{"id":187498,"date":"2025-04-16T06:37:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T06:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/activist\/happy-meat-humane-animal-research-and-other-myths-by-peter-marsh\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T06:37:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T06:37:13","slug":"happy-meat-humane-animal-research-and-other-myths-by-peter-marsh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=187498","title":{"rendered":"Happy Meat, \u00a0Humane Animal Research, \u00a0and Other Myths by Peter Marsh"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Peter<\/a>Happy Meat, \u00a0Humane Animal Research, \u00a0and Other Myths:\u00a0 How People Harm Animals and Still Live with Themselves<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

by Peter Marsh<\/h2>\n

158 pages.\u00a0 $14.95 paperback;\u00a0 $6.99 Kindle.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lantern Publishing & Media<\/strong><\/p>\n

PO Box 1350<\/strong><\/p>\n

Woodstock, NY 12498<\/strong><\/p>\n

www.lanternpm.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Merritt Clifton<\/em><\/h3>\n

Readers of Happy Meat, \u00a0Humane Animal Research, \u00a0and Other Myths:\u00a0 \u00a0How People Harm Animals and Still Live with Themselves <\/em>will quickly recognize that much of it reprises author Peter Marsh\u2019s 2021 book The Supremacist Syndrome:\u00a0 How Domination Underpins Slavery, Genocide, the Exploitation of Women, & the Maltreatment of Animals<\/em><\/p>\n

Which raises the question,\u00a0 who is this book written for?\u00a0 The same audience,\u00a0 or reaching beyond?<\/p>\n

The title Happy Meat, \u00a0Humane Animal Research, \u00a0and Other Myths <\/em>may attract more vegan and vegetarian readers than The Supremacist Syndrome<\/em>,\u00a0 but if vegans and vegetarians are the target audience,\u00a0 Marsh is mostly preaching to the choir.<\/p>\n

\"Happy<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Rebuttal to Michael Pollan<\/h2>\n

Much of Happy Meat, \u00a0Humane Animal Research, \u00a0and Other Myths<\/em> appears to be a rebuttal to The Omnivore\u2019s Dilemma<\/em> by Michael Pollan,\u00a0 published originally in 2006 and still more-or-less the Bible of the \u201cHappy Meat\u201d crowd.<\/p>\n

Likely though,\u00a0 few of Pollan\u2019s legion of disciples will pick up Happy Meat, \u00a0Humane Animal Research, \u00a0and Other Myths<\/em> unless already having trouble living with themselves.<\/p>\n

For them,\u00a0 the most valuable insights begin on page 56:\u00a0 \u201cThe Myth of Happy Meat has many variations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Barn<\/a><\/p>\n

See Farmed animal product certifications \u201clack integrity,\u201d investigators find.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/em>
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Certified Humane & American Humane Certified<\/h2>\n

Elaborates Marsh on page 57,\u00a0 \u201cSeveral animal welfare groups encourage producers to avoid the cruelest farming methods by offering seals of approval like Certified Humane or American Humane Certified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile these standards of care prohibit practices like stuffing hens in battery cages or keeping sows in crates so small they can\u2019t even turn around, \u00a0they allow other inhumane practices, like confining chickens,\u00a0 pigs, and turkeys in sheds throughout their life,\u00a0 finishing cattle in feedlots,\u00a0 and taking calves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pollan,\u00a0 who briefly gave up meat,\u00a0 returned to meat-eating after visiting such a \u201cHappy Meat\u201d farm and apparently not touring it with his eyes,\u00a0 ears,\u00a0 and nostrils open.<\/p>\n

\"Not<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cRaises moral concerns\u201d<\/h2>\n

Writes Marsh,\u00a0 \u201cThe happiness Pollan saw on that farm, \u00a0though, \u00a0is the reason why it\u2019s wrong to consume products from a \u2018happy farm.\u2019 \u00a0Most people think that if the staff at an animal shelter put a young, \u00a0healthy dog or cat to death\u2014even if the death is pain-free\u2014it raises moral concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cPollan was right when he said it mattered when we cause a sentient animal to suffer. \u00a0He was wrong, \u00a0though, \u00a0when he said it didn\u2019t matter when we take a healthy sentient animal\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But most of Happy Meat, \u00a0<\/em>apart from the portions that directly echo The Supremacist Syndrome,<\/em>\u00a0 and even some of those that do,\u00a0 is really about semantics,\u00a0 at that often repeating animal rights,\u00a0 vegan\u00a0 and feminist shibboleths that fall apart under scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cPork, \u00a0beef, \u00a0or mutton\u201d<\/h2>\n

Alleges Marsh on page two,\u00a0 just as he alleged in The Supremacist Syndrome<\/em>,\u00a0 \u201cTo make some of their products seem more appetizing, \u00a0meat producers call them pork, \u00a0beef, \u00a0or mutton, \u00a0not the flesh of pigs,\u00a0 cattle, \u00a0or sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just 150 miles north of Marsh\u2019s home in New Hampshire,\u00a0 in the province of Quebec,\u00a0 Canada,\u00a0 the word for pigs is \u201cporcs,\u201d\u00a0 the word for cattle is \u201cboef,\u201d\u00a0 and the word for sheep is \u201cmouton.\u201d<\/p>\n

But one need not speak French,\u00a0 or any of the many Latinate languages whose vocabulary has become assimilated into English,\u00a0 to realize what the flesh of any dead animal is when cartoonish pictures of those animals,\u00a0 often happily grilling or stewing themselves,\u00a0 appear on most of the packages and cans.<\/p>\n

The myth that the words pork,\u00a0 beef,\u00a0 and mutton are euphemisms meant to disguise meat could only have originated with a vegan who never glanced even in passing at a supermarket meat counter.<\/p>\n

\"Not<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSacrifice\u201d<\/h2>\n

A page later,\u00a0 Marsh asserts \u201cScientists who kill the animals they\u2019ve used in experiments often come up with words like sacrifice to describe what they\u2019ve done. \u00a0They say they\u2019ve dispatched, terminated, \u00a0exsanguinated, \u00a0or put down individual animals and depopulated groups of animals, \u00a0a process they sometimes refer to as housecleaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

These terms actually have different specific meanings,\u00a0 and in scientific literature are used to clarify how and why animals were killed in connection with an experimental procedure,\u00a0 which may in turn affect the results.<\/p>\n

\u201cSacrifice,\u201d\u00a0 for example,\u00a0 originally meant diminishing the cohort of animals used in the experiment to obtain data before the remainder of the cohort reached their demise at the end of the experiment.<\/p>\n

The \u201csacrifice\u201d meant that the animal would not contribute to the statistical significance of the end result\u2013\u2013a sacrifice on the part of the researcher.\u00a0 End-of-experiment killing was \u201ctermination,\u201d\u00a0 but not necessarily a sacrifice.<\/p>\n

\"Hunter<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cHarvesting\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cPut down,\u201d\u00a0 a term borrowed from humane work,\u00a0 means killing by a means which might be described as euthanasia,\u00a0 usually with pentobarbital,\u00a0 as opposed to \u201cexsanguination,\u201d\u00a0 which means \u201cbleeding to death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marsh finally does arrive at an example of an actual deliberately constructed euphemism in observing that,\u00a0 \u201cHunters, fishermen, and meat producers employ a different strategy to disguise killing; \u00a0they borrow a term from plant-based agriculture and refer to taking an animal\u2019s life as harvesting the animal,\u00a0 suggesting that disemboweling and dismembering an animal is like cutting wheat or picking fruit from a tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of \u201charvesting\u201d to describe killing animals was adopted by the animal use industries on advice of public relations consultants early in the rise of the animal rights movement,\u00a0 now nearly fifty years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Journal of Experimental Medicine<\/em><\/h2>\n

Marsh raises an arguably more substantive linguistic complaint on page 16,\u00a0 mentioning that,\u00a0 \u201cMany scientists who use animals in experiments continue to treat them as objects, \u00a0commonly referring to male or female animals as it. \u00a0When researchers failed to do that in manuscripts they submitted, \u00a0editors at the Journal of Experimental Medicine<\/em> used to substitute it for he or she in articles they published.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marsh does not mention there that his example mentioning the Journal of Experimental Medicine<\/em> dates to 1930,\u00a0 though he does mention this later.<\/p>\n

More significantly,\u00a0 Marsh fails to mention that the Journal of Experimental Medicine<\/em> practice from 1930 is still the practice of practically all mainstream media and literary and journalistic stylebooks published in the English language.<\/p>\n

\"Happy<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cA who is not an it!\u201d<\/h2>\n

ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong>,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 has always observed the maxim screamed by French-speaking and Spanish-speaking copy editors at hapless Anglo reporters that,\u00a0 \u201cA who is not an it!\u201d<\/p>\n

Here there are two genders,\u00a0 male and female,\u00a0 and every living vertebrate is either one or the other.\u00a0 Among invertebrates,\u00a0 the difference may not be easily distinguished;\u00a0 but if the difference is evident,\u00a0 we acknowledge the difference.<\/p>\n

Continues Marsh,\u00a0 \u201cGiving someone a name recognizes their uniqueness; \u00a0referring to them with a number does just the opposite. \u00a0That may be why research scientists who use animals identify them with numbers,\u00a0 not names, \u00a0a standard practice for decades,\u201d\u00a0 probably initially just because coming up with names for large cohorts of animals could take more time than some experiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 1930s,\u201d\u00a0 however,\u00a0 Marsh recounts,\u00a0 \u201ca co-editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine<\/em> directed those submitting articles for potential publication to \u201cnever use names.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Farm<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Advocacy mythology<\/h2>\n

This advice likely originated long before that.\u00a0 The antivivisection protests remembered by history as the Brown Dog Riots,\u00a0 raging in London from 1903 to 1910,\u00a0 arose over cruelty performed on a street dog who had no name.<\/p>\n

Examples of either animals raised for meat or animals used in experiments who ever had names have always been surpassingly rare.<\/p>\n

Point after point,\u00a0 throughout Happy Meat, \u00a0Humane Animal Research, \u00a0and Other Myths,\u00a0 <\/em>is lost or garbled through recitations of advocacy mythology.<\/p>\n

Page seven of Happy Meat,\u00a0 <\/em>for instance,\u00a0 argues that \u201cMost intensive meat producers place their production facilities in remote areas\u201d to disguise what they are doing from the public.<\/p>\n

\"Merritt<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Farming has always been done in the countryside<\/h2>\n

Indeed,\u00a0 most animals throughout the history of agriculture have been raised in the countryside.<\/p>\n

But this is not because anyone has been hiding animal husbandry;\u00a0 rather,\u00a0 it is because farming needs space for pastures,\u00a0 fodder crop production,\u00a0 and disposal of manure to fertilize pastures and fodder crops.<\/p>\n

Farmers,\u00a0 Marsh mentions,\u00a0 \u201ckeep pigs and poultry in windowless buildings that look more like warehouses than barns.\u00a0 Slaughterhouses, \u00a0too, \u00a0are usually hidden from public view on the outskirts of towns, \u00a0and the animals\u2019 trip there tends to be made surreptitiously.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Shambles<\/h2>\n

Indeed,\u00a0 slaughterhouses have been moved to the outskirts of towns over the last 600 years or so of urbanization,\u00a0 including the exile of slaughter to the outer district of London called The Shambles in the eleventh century,\u00a0 to minimize noise,\u00a0 odors,\u00a0 and the dangers of moving herds of livestock through crowded city streets;\u00a0 but observing animal deliveries to slaughter,\u00a0 even today,\u00a0 requires no more than getting up early in the morning and going to watch.<\/p>\n

Animals since trucks replaced railway delivery have typically been delivered to slaughter overnight because there is less likelihood of trucks getting caught in traffic jams then,\u00a0 and of animals overheating than if they were delivered by day.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Genetic modification<\/h2>\n

Shifting gears,\u00a0 Marsh suggests on page 17 that,\u00a0 \u201cIn 1988, \u00a0the objectification of animals used by research scientists reached a new point legally when the United States Patent & Trademark Office issued a patent on mice genetically modified with an active cancer gene. \u00a0This was a new point morally, \u00a0too. \u00a0For the first time, \u00a0a nation granted a property interest in animals intentionally designed to suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n

But patenting breeds of livestock and poultry,\u00a0 including those whose abnormally fast growth to unnatural weights inevitably causes them to suffer,\u00a0 already had a more-than-100-year history.<\/p>\n

\"KKK<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage) <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Racism,\u00a0 sexism,\u00a0 and speciesism<\/h2>\n

Historical slippery slopes become steeper when Marsh tries to link racism,\u00a0 sexism,\u00a0 and speciesism.<\/p>\n

Asks Marsh,\u00a0 apparently oblivious to the traditional teachings of the Catholic church, \u201cWhy is someone who is anti-Jewish more likely to be anti-Catholic, too, \u00a0and anti-Negro, \u00a0anti-women,\u00a0 anti-animal, \u00a0and anti-environment?\u201d<\/p>\n

Such a person,\u00a0 in all but anti-Catholicism,\u00a0 may indeed be a devout Catholic,\u00a0 the dominant religion in pre-Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n

Continues Marsh on page 61,\u00a0 \u201cThe interconnections between different forms of prejudice suggest that they have common roots.\u00a0 Why else would prejudiced attitudes generalize from one devalued group to another?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Little Rock high school desegregation, 1957.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWomen tend to be less prejudiced than men\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cGender plays a role, \u00a0too. \u00a0Women tend to be less prejudiced than men, \u00a0largely because they\u2019re likely to be more empathic,\u201d\u00a0 Marsh claims.\u00a0 \u201cThey also tend to be less dominance-oriented and are often victims of discrimination themselves,\u00a0 which may lead them to be less prejudiced.\u201d<\/p>\n

This suggests Marsh is completely unaware of the Daughters of the Confederacy,\u00a0 and for that matter,\u00a0 of the role of women in cultures around the world,\u00a0 in every social class,\u00a0 in maintaining and enforcing racial and caste divisions.<\/p>\n

Marsh may step deepest into the muck in on page 50 in asserting that,\u00a0 \u201cThe denigration of animals also provides a model for the devaluation of women.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0His underlying premise may be true:\u00a0 see An Unnatural Order:\u00a0 The Roots of Our Destruction of Nature by Jim Mason.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Man<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Pejoratives<\/h2>\n

However,\u00a0 Marsh\u2019s example of \u00a0\u201cinsulting characterizations of women as bitches, \u00a0cows, \u00a0sows, \u00a0or old biddies\u201d\u00a0 is self-evident bullshit and jackassery,\u00a0 overlooking cocky old goats tomcatting around and quite a lot else.<\/p>\n

Back on the farm,\u00a0 in the agrarian epoch when most modern language evolved,\u00a0 cows,\u00a0 sows,\u00a0 and biddies (chickens) significantly outnumbered male animals,\u00a0 as they still do,\u00a0 and were therefore familiar and convenient metaphors.<\/p>\n

\"Donkey<\/a><\/p>\n

(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The most often problematic male animals were bulls,\u00a0 jackasses,\u00a0 roosters,\u00a0 tomcats,\u00a0 and billy goats,\u00a0 who came into our lexicon on the same footing as female animals,\u00a0 and remain equally familiar in metaphor even though most Americans today may have never met a bull,\u00a0 jackass,\u00a0 rooster,\u00a0 billy goat,\u00a0 or unneutered tomcat.<\/p>\n

Concludes Marsh,\u00a0 after 81 pages of text followed by 54 pages of unnumbered footnotes,\u00a0 \u201cAt some level, \u00a0we must know that meat isn\u2019t happy and animal research isn\u2019t humane; \u00a0otherwise, \u00a0we wouldn\u2019t be driven to come up with all the excuses, rationalizations, and justifications for them that have been discussed throughout this book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Beth<\/a><\/p>\n

Beth & Merritt Clifton with friends.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Indeed,\u00a0 meat is not happy and animal research is rarely humane.\u00a0 On that point,\u00a0 Marsh and ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong> are agreed.<\/p>\n

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