Editor’s note: This commentary is by James Hutchens, of Orange. This is a response to Arion Thiboumery’s Aug. 22 commentary, “Our slaughterhouse aims for transparency,” regarding Vermont Packinghouse citations.
[W]indows offer no element of compassion. Windows are nothing new at executions. One need not look through those windows, gazing at the struggle and pain of the indicted, to understand that it is a horrific process. With the growth of locavorism, we have developed a sense of self-importance attached to overcoming the caution of conscience, feeling that we can escape culpability from moral wrongs if we pay more for the product or take part in the act of killing ourselves.
I grew up hunting deer and turkey. I have taken the lives of deer, turkey and chickens. I understand the process. This participation in death did not make me stronger; it made me ashamed. I knew it was not necessary. I made a choice and it ended the life of another. To try to ease the conscience of culpability by labeling a choice as a necessity is delusional. Hiding behind the concept of “necessity” for the 10 billion nonhuman animals put to death for food in the United States each year is cowardly, allowing comfort to act as a poor substitute for the truth.
While the Wendell Berry quote provided by Mr. Thiboumery may have the intended effect of making us feel as though the taking of life is a spiritual endeavor, I have to ask about its application in the case of those unwillingly awaiting their deaths. If the killing of life without need is a sacrament, then what is the avoidance of this killing? We give nothing of ourselves by taking lives without need. We give of ourselves when we offer compassion to those that society has deemed to be without worth to enjoy life on their own terms. How can quotes of reverence be taken seriously when the staff of Vermont Packinghouse feels the need to pose smiling, holding a slaughtered pig’s head as some kind of war trophy, with then-Gov. Peter Shumlin? This is no act of reverence. These are proud displays over the vanquished, not displays of skillful love.
While much of the outrage about these law violations may have come from out of state, Minnesota-based Lorentz Meats co-owns Vermont Packinghouse. It feels that state lines might have been a little blurred prior to the outpouring of anger regarding these six counts of humane law violation. There would have also been more outcries by the local public if they were aware that Vermont financially subsidized Vermont Packinghouse with financial grants from the outset. Taxpayer money was used to commit these violations. There would be more outcries if folks who saw the Black River Produce trucks pulling into their local cooperative knew that Black River Produce and Black River Meats are simply different names for Vermont Packinghouse.
We shouldn’t continue to delude ourselves that killing is necessary when other choices are available. We must accept that there is no such thing as a reverent act when we mercilessly end the life of others unnecessarily. This is not humane; it is arrogant, believing that our palate is more important than the life of a being with the capacity to suffer. Most of us possess the ability to make more humane choices three times a day. Let us find our reverence in mercy, not self-indulgence.
