Editor, Seattle Stranger,

The shootings in Tucson are a dramatic reminder that we are one of the world’s most violent societies. Violence governs our foreign relations, our sports and video games, and our daily diet.

Yes, our diet. Desensitization to violence begins in the home, when parents assure their naturally inquisitive, animal-loving children that chickens “give” eggs, cows “give” milk, and that pigs “give” their flesh for us to eat. The horrific daily violence and barbaric slaughter visited on these innocent animals and subsidized by us at the checkout counter gets buried in our subconscious mind.

Once our kids have learned to live with the violence of their diet, how much of a stretch is it to while away their idle hours on video games like “Mortal Kombat,” “Manhunt,” or “Grand Theft Auto?” How likely is this experience then to govern how they resolve a social confrontation in their neighborhood or a military one in an Afghan village?

Most of us abhor violence, but we don’t know how to prevent it.

Giving our kids an honest answer when they ask “Mommy, where do hamburgers come from?” is certainly a great start.

Sincerely,
Eugene Krautt
Seattle

43 replies on “The Hamburger/Murderous Rampage Connection: A Letter to the Editor”

  6. If I’ve managed not to shoot up any parking lots even though I went through years of physical abuse, I’m pretty sure the eggs and bacon I had this morning won’t send me over the edge. I’m having ribs for lunch, though, so I may be pushing my luck.

  7. Ummm the author states we are one of the most violent societies because of our meat eating. And while I will admit that Americans eat more meat than we should, even in non-violent societies people eat meat.

    Why give this guy airtime?

    Does anyone else remember The Nappy Griddle on Raineer? They had the Nappy Burger on the menu cheese burger with a hot link and fried egg. Those animals gave heart attacks.

  8. Clearly 1,000,000+ years of behavioral evolutions to eat roast critter is trumped by modern thinking. Reminds me of my old vet–a nationally recognized cat medical expert–when I jokingly brought up vegan cat food which apparently is a “thing”.

    he lifted kitty’s lips, pointed at his big teeth, and said, “Car-ni-vore,” very slowly.

  11. Tragedy, it seems, is a malleable substance that offers everyone a chance to validate their particular world view.

  13. What about all those heads of lettuce decapitated before their time? All those amber waves of grain mowed down in a barbaric yearly massacre? Asparagus shafts dismembered, carrots torn from their soiled sleep, apples torn from their mother’s limbs and callously bitten into…..it’s an unspeakable and unspoken carnage. Plants have feelings too.

  15. I was in a meat packing plant and saw the killing floor.

    Don’t let the name scare you though… It’s not really a floor, it’s more of a grate to let the blood flow through.

  17. This guy agrees with Eugene.

    “It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”
    – Albert Einstein

  18. I was vegan/vegetarian for over 10 years. I’ve heard (and at one time made) this argument more times than I can count. I don’t buy it. Sure, I think there are a million and one arguments to be made against factory farming and how the animals that feed us are treated. It’s totally wrong and no animal should live like that however short their lives may be. There *may* even be a thin argument regarding meat, as no animal would probably say “hey sure, I’ll be your burger” if we were able to ask, but in nature lives are given to sustain other lives. It’s how things are and it’s part of our nature so in my eyes the consumption of meat is not inherently wrong. The argument against eggs and milk is ridiculous outside of the problem with inhumane conditions in industrial farms. I have 7 hens and a rooster. They run around my yard eating bugs all day and have a safe, warm coop at night. They lay 5 or 6 eggs every day which they have absolutely no interest in sitting on… I would bet my paycheck that if I was able to ask them if they mind “giving” me eggs they would happily tell me “What eggs? Did you bring us treats?”. I’m am very confident that the experience is in no way violent for them. Same goes for milk. One family cow or goat can sustain its calf/kid plus the entire human family off of their milk for close to a year. It can be a very sustainable and humane life for these animals outside of the context of a factory farm. Again, it isn’t inherently wrong or violent in any way.

    The author does make one good point, and that is that children should understand where their food came from. This understanding doesn’t mean they shouldn’t eat meat or eggs but they should definitely understand where it came from and should respect the fact that a life was given to nourish them.

  19. I actually agree to an extent. People stopped hunting and farming so I imagine some lost respect for the animal that offered them a meal. Perhaps our wanton disrespect for life in general is represented here…perhaps.
    There are a lot of actions swept into the unconscious that we don’t acknowledge. We’re good at denial and childish dismissal, especially when it absolves us of any lateral or collective responsibility. Like with the war thing: treat it like a video game and put it thousands of miles away and you don’t have to acknowledge it. Or if you do, you can endorse it at first, and then when it appears the warmongers fucked it up, you can righteously rail against it.
    Wait for the next prion disease to change our minds for awhile.

  21. Blood from the meat industry doesn’t just disappear, it also appears in tap water. For example, South Korea has buried 1,200,000 pigs alive in the past 8 weeks after finding 125 cases of foot and mouth disease. People living near the mass graves are reporting that their tap water is red with blood. Officials suspect this is because pigs struggle so much before they die of suffocation that they tear through the thick vinyl in which they are buried alive, and the massive amounts of blood leaks into aquifers.

    http://www.vegan.com/blog/2011/01/12/mil…

  25. My kid’s known since preschool that Wilbur the pig, Daffy the duck, Hjordis the halibut, and cute baby cows are served with awesome sauce.

    Does Eugene really think the United States is the only country that has a dominant omnivore food culture? Has he ever been to other omnivore countries with much lower homicide rates per capita? Is it only nonAmericans who know such countries exist?

  26. Except our food culture has been systematically separating us from the initial violence of slaughter and our plate, what with the bloodless round pink shapes pre-shrink-wrapped and deli-sliced, and our consumption of these creatures is just as systematic and our respect for those who are our supper is diminished because of it.

    If we eat meat (and I do) we should understand the violence between pen and plate.

  27. Oh good lord. I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 plus years – never once tried to convert a soul – and this shit makes me wanna smack Mr. Krautt upside the head. Who are you gonna win over with sanctimony, eh?

    Also: Grand Theft Auto is fucking hilarious. There isn’t a single sacred cow that doesn’t escape slaughter in that video game. It’s completely inappropriate for kids (and people too stupid to recognize social satire), but every culture needs its ritualized violence.

  30. This guy has never seen me make a mirepoix. Carrot, celery and onion MURDER. With a big, sharp knife. Which I learned to use playing video games.

  31. Hmmm…let’s see now: eyes on the front of the face? Check! Sharp canines? Check! Ability to digest animal protein? Check! Yup, we’re predators, all right. My little Team Canadette didn’t so much as bat an eye when it was explained that the chickens at the farmyard and the dinner on the plate were one and the same. I actually try to make vegetarian meals more often these days because of environmental concerns, but this guy’s letter was so damn irritating that I think I’ll add some meat to lunch just for the hell of it.

  32. While obviously the killing of these animals is violent, if you’re a meat-eater, someone’s going to be doing the killing. There are better arguments to be made for vegetarianism/veganism or even just eating less meat and knowing where it comes from and how it was fed than this guy puts forth. Factory farming is not only cruel for the animals, it helps spread antibiotic-resistant bacteria (because cows did not evolve to eat grain as their food, they are host to all sorts of diseases as a result and have to be pumped full of antibiotics just to last until they reach slaughter weight) of which we become the beneficiary. The meat is also higher in saturated fat and lower in omega-3’s.

    Also, @18, I’m sure if you were forced to be pregnant from the time you hit puberty just so milk could be procured from you, you’d probably consider it a little violent, or at the least, quite rude.

  33. Hm, I’d better be careful then. I had eggs for breakfast and a hot dog for lunch. At this rate I’ll be shooting up my office by Friday. I’ll warn my boss.

  36. @32: I can see your point regarding milk. On the other hand, for the most part cattle (or rather their wild relatives/ancestors) breed yearly from the time they reach maturity until they reach old age when left to their own devices so you’re really not asking anything of them that nature hadn’t already. Of course the fact that we have domesticated and bred for more than natural milk production does complicate that whole argument a bit, but in terms of being pregnant and delivering a calf/kid every year things really haven’t changed with domestication.

  37. Yeah, I pretty much had this kind of “logic” in mind when I became a vegetarian at 20. I thought I noticed that the customers at Taco Bell who ate beef (especially the ones who ate beef and not beans) were the most hostile customers, the most likely to bitch about how there wasn’t enough in the taco’s/burrito’s/etc. That and my friends who got to leave home to go to college, where they became vegetarians.
    I was a vegetarian for 3 years. In 15 years as a meat eater since then, I have not felt an increase in aggressiveness. If you are looking for a cause for what makes us a violent society, you are looking in the wrong place. Eating meat in and of itself does not desensitize us to violence. Neither does violent video games.
    Eugenes letter expresses the mentality of anyone with a cause to promote. Ever notice how anyone with a cause to promote can twist anything to “prove” their stance?

  38. I have a touch of the old predator instinct, and often find myself looking slantways at herbivores. I could never eat another crumb of animal flesh (I’d hate that, though), and I’d still have the nagging urge to hunt, kill, and consume prey. What’s bred in the bone will out in the flesh.

    @14: Take your mother-dicking truncated graphs elsewhere, please. Your point was valid until you started fucking with your axes.

  40. I really wish people would stop citing those games as examples of the “hyper-violent games kids are playing these days”. It makes them seem quite out of touch, and throws their entire argument into question. Instead, take a look at the CURRENT violent games that kids are playing. Not games that kids were playing 5, 10 years ago.

    Also worth noting that youth violence has actually gone down in the years since video games have become one of the primary means of entertainment. http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/v…

  41. If anything kids today are shielded from the process in which their food is produced. I grew up on a farm, I’ve slaughtered chickens and watched while larger animals were slaughtered and then helped butcher the carcass. It’s not a pleasant experience, you do feel for the pig or cow who has died to feed your family. However despite this upbringing, I love animals and would never inflict unnecessary suffering on them and I certainly have never had the urge to go on a shooting spree.

    As for eggs, factory egg farms are horrible cruel places that are in dire need of an overhaul to more humane methods of production (like much of factory farming). However I get my eggs from my parents small backyard flock of very happy healthy chickens. They are very nice sweet birds that I wouldn’t hesitate to throw in a stew pot if I was hungry enough (although laying hens of their age would be rather tough and stringy so I’d have to be really hungry).

  42. This guy is completely disconnected from nature and the world around him, which mainly involves billions of animals eating other animals every day. Humans aren’t that special.

    Signed,

    pesco-vegetarian

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