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I am not what you'd call an 'animal person.' I have never had a pet, nor do I want one. Although I have moved to a largely plant based diet over the past three years, my choice to go mostly vegetarian had more to do with my health than animals. I don't think much about animals, really, except that I don't like factory farming, and think zoos are mean. Then, about a week ago, after watching the documentary Vegucated, I learned something that utterly horrified me: male baby chicks are thrown alive into giant grinding machines because they can't lay eggs. The video of this practice was utterly shocking to me, and made me realize that there is an entire universe of cruelty out there in the world that I knew very little about. I had been meaning to read this book for several years, so I got it and thought I'd slog my way through.

I read in three days, which is saying something: this is a long, dense, deep book. 398 pages, 10 point font, full of an awful lot of law and philosophy. Dominionis written by a conservative Catholic who writes for National Review and who worked as a speech writer for President George W. Bush, so he's hardly some hippy tree hugger or breathless Vegan activist. This is a guy who believes in free markets, limited government regulation, and the primacy of the individual. And he is repulsed by how animals are treated. The book surveys big game hunting, whaling, animal experimentation, and factory farming. I had no idea about how any of these things really work, and I could not believe how unspeakably vile it all is. We are not talking about deer hunting, or indigenous people killing a whale, or tests done on animals to help cure cancer. We are talking about people raising monkeys in cages to kill them and sell their meat. We are talking about the Japanese classifying whales as fish and killing thousands each year for 'scientific research.' We are talking about pouring common household chemicals into the eyes of rabbits to show--yet again--that those chemicals are blinding. And we are talking about pigs (just for one example) who are as intelligent as a three year old human being spending their few years of life being tortured. As I read, the word I kept coming back to over and over again was 'unspeakable.' Literally: what I read left me speechless.

Much of the book discusses mankind's role in this world, and the Biblical idea of dominion. That is, the belief that 'man is the measure of all things,' and that all of the world is ours to use and abuse as we see fit. As the author puts it, people view creation 'as a colorful backdrop for human action,' and believe that because we can dominate and slaughter and warp life as we see fit (through things like genetic manipulation of animal DNA) we should feel free to go ahead and do these dreadful things, especially if they make money. An elephant, for example, has no inherent worth unless someone puts a market value on it, then conjures up enough wealth to go and shoot it. Not for food. Not out of necessity. Just because of some twisted appetite to do so. Whales--utterly harmless, peaceful creature (maybe not killer whales)--end up in miso soup in Japan because some small but wealthy minority wishes to eat them. Chimpanzees, a species so intelligent that it can learn sign language and communicate with us, spend decades in small cages to serve our need to create more potent drugs and chemicals. And on and on and on.

The author's main argument is not that humans shouldn't eat meat, or that medical testing isn't sometimes necessary, or that people who hunt for food are immoral. The author's point is that, like so much else of our modern world, our treatment of animals has become deeply inhumane as it has become more industrialized. As with most of humanity's vices in this day and age., the cruel treatment of animals has become excessive. The author's call is for mercy, and for human beings to realize that animals are living creatures, not cogs in our human systems. I am profoundly moved by this book--again, written by a Republican and read by an guy who has never picked up a cat in his life. I kept wincing. I feel convicted. I kept thinking, how is this different than wealthy people who go to poor countries in Asia to have sex with children? That, too, is an appetite. That, too, fails to acknowledge the claims of life and dignity. That, too, is just sick. And that, too, is a perversion of the wealthy; a symptom of affluenza, similar to those people who buy an tiger from India, have it shipped back to the United States, then shoot it as it emerges from its cage and have it stuffed. Appetite plus wealth plus what is darkest in human nature. It is all so disturbing.

The author spends a good ten pages or so demolishing Professor Pete Singer's philosophy, too, which I found joyful. I hate the evil, twisted fuck.

With all of this said, the book could have been 50 pages shorter. There was a long section about consciousness and sentience that was a bit dry, and to me, unnecessary. As interesting as neuroethnology is (I actually studied it in college long ago), I don't think I need to be convinced about the intelligence of animals to recognize that their maltreatment coarsens human nature. Like abortion, if people could see what is being done to the creatures they bring into this world, much of what constitutes 'animal husbandry' in this day and age would end tomorrow.

This book is hard. It is important. It is infuriating. I don't know if I'm happy that I read it, or if I would have been better off not connecting all of the dots that I've witnessed over the years with regard to animals and food and human beings. Very, very dark stuff.