Miles's blog

The New York Times opinion pages today contained a piece, by some clown named Michael Marder, raising the ethics of what we eat.  In arguments we have heard before, the author describes the conditions of existence of a particular food, proclaiming that its response to stress and ability to “communicate” that stress by passing the conditions (in this case drought) to others of its species qualifies this food as a life form that requires ethical consideration before we dig in.  Vegetarians have long accepted this sort of logic as reasons we should celebrate Thanksgiving with tofurkey, and used this kind of thinking as justification for bombing McDonalds.  But if they follow the logic of this author they will have to rethink their own diets.  The life form referenced in this article, you see, is peas.

That’s right.  The New York Times actually published a piece in its respected opinion pages where some pseudo-intellectual (who is actually a professor at some college in Europe), postulated that the simple pea, the kind which often rests between the turkey and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, is an entity which requires ethical evaluation before being subjugated to our desire for nourishment.  I am not kidding.  This piece to me sounds more like The Onion than the New York Times.  For example:

The research findings of the team at the Blaustein Institute form yet another building block in the growing fields of plant intelligence studies and neurobotany that, at the very least, ought to prompt us to rethink our relation to plants. Is it morally permissible to submit to total instrumentalization living beings that, though they do not have a central nervous system, are capable of basic learning and communication? Should their swift response to stress leave us coldly indifferent, while animal suffering provokes intense feelings of pity and compassion?

I mean seriously?  Peas?  Because peas possess chemical reactions created by millions of years of evolution which help the survival of the species we are supposed to have a debate about whether it is ethical to enjoy split pea soup when we have a cold?  Evidently, empathy might not be the most appropriate ground for an ethics of vegetal life. [Vegetal life? Who talks this way?]  But the novel indications concerning the responsiveness of plants, their interactions with the environment and with one another, are sufficient to undermine all simple, axiomatic solutions to eating in good conscience. [I like peas.  I like steak.  I like veal.  As long as my belly is full, my conscience is clear.]

Does this joker really believe this stuff, or is he merely the equivalent of the people who invented Piltdown Man, a hoax from the early part of the 20^th century.   In other words, has he created the specialty as a scam? This guy has created a full-time job teaching plant intelligence at a college.  I am glad my kid does not attend such a place.  What is next?  The poetry of insects?  

According to this guy humans should tailor our food intake based upon the sensitivities of those who seem to have an abundance of sympathy for penned up chickens—as drought-starved peas— but little regard for the economics of food.  We are all going to have to pay more because PETA and its sympathizers got all upset about how chickens, cows, turkeys, etc. suffer while their live their short lives until their ultimate untimely end at the hands of farmers who have bred them for the sole purpose of giving the more than 7 billion people on this planet enough to eat.  Myself, I can’t see how treating these poor creatures any nicer while they are alive is more humane when their ultimate goal is in the middle of my dinner plate, but at least I can understand the argument.  Needlessly torturing animal life is not laudable.  So assuming that fowl have feelings, I suppose making them feel more comfortable while they are on death row can be considered laudable, even if, in my mind unnecessary.  

But peas?  We are supposed to worry about the feelings of peas?  We have to debate the ethics of planting peas?  How far does this go?  The NY Times piece suggests humans need to debate the ethics of killing anything other than perennials.  I suppose that makes Weed-B-Gone Public Enemy number 1to Marder.  What about lawnmowers?  Should we spread some sort of local anesthetic on the grass before taking out the power mower?  (Or is this just like giving them a haircut?)  I know many, many people who plant gardens and enjoy the food they grow.  Does Marder equate them to slaveholders of the pre-Civil War era, or worse? 

Frankly, his writing is so replete with incomprehensible bullshit it is hard to know what he thinks.   Read how he ends his piece:

Ethical concerns are never problems to be resolved once and for all; they make us uncomfortable and sometimes, when the sting of conscience is too strong, prevent us from sleeping. Being disconcerted by a single pea to the point of unrest is analogous to the ethical obsession, untranslatable into the language of moral axioms and principles of righteousness. Such ethics do not dictate how to treat the specimen of Pisumsativum, or any other plant, but they do urge us to respond, each time anew, to the question of how, in thinking and eating, to say “yes” to plants.

That entire paragraph makes no sense to me, and I don’t even see his point.  What I do see is that people are on top of the food chain.  Through the millions of years of evolution life on this planet has developed so that most life forms survive by eating other life forms.  This is true of pretty much everything on the planet I suppose, except plants which survive on rain and sunlight.  Well most of them.  Perhaps Marder thinks he should engage in an ethical debate with a Venus flytrap about the feelings of its dinner.

No matter how you feel about our farming and ranching practices, or whether you choose to eat meat or now, you will, at some point, have to eat something.  Debating whether peas are entitled to more or less protection than apples might be an amusing skit for Saturday Night Live, but has no place on the Food Network.