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==14: FEB 28==
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==Animal philosophy, slaughter in art history, and the gaze in contemporary slaughter==
  
===Assigned===
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====Some Animal philosophy====
  
:*Rachel Lauden, ''Cusine and Empire'' Introduction and Chapter 1, "Mastering Grain Cookery, 20,000 to 300 bce", p. 1-55
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:*Think about the complexity of our "psychology of perception of animality"
 +
::*pets vs. non pets
 +
::*loving food animals. 
 +
::*psychology of snakes and vermin
 +
::*Why do we react differently to a kid kicking a can down the street vs. kicking a sheep's head down the street?
  
 +
::*Not hard for us to compartmentalize, but we experience '''cognitive dissonance''' at some cultural diffs: where our pets are their food animals or where their pets can become food animals.  Also, dissonance in spending on pets.  Extension of vet science requires us to price our love of our pets.
  
===Lauden, Rachel, C1, "Mastering Grain Cookery"===
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:*Some theory -- start with Derrida's, "The Animal That I therefore am..." -- story of the philosopher's encounter with his cat.  Notes from Slivinski 2012
  
====General Claims and Inferences====
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::*So, maybe also philosophical sources of dissonance -- Rethinking subjectivity, we are now exposed to the gaze of the animal.  Is there a new kind of thinking that emerges if you take into account the gaze of the animal?  (Parallels -- if you take into account soil, your gut, dietary diseases of the industrial food system.) 
  
:*This overview of "grain and root" cooking from 20,000 ya should expand your sense of human foods in several ways:
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::*Obvious opening for a vegan argument, but consider other options.   
::*not just a binary of paleolithic/neolithic (preag/ag). Cooking grains goes back 20K.
 
::*long before bread, grain cookery produced cakes, porridges, pottages, ashcakes, flatbreads, pasta, etc.  Maize isn't just corn on the cob, but tortilla, polenta, etc.
 
::*alot of grain in the ancient world went to beer production
 
::*before markets, people still had to make calculations of labor calories for food calories.  Lauden argues that root cuisines could not support cities (details at 31-32, also 35)Still, grains are also labor intensive.
 
  
:*'''Cooking, Cuisines, and Ancient Culinary philosophy'''
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:*Pair Derrida with the 19th century growth of two movements: industrial slaughter, concern about Humane slaughter, societies to promote vegetarian and vegan diets.   
::*Cooking - p. 11 --
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::*Other pieces of the storyMeat ideology -- partially based in fact.
::*"Cuisine" is more than the foods themselves. A Cuisine represents a system of food production (food system, and cooking skills) that represent a life sustaining diet. But a culinary philosophy relates our cuisine to larger structures (43), :
 
:::*a '''principle of hierarchy''' - nomad, peasant, poor town dweller, ....noble.  Monarch's status connected to power to protect harvest. (Power to feed fed power.) moral theory of food values. 44.   
 
:::*a '''sacrificial bargain'''  - gets replaced by universal religions and personal salvation. like the transaction with monarch. includes human sacrifice.  blood never neutral in cuisineEither strong positive or negative. 
 
:::*a '''theory of the culinary cosmos''' -- Fire thought to be a thing, not just kinetic energy. analogy of fire from sun in growth to fire in cooking.  also, heat in the belly. 
 
::*"Culinary philosophy - relates us to divinity, society, and the natural world (2), also, new political and philosophical ideas affect cuisines (6) (ex. Buddhist cuisines) -- "Food situates us." 50 (story of Tuscan friend)
 
  
::*Group Discussion: Are there modern equivalents in our food culture for the categories of ancient culinary philosophy? Do we engage in hierarchical eating?  Have we made some other kind of bargain with the forces that we believe sustain our food security?  Do we have a culinary cosmos?
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====Food and slaughter in Art History====
  
 +
:*Some images of pre-modern slaughter. 
  
====Reading Notes====
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:*Add pics from Chicago stockyards and Testaccio, Rome
  
:*Introduction - core idea for the book from her Hawaii book.  Movements of food, technology, and technique get consolidated into cuisines that spread, often in connection with power and empire or nation state.  Wants to displace an older story in which high cuisine is an evolution from humble cuisine.
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====Other ways of using gaze theory====
  
:*Hypothesizes 10 global cuisines, all based on roots and grains.   
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:*Said and neo-colonial gaze
 +
:*Foucault's panopticon
 +
:*The gaze as a way of periodizing pre-industrial, industrial, and hyper-slaughter.
 +
::*Pre-industrial slaughter modeled the gaze on the butcher, who would normally have seen dressed meat and may have participated in slaughter.  2-3 degrees of separation in the gaze.  Butchers in US make good money.  Socially esteemed due to trust involved in buying meat.  In transition, typical to see cattle marched through city streets to slaughter.
 +
::*Industrial slaughter -- Involves the technical gaze of the engineer.  (Note mistake in early French slaughterhouse design.)  At the same time the work of industrial slaughter is done by immigrants (Chicago) or non-Romans (Testaccio).  (Oddly, Chicago Stockyard had tours.) We don't see the people who see the slaughter.  As industrial slaughter increases, we no longer see the animals either.  From dressed beef to meatpacking and industrial meat products.
 +
::*Hyper-slaughter -- Post-gazeInspectors can't see every animal.  Workers are "disappeared" through ICE and deportation.  Facilities moved out of cities.  Hyper-slaughter food chains involves less visible production (video prohibited, completely enclosed facilities).  Hyper-slaughter culture eliminates the body of the animal from the consumers sight (transition from older supermarkets in US and mercati in Italy).
  
:*1,000 bc - 50 million humans, cities no larger than 10,000.  Cooking already for up to 2 million years. 
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====Some Problems of Hyper-slaughter and its supply chain====
  
:*Major change: technology to harvest food from hard seed of herbaceous plants (grains)  Lake Kinneret site (Sea of Galilee) 19.4K ya.  Only grain cultures were able to support cities. 
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=====For animals and eaters=====
  
:*Cuisines of the Yellow River (18), Yangzte River (19), and barley wheat cuisines of Turkey, Mediterranean. 
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:*Dismembering animals alive, hogs going into scalder alive
  
:*24ff: the sacrificial feast. Note food hierarchies, 25.
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:*Lowering voltage on stunners -- belief that overstunned animals don't bleed thoroughly. Claim has been debunked.
  
:*Carribean and South American cassava and potato cuisines.  Maize Cuisine of Mesoamerica.  Corn 7,000 bc, by 3,000 maize extends into Ecuador.   
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:*Lack of rules on animal transport lead to animals freezing alive.   
  
:*high vs. humble cuisine.   
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:*Streamlined inspection has led to 6,000 inspectors "looking at" 8 billion animals a year.   
::*high cuisines heavy in meats, sweets, fats, and intoxicantshighly processed ingredients (whiter flour). luury foods, appetizers (70% of calories)
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:*"We used to trim the shit off the meat, Then we washed the shit off the meatNow the consumer eats the shit off the meat."  USDA Inspector (in Eisnitz p. 155)
::*humble cuisines - roots or grains with greens.  80-90% of population, 70-75% of calories from this.
 
:::*humble eaters shorter, less energetic, and less clever.  malnutrition in pregnancy is a horror for development....
 
  
:*town poor vs. country poor -- town poor often fared better. "The chicken is the country's but the city eats it"Below the peasant was the nomad.
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:*No slaughter rules mandated for chickens. Again, belief that stunning prevents exsanguation. One plant 1/2 million a day. 
 +
:*Streamlined inspection since 1985: 450 inspectors 1.5 billion birds.  91 birds a minute.
 +
 
 +
=====For slaughterhouse workers and communities=====
 +
 
 +
:*Containment pig farming, odor and waste. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPkW4lg3K8Y  confinement operations and neighbors]
 +
 
 +
:*Non-white often non-citizen workers are not well received in white rural towns.  High turnover, often increases in crime. Yet, undocumented slaughterhouse workers are preferred for their work ethic and their legal vulnerability.
 +
 
 +
:*Workers health and vulnerability. -- pattern of deportation for worker's making compensation or injury claims.  
 +
 
 +
:*2008 neurological disorders from pig brain mist.  On going concerns about exposure of meat workers to pathogens and "zoonotic transmissible agents" [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2095342/]
 +
 
 +
:*[https://metro.co.uk/2017/12/31/how-killing-animals-everyday-leaves-slaughterhouse-workers-traumatised-7175087/ Trauma from slaughter]  PTSD, but also PITS, found also in executioners, combat veterans, and Nazis in World War II.
 +
 
 +
:*Injury rates in slaughterhouses higher in last 25years than for any industry (fitz 2010).  Though recently some improvements.
 +
 
 +
:*Early 1970's beef kill lines at 179/hr , by early 90s 400/hr  (Fitzgerald, 2010)Now 1,000 to 1200/hr.

Revision as of 21:48, 25 April 2019

Animal philosophy, slaughter in art history, and the gaze in contemporary slaughter

Some Animal philosophy

  • Think about the complexity of our "psychology of perception of animality"
  • pets vs. non pets
  • loving food animals.
  • psychology of snakes and vermin
  • Why do we react differently to a kid kicking a can down the street vs. kicking a sheep's head down the street?
  • Not hard for us to compartmentalize, but we experience cognitive dissonance at some cultural diffs: where our pets are their food animals or where their pets can become food animals. Also, dissonance in spending on pets. Extension of vet science requires us to price our love of our pets.
  • Some theory -- start with Derrida's, "The Animal That I therefore am..." -- story of the philosopher's encounter with his cat. Notes from Slivinski 2012
  • So, maybe also philosophical sources of dissonance -- Rethinking subjectivity, we are now exposed to the gaze of the animal. Is there a new kind of thinking that emerges if you take into account the gaze of the animal? (Parallels -- if you take into account soil, your gut, dietary diseases of the industrial food system.)
  • Obvious opening for a vegan argument, but consider other options.
  • Pair Derrida with the 19th century growth of two movements: industrial slaughter, concern about Humane slaughter, societies to promote vegetarian and vegan diets.
  • Other pieces of the story. Meat ideology -- partially based in fact.

Food and slaughter in Art History

  • Some images of pre-modern slaughter.
  • Add pics from Chicago stockyards and Testaccio, Rome

Other ways of using gaze theory

  • Said and neo-colonial gaze
  • Foucault's panopticon
  • The gaze as a way of periodizing pre-industrial, industrial, and hyper-slaughter.
  • Pre-industrial slaughter modeled the gaze on the butcher, who would normally have seen dressed meat and may have participated in slaughter. 2-3 degrees of separation in the gaze. Butchers in US make good money. Socially esteemed due to trust involved in buying meat. In transition, typical to see cattle marched through city streets to slaughter.
  • Industrial slaughter -- Involves the technical gaze of the engineer. (Note mistake in early French slaughterhouse design.) At the same time the work of industrial slaughter is done by immigrants (Chicago) or non-Romans (Testaccio). (Oddly, Chicago Stockyard had tours.) We don't see the people who see the slaughter. As industrial slaughter increases, we no longer see the animals either. From dressed beef to meatpacking and industrial meat products.
  • Hyper-slaughter -- Post-gaze. Inspectors can't see every animal. Workers are "disappeared" through ICE and deportation. Facilities moved out of cities. Hyper-slaughter food chains involves less visible production (video prohibited, completely enclosed facilities). Hyper-slaughter culture eliminates the body of the animal from the consumers sight (transition from older supermarkets in US and mercati in Italy).

Some Problems of Hyper-slaughter and its supply chain

For animals and eaters
  • Dismembering animals alive, hogs going into scalder alive
  • Lowering voltage on stunners -- belief that overstunned animals don't bleed thoroughly. Claim has been debunked.
  • Lack of rules on animal transport lead to animals freezing alive.
  • Streamlined inspection has led to 6,000 inspectors "looking at" 8 billion animals a year.
  • "We used to trim the shit off the meat, Then we washed the shit off the meat. Now the consumer eats the shit off the meat." USDA Inspector (in Eisnitz p. 155)
  • No slaughter rules mandated for chickens. Again, belief that stunning prevents exsanguation. One plant 1/2 million a day.
  • Streamlined inspection since 1985: 450 inspectors 1.5 billion birds. 91 birds a minute.
For slaughterhouse workers and communities
  • Non-white often non-citizen workers are not well received in white rural towns. High turnover, often increases in crime. Yet, undocumented slaughterhouse workers are preferred for their work ethic and their legal vulnerability.
  • Workers health and vulnerability. -- pattern of deportation for worker's making compensation or injury claims.
  • 2008 neurological disorders from pig brain mist. On going concerns about exposure of meat workers to pathogens and "zoonotic transmissible agents" [1]
  • Trauma from slaughter PTSD, but also PITS, found also in executioners, combat veterans, and Nazis in World War II.
  • Injury rates in slaughterhouses higher in last 25years than for any industry (fitz 2010). Though recently some improvements.
  • Early 1970's beef kill lines at 179/hr , by early 90s 400/hr (Fitzgerald, 2010). Now 1,000 to 1200/hr.