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Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: CARNISM, by Melanie Joy

by Jennie Richards · Published June 6, 2019 · Updated June 11, 2019

“Dominant, violent ideologies use a set of social and psychological defense mechanisms to enable humane people to participate in inhumane practices without fully realizing what they are doing.”

“Carnism teaches us how not to feel. Carnism keeps its victims out of site. Carnism is an entire system of Victimization – Animals, environment, meat consumers, and meat packers.”

“I’m here to talk about our connection with other beings, with ourselves, and with our core values. And the invisible belief system, the “ism,” that disconnects us from these fundamental aspects of our lives. And how this “ism” creates a gap in our consciousness when it comes to some of the most important and frequent choices we make – our food choices. And how this “gap” causes us to act against our own interests and the interests of other sentient beings.” ~ Melanie Joy, PhD

“Carnism is the mentality of violence. It is the mentality that allows us to turn someone in to something. The mentality of domination and subjugation. Of privilege and oppression. To erase someone’s being. To reduce a life to a unit of production. That enables such violence. It is the might makes right mentality to wield control over other beings with such power — over women, animals. It is the mentality of meat and dairy.”
“Carnism uses a set of defenses that distort our perception of meat and the animals we eat, so we can feel comfortable enough to consume them. It teaches us to look at animals as things not beings, as abstractions not individuals, we give them numbers rather than names.”

Video Length: 60 minutes

Quotes from the Video

“Carnism teaches us how not to feel.”

“To raise awareness, we need to make the invisible – visible.”

“What I didn’t realize at the time, but my connection with Fritz (our dog), would become the catalyst to my life’s work – as a psychologist, professor, and author.”

“Why don’t we ever ask why? Why chicken wings, but not swan’s wings? Why clam chowder but not frog chowder? Why cow’s milk but not horse’s milk? Why a pig and not a dog? Have you ever wondered why you haven’t even wondered?”

“We don’t make the conscious connection between the meat on the plate and the animal it once was.”

“I didn’t think how I was petting my dog under the dinner table as I was eating a pork chop — that once been an animal, that was at least as intelligent, sensitive and conscious as my dog.”

“I never thought about the inconsistencies in my attitudes and behaviors towards these animals, because I wasn’t conscious about eating an animal. I had a gap in my consciousness.”

“The belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” ~ John F. Kennedy

“The gap in our consciousness blocks our awareness about eating meat – or eating an animal.”

“Carnism is a violent ideology.”

“We are making a conscious choice every time we eat meat, eggs or dairy.”

“Eating animals was just a given, it was just the way things were when I was growing up.”

“Our food choices are truly a matter of life—and death.”

“Before I got sick, I had been increasingly uncomfortable about eating meat. Having witnessed on a handful of occasions about the horrors of animal agriculture. Like most people, I cared about animals – and didn’t want them to suffer.”

“When I stopped eating animals, I made the connection. As the gap in my consciousness closed, my mind opened up. I wanted to learn the truth about animal agriculture. The truth had been right in front of me all the time.”

“How do you define a person who chooses to eat meat and animals based on their belief system – when eating animals is not at all a necessity for survival? It’s called Carnism — the opposite of veganism.”

“There are 19,011 animals violently killed or slaughtered in the U.S. every single minute. But how many farmed animals have you seen this week, month, or year?”

“10 billion animals are slaughtered every year in the U.S.”

“We don’t see the animals that become our food, because we’re not supposed to. It’s hidden from us.”

“Over 99 percent of the meat, eggs and dairy that make it to our plates come from factory farms — windowless sheds from remote locations that are impossible to obtain access to, thanks to the animal terrorism act.”

“Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) – Anyone who violates this act causes the meat, dairy and egg industry to lose money. This is what it’s all about.”

“When Plunder becomes a way of life for men and women living together in society, they create for themselves, in time, a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.” ~ Frederic Bastiat

“When we look at the world through the lens of carnism, we fail to see the absurdities of the system.” “If we believe absurdities we shall commit atrocities.” Voltaire

“Eating animals is a social justice issue. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

About Melanie Joy

Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Ed.M., is an internationally-acclaimed speaker, award-winning author, a Harvard-educated psychologist, and professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Joy is best known for her pioneering work on carnism, introduced in “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows.” This slideshow presentation is based on this book.