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4. HOLY COW

I tremble for my species when I reflect that God is just.

—THOMAS JEFFERSON

Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens.

—WILLIAM BLAKE

As I’ve learned what is being done to today’s farm animals I’ve become increasingly distressed. If our society is to reflect any kind of compassion and respect for life, how can we allow such extreme abuses of sentient beings to continue?

The problem is that the behemoths of modern agribusiness seek profit without reference to any ethical sensitivity to the animals in their keeping. And at present we have virtually no laws restraining cruelty to animals being raised for food.

I look forward to the day when this has been corrected, when our society is at peace with its conscience because it respects and lives in harmony with all forms of life. I look forward eagerly to the enactment of laws against such cruelty to animals, laws that will guide humankind to actions consistent with an ethic of appreciation for Creation and respect for the lives of our fellow creatures.

Though I have felt anger at the outrages inflicted on innocent animals, I know that many of today’s farmers are basically decent human beings who have become caught in a vicious circle of economic necessity, seeing no choice but to follow the lead of the multinational agrichemical conglomerates.

The laws that are needed to restrain those who would in their insensitivity abuse animals will not arise out of ill will toward those who have become instruments of such cruelty. True justice never punishes for the sake of punishment but instead seeks to provide the experiences that will educate and reform. Since insensitivity to nature is the real problem, our intent should be not to blame but to guide these unfortunate people to an awareness of the lives and needs of other living creatures, and thus to their own potential for living in an ethical relationship with the rest of life.

Those who are so alienated from other beings that they would mistreat them are in need of a deeper respect for life, for themselves, and for a more meaningful sense of their own value and integrity. We need laws against cruelty to animals, not just for the animals’ sake.

Interestingly, legend has it that there was once a time when such a form of justice actually prevailed. This was a time, it is said, when an ancient people sought to live in accord with the laws of Creation. As a result, when disputes and conflicts arose, the remedy was often remarkable.

Here is such a case, chronicled from ancient Egypt. The times are different, but the message is the same. A 15-year-old boy has gotten himself in trouble time after time for his cruelty to animals. In spite of repeated punishments from his father, however, his actions have persisted. Neighbors have finally appealed to the judge for help, and he has decreed that the boy be watched without his knowledge. This is done, and the boy is seen burying a cat alive. When confronted with his action, the boy shows no sense of shame or remorse and says defiantly, “You can beat me, but I won’t mind. I’m used to being beaten, but you can never make me scream!” He pulls off his shirt and displays a back that is deeply scarred from the previous beatings his father has administered. To the counselor who comes in to see him he brags about the number of animals he has tortured, and the amount of pain that has been inflicted upon him in return. It is not an easy case for the judge to handle. But fortunately, there is a seer who can look into the boy’s psyche and see what has occurred that has made him this way. The seer understands the pattern the boy is locked into. He understands that in the boy’s clouded mind, his cruelty to animals is actually part of an effort to expiate the guilt he feels for his mother having died during his birth, something his father never lets him forget. It is plain to the seer that it would be pointless to punish the boy, for to do so would simply reinforce the guilt that motivated the whole behavior in the first place.

The seer decides to take drastic steps.

The next day, in the boy’s food there is mixed a violent cathartic. As soon as the boy’s bowels start cramping he is told that he has a rare and dangerous disease and is warned that unless he is both brave and obedient he will likely die. Over the next few days he is given other concoctions, which keep him intermittently in pain and also make him sufficiently weak to prevent him from having any desire to exert his independence and reconstruct his accustomed self-image. Exactly as though he is suffering from a very serious disease, he is cared for by one who is in training to become a true healer, a girl of 20 who is both beautiful and compassionate. She holds his hand to help him bear the pain and smooths his forehead until he falls asleep. She washes and feeds him as though he is a baby, and when he grows a little stronger, she tells him stories of the ways of peace and love.

As he convalesces, he conceives a deep devotion and gratitude to his nurse and asks that he might be allowed to serve her in however humble a capacity. She tells him that one of her duties is to look after the geese, that the geese are very special to her, and that it would be a great help if he would do this for her. Her words cause him to remember his many cruelties, and he begins to cry bitterly and says that he dare not do what she asks, for sometimes almost against his will he has been cruel to animals, and so he is very afraid that he might attack her geese, an act that, to him now, would be like causing her personal injury.

She says to him: “You were so ill that you might have died. I asked the gods that you might be born again; they listened, and you recovered. The cruelty that you once inflicted and the pain you suffered are as though they had never been. They are dead, but you are alive. Because of the link between us, you will never forget again the link between you and your younger brothers and sisters.”

The boy is filled with hope but even so does not entirely believe her. She brings him a kitten, but he protests, saying he can’t be trusted with the kitten. She smiles and teaches him how to scratch the kitten’s throat and ears and points out how loudly it purrs when he does so. “It likes you,” she says. “It knows you can be trusted, and I know you can be trusted, too, so I will leave you alone with the kitten now.”

The boy doesn’t know what to think and protests, but she just smiles and kisses his forehead.

When she returns, several hours later, she finds the boy asleep, with the kitten curled up beside him, purring.

The boy grows to become one of the kindest veterinarians in all the land, and his manner with animals is so gentle and clear that even the most terrified and injured of them instinctively know they can trust him.¹

It looks to me as if many of the people who mistreat the animals raised for today’s meats and eggs are not that different from this boy, likewise crying out for wise and compassionate help. The lack of caring they display for the animals in their keeping stems from an alienation from themselves and from life, not from innate cruelty. Merely blaming and hating them does nothing to heal the separation and isolation out of which their cruelties spring. Our goal should be to help them learn to act according to an authentic respect for other creatures, for in so doing they can come to feel a kinship with life and their own value as part of Creation. We urgently need laws that would guide them in this direction.

Of course, in some instances it may take a serious remedy to be effective. Sometimes only a severe corrective is able to produce the needed empathy in someone who otherwise remains indifferent to the suffering of his fellow creatures. Here is another such case from ancient times.

A man is accused of mistreating his oxen. The judge inspects the animals and sees that they are indeed in bad condition and have deep sores on their shoulders from an ill-fitting yoke. He tells the owner that this is not good, thinking that perhaps the man is ignorant, or stupid, and has not seen the hurt done to the animals. But the man protests defensively that his oxen are thin because they are too lazy to eat, that the work they do in the fields is light enough for a child, and that he envies the oxen their contentment. And the judge says: “There shall be no longer any need for you to have to envy them. For now you will have the opportunity to share their contentment, by doing yourself this work you say is ‘child’s play.’ Tomorrow you shall be yoked to the plow, and you will draw it back and forth under the hot sun until the field is furrowed.”

The judge gives the man’s oxen to a neighbor whose animals are well cared for and says that the man may regain his oxen when he has finished furrowing the field. Furthermore, his oxen will be inspected thereafter, and if it is found that he has mistreated them, he will receive unto himself whatever treatment he has given unto them. But if it is found that he now treats them well, then it will be known that he can be trusted with oxen, and so his herd will be expanded.²

If a person refuses time and again to imagine how he would feel in another creature’s shoes, sometimes the only remedy that will bring about the needed empathy is to physically place him there.

In some cases the conditions suffered by today’s food animals arise simply because greed has clouded the eyes of those responsible, and they can no longer see the pain of their fellow creatures. In such cases, the best justice may be that which serves not only to right the wrong that has been done but also to clear the vision that has become so clouded.

Here is one more case of ancient wisdom, uniquely pertinent to the issue of greed. In one village there are two men who dispute ownership of a wild ass. Both claim ownership by right of having seen the animal first. One of the men is more prosperous than the other, yet he keeps bemoaning his poverty, the number of his children, and the poorness of his fields and he protests that the ass should be given to him because his is by far the greater need. A wise judge says to him: “You tell me that your need is the greater because you are poor and this other man is far wealthier than you; and when he says he is the poorer you say he is lying. Therefore I shall give a judgment that will adjust the wrong that he does to you. You, who are the poorer man, shall have the wild ass. And to show you how much you are favored, you and this other man shall exchange all your possessions.”

Now the man cries out in self-pity and says he has been robbed. At this, the judge pretends to be surprised. “Robbed? When I have given to you the greater possessions of your neighbor? Surely you don’t believe his claim that his possessions are meager, when you yourself have just assured me that he lies and his holdings are great. As an honest man, you must admit the exchange has indeed favored you.”³

A Cow Testifies in Court

In our own times, courtroom justice is not always so poetic or profound. But our judges sometimes manage to come up with creative ways of getting to the truth of a dispute.

On July 6, 1953, a California man named Mike Perkins was formally accused of stealing a calf from his neighbor’s ranch and then branding it with his own ranch’s insignia to conceal the theft. Mike stood before the judge and vehemently denied the charges, saying his neighbor had made the whole thing up out of jealousy.

The judge was going to find Perkins innocent, because the only evidence against him was the other farmer’s word. But then he had an idea: he sent the sheriff out to Perkins’s ranch and had him bring to a yard adjacent to the courthouse all of Perkins’s calves who were about the age the allegedly stolen calf was reputed to be. Then he sent the sheriff out to the accusing neighbor’s ranch and had him bring to the yard the cow who was alleged to be the mother of the stolen calf.

When the mother cow arrived, she began calling loudly and seemed to be trying to move toward the roped-in calves. The judge decreed that she be allowed freedom of movement. When she was let go, the cow gave her testimony to the court in no uncertain terms. She went directly over to the calves, nudged her way to one in particular, and began to lick it over and over, right on the hip, where Perkins’s brand “P” was located.

I probably don’t have to tell you Mike Perkins was found guilty.

What They’re Really Like

When I first heard what happened in this California court, I was surprised. There was an image in my mind of what cows could and couldn’t do, and I wouldn’t have thought this kind of thing possible. I was still, more than I knew, a prisoner of the common notion that animals are automata, with perhaps a dash of intelligence. But everything I have learned since then has shown me how wrong I was.

The truth is that cows have a special kind of intelligence and sensitivity. But because they are such patient and gentle souls who rarely hurry or make a fuss about things, we tend to think they are dumb and don’t recognize their unique presence. Rooted deeply in the rhythms of the earth, they move through life with a peacefulness that is not easy to disturb. They are not troubled by much of what bothers us, and when they are alarmed—usually by things we cannot see—they are still slow to panic and rarely overreact.

Aldous Huxley once said that in this century we have added onto the seven original deadly sins an eighth that is just as deadly—the sin of hurry. In terms of this sin, at least, cattle are saints.

Few of us today have much opportunity to experience for ourselves what kind of creature cattle are, and so we are easy prey to the common prejudices about them, which are born and thrive in ignorance. But a naturalist who knew cows well, W. H. Hudson, spoke movingly of

the gentle, large-brained, social cow, that caresses our hands and faces with her rough blue tongue, and is more like man’s sister than any other non-human being—the majestic, beautiful creature with the Juno eyes. ⁴

People of less sophisticated times, living in closer contact with the earth, had great respect for these patient and gentle souls. 2,000 years ago, the poet Ovid wrote:

Oh ox, how great are thy desserts! A being without guile, harmless, simple, willing for work.5

How Now, Brown Cow?

For centuries, these animals have pulled our plows, sweetened our soils, and given their milk to our children. Today, however, these peaceful and patient creatures have been rewarded for their centuries of service by being treated in much the same way as today’s chickens and pigs. You might think there are laws requiring them to be treated humanely. But harkening back to darker times, the Animal Welfare Act specifically excludes creatures intended for use as food from its regulations governing the “humane” treatment of animals.⁶ And though this law places some restrictions on how cruelly animals can be treated, cows, pigs, and chickens are evidently not considered animals within the meaning of the act. The current philosophy is that you can be as cruel as you like, as long as the animal is later going to be eaten.

The result isn’t very pretty.

You may wonder, as I have, how the people who actually handle the animals rationalize what they do. I asked a livestock auction worker named George Kennedy if he was ever uncomfortable with the way the animals were handled. He replied:

Look, if you want beef, this is the only way you can have it. There’s no room in this business for a “be nice to animals” attitude. There’s work to be done, and that’s all there is to it.

Later, I talked with the owner of the auction, a man named Henry F. Pace. I asked him how he felt about the charges from animal rights groups that the auctions were cruel to the cattle. He sized me up for a moment, then answered:

It doesn’t bother me. We’re no different from any other business. These animal rights people like to accuse us of mistreating our stock, but we believe we can be most efficient by not being emotional. We are a business, not a humane society, and our job is to sell merchandise at a profit. It’s no different from selling paper clips or refrigerators.

In the eyes of the law, Henry Pace is right. There are almost no legal limits on what can be done to the animals destined for our dinner tables.

A federal law, passed in 1906, does put certain basic restraints on the way cattle can be shipped by railroad. This law was passed to curb the cruelty that most of us would like to think belonged to a less enlightened time. But this law puts no restraints on the way animals can be shipped by truck, because trucks did not yet exist at the time this act was passed, and apparently the cattle industry has managed through the years to block the passage of any legislation that might extend the cow’s protection to include more modern transportation.

With a sharp eye for this kind of loophole, the meat industry today almost always ships cattle by truck. The journey, as you can probably guess by now, is a horror from start to finish.

If you were to step inside one of these trucks you’d be immediately struck by the smell. It wouldn’t take you very long to know that the ventilation is terrible. And you’d soon find out that the temperatures are scorching hot in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter. You’d see that these animals—ruminants whose stomachs function properly only with a more or less continuous supply of food—may spend as long as three days and nights without being fed or watered. One authority wrote:

It is difficult for us to imagine what this combination of fear, travel sickness, thirst, near-starvation, exhaustion, and (in winter)… severe chill feels like to the cattle. In the case of young calves, which may have gone through the stress of weaning and castration only a few days earlier, the effect is still worse.7

Today’s cattlemen regard it as a normal part of the business that some of the animals will die in transit. It’s a calculated loss. They find it more profitable to absorb the loss due to deaths and injuries than to handle the animals differently. They fully expect to find some of the animals dead on arrival, and they calculate the loss simply as one of the costs of transporting the animals, along with the price of gasoline.

Most of the deaths are caused by a form of pneumonia known quite appropriately as shipping fever.⁸