I was a guest in this pilot episode of Simon Kirchin’s new current affairs podcast, with Vittorio Bufacchi and Philip Goff. We discussed animals and veganism in the light of footballer Kurt Zouma kicking his cat, the monarch’s finances and the UK constitution following Prince Andrew’s out-of-court settlement with Virginia Giuffre, and we thought about what lessons people can learn after Covid.
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Yes, we have tender feelings towards fluffy companion animals, gambolling lambs and alpacas under threat of involuntary euthanasia. But these feelings are only directed towards animals when and if they are pleasing to us. Whenever protecting or enhancing an animal’s welfare brings costs to ourselves, our so-called love mysteriously vanishes.
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The conversation should move on from the bogus question of whether red meat is good or bad and focus instead on where that meat comes from, how it is prepared and how much of it we eat.
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The vast majority of humankind errs in opposite directions. Most fail to respect animal sentience at all, treating livestock like meat machines. A growing minority, however, think of animals as though they were cuddly versions of ourselves – creatures who deserve a long life and for whom death at anything other than an old age is a tragedy rather than a common fact of life. They are in denial, like the vegan cat-lover who refuses their companion animal meat. To love a cat and yet not accept the way it naturally lives is not to truly love it at all, but simply to adore a sentimentalised, sanitised version of it.
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