Carnism

Carnism is a concept used in discussions of humanity's relation to other animals, defined as a prevailing ideology in which people support the use and consumption of animal products, especially meat. Carnism is presented as a dominant belief system supported by a variety of defense mechanisms and mostly unchallenged assumptions. The term carnism was coined by social psychologist and author Melanie Joy in 2001 and popularized by her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2009).We don't see meat eating as we do vegetarianism – as a choice, based on a set of assumptions about animals, our world, and ourselves. Rather, we see it as a given, the 'natural' thing to do, the way things have always been and the way things will always be. We eat animals without thinking about what we are doing and why, because the belief system that underlies this behavior is invisible. This invisible belief system is what I call carnism.'How people defend eating meat', Lancaster University, 15 May 2015. Carnism is a concept used in discussions of humanity's relation to other animals, defined as a prevailing ideology in which people support the use and consumption of animal products, especially meat. Carnism is presented as a dominant belief system supported by a variety of defense mechanisms and mostly unchallenged assumptions. The term carnism was coined by social psychologist and author Melanie Joy in 2001 and popularized by her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2009). Central to the ideology is the acceptance of meat-eating as 'natural', 'normal', 'necessary', and (sometimes) 'nice'. An important feature of carnism is the classification of only particular species of animal as food, and the acceptance of practices toward those animals that would be rejected as unacceptable cruelty if applied to other species. This classification is culturally relative, so that, for example, dogs are eaten by some people in Korea but may be pets in the West, while cows are eaten in the West but protected in much of India. Analyzing the history of vegetarianism and opposition to it from ancient Greece to the present day, literary scholar Renan Larue found certain commonalities in what he described as carnist arguments. According to him, carnists typically held that vegetarianism is a ludicrous idea unworthy of attention, that mankind is invested with dominion over animals by divine authority, and that abstaining from violence against animals would pose a threat to humans. He found that the views that farmed animals do not suffer, and that slaughter is preferable to death by disease or predation, gained currency in the nineteenth century, but that the former had precedent in the writings of Porphyry, a vegetarian who advocated the humane production of animal products which do not require animals to be slaughtered, such as wool. In the 1970s traditional views on the moral standing of animals were challenged by animal rights advocates, including psychologist Richard Ryder, who in 1971 introduced the notion of speciesism. This is defined as the assignment of value and rights to individuals solely on the basis of their species membership. In 2001 psychologist and animal rights advocate Melanie Joy coined the term carnism for a form of speciesism that she argues underpins using animals for food, and particularly killing them for meat. Joy compares carnism to patriarchy, arguing that both are dominant normative ideologies that go unrecognized because of their ubiquity: Sandra Mahlke argues that carnism is the 'central crux of speciesism' because the eating of meat motivates ideological justification for other forms of animal exploitation. A central aspect of carnism is that animals are categorized as edible, inedible, pets, vermin, predators, or entertainment animals, according to people's schemata – mental classifications that determine, and are determined by, our beliefs and desires. There is cultural variability regarding which animals count as food. Dogs are eaten in China, and South Korea, but elsewhere are not viewed as food, either because they are loved or, as in the Middle East and parts of India, regarded as unclean. Cows are eaten in the West, but revered in much of India. Pigs are rejected by Muslims and Jews but widely regarded by other groups as edible. Joy and other psychologists argue that these taxonomies determine how the animals within them are treated, influence subjective perceptions of their sentience and intelligence, and reduce or increase empathy and moral concern for them. Jeff Mannes writes that carnism is rooted in a paradox between most people's values and actions: they oppose harming animals, and yet eat them. He argues that this conflict leads to cognitive dissonance, which people attempt to attenuate through psychic numbing. The apparent conflict between caring about animals and embracing diets which require them to be harmed has been termed the 'meat paradox'. There is experimental evidence supporting the idea that the meat paradox induces cognitive dissonance in Westerners. Westerners are more willing to eat animals which they regard as having lesser mental capacities and moral standing, and conversely, to attribute lesser mental faculties and moral standing to animals which are eaten. Furthermore, the relationship is causative: the categorization of animals as food or not affects people's perception of their mental characteristics, and the act of eating meat itself causes people to attribute diminished mental capacity to animals. For example, in one study people rated an unfamiliar exotic animal as less intelligent if they were told native people hunted it, and in another they regarded cows as less intelligent after eating beef jerky. Avoiding consideration of the provenance of animal products is another strategy. Joy argues that this is why meat is rarely served with the animal's head or other intact body parts.