gently pushing for more) and certainly that we activists are willing to cut others at least as much slack as we cut ourselves.
Interestingly, Masson does note that any move in the right direction, such as giving up meat once a week, should be applauded. True. "Meatless Mondays" across America could save millions of lives. But whereas he disdains the 'humane' farmer, he writes "Giving up red meat only is still making a move in the right direction." What? The number of animals killed for food in the United States over the last twenty years has increased exponentially as people have shifted from eating beef to chicken and fish. A person who eats steak every night for a year might be responsible for the death of one animal, whereas somebody eating chicken every night eats hundreds of animals every year. And chickens are exempt from most humane slaughter laws, and are subjected to the worst treatment imaginable during their lives. Masson knows that, so I am sorry that he, perhaps thoughtlessly, furthered a popular misconception that one is making "a move in the right direction," and contributing to less animal suffering, by switching to white meat.
My disappointment with Masson's inconsistently purist attitudes as laid out in the last chapter does not discourage me from recommending "The Pig who Sang to the Moon" wholeheartedly for some purposes. I think it is a great book, not for activists, but far more importantly, for the general public. It would make a wonderful holiday gift for friends and family who "love animals" but have not yet been able to extend that love to those included in the traditional American diet. You can purchase it at Amazon.
Jeff Masson has asked animal advocates to take a few minutes to post a review of the book on the Amazon website.
(Click on "Write an online review" under "All Customer Reviews.")
Some positive words will encourage people to buy it, and will thus help spread the word. He has asked for either positive or negative reviews, but I would recommend that we give our 1-3 (out of five) star ratings to books praising the circus, or glorifying life on the farm, and do our best to support books that encourage veganism and compassion for animals, whether or not we agree with every point they make. I encourage animal advocates to post even a brief review, and give the book the high rating deserved by any work that seriously looks at farmed animal suffering.
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn, DawnWatch
(Dec. 2003)
Source: Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff, 2003, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon
supplier: Amazon
