In the future, contact between people and animals is forbidden. Because interaction between people and animals leads to pain and suffering, eliminating contact has the highest priority. Eating animal meat-animeat-is a heinous crime and punished severely. Everyone is vegan. The Order of the Prelate teaches Noameran citizens to reject human dominion over the animal world. Christianity and other religious traditions that had empowered people to believe they could use animals for whatever purposes they chose have been disbanded. Pet ownership has also been banned. The hypocrisy that had allowed people to kill some animals for food while saving others to be loved as pets no longer exists. Welcome to the moral order of 22d century Noamera. When Will'm Ashbee violates this moral order, can a defense for his actions be found in the annals of human-animal interactions?

ANIMEAT'S END

A FUTURE HISTORY OF THE END OF ANIMAL MEATBy WILSON J. WARREN

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Wilson J. Warren
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-7921-2

Chapter One

In all the round world of Utopia, there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughter-houses. And, in a population that is all educated, and at about the same level of physical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig. We never settled the hygienic question of meat-eating at all. This other aspect decided us. I can still remember, as a boy, the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughter-house. H.G. Wells, A Modern Utopia (1905)

O God, who hast given all thy creatures for our use, give us grace that we may never abuse them, for Jesus Christ's sake, our Lord. Amen. James Plumptre, The Experienced Butcher (1816)

I often sit and think about a world full of meat. Not our meat. Meat from animals. What we, well at least those of us who dare to think about such things, call animeat.

What a world it was, both shocking and wonderful. Imagine a world, if you can, where people, those we now chide as Wasters, ate animals' flesh. Wasters ate the flesh of dead animals of all sorts, some with two legs and some with four. All those beautiful and awful yet wonderful animals. Fish, too, though Wasters saw fish as different from meat. Perhaps this had something to do with their different sources: some from the land and some from the sea. Yet both sorts provided flesh that found their way into Wasters' bellies.

How do I know this? No one has eaten animeat since before anyone alive today can remember. Many do not know that this was even a possibility since it is one of the Singerite taboos. We don't see the animals that were once eaten. Animals called cattle, pigs or hogs, chickens, turkeys, and all manner of fish. Oh, some of us see a few of them, mostly in the preserves with other exotics like elephants and giraffes. But not in the millions and millions that were once necessary to feed a world of Wasters.

So how do I know the world was once filled with Wasters who ate animeat? One hundred years ago, the Great Break destroyed nearly all electronic data and other records. The Wasters placed their faith in digistore—digital storage. As we now know, that faith was misplaced. When digistore disappeared in virtually all places across the whole world, the Great Break's chaos reinforced and exacerbated political and social changes across the globe. As new leaders assumed power, they attempted to recover and control as many of the remaining paper records as possible. Such records were generally locked away for almost no one to see again. I am one of the fortunate few who gained access to some of these remaining records left in Noamera. The records associated with the Wasters' consumption of animeat are based here, in the repository just outside Center Point. I believe I have found enough evidence to convince me that animeat was once quite common, perhaps even the dominant food for the Wasters. It was also hugely wasteful as we Singerites now know and now all, officially, believe. But it was also something that I dare say was not without redeeming features. The history of animeat consumption, its many ethical dimensions, and eventual demise, form the basis of my life's research, a book that I am tentatively calling Animeat's End.

Of course, my admission in Animeat's End that consuming animeat had redeeming features is sacrilege. I am betraying one of the sacred tenets of our world, especially here in Noamera. We do not discuss animeat because it violates every belief we have about the sacredness of sentient life, the lives of all our brothers and sisters who share our human bonds of feeling and sensory perceptions. We could no more eat animals like cattle or pigs than we could eat our fellow humans.

Those of us who know something about the Wasters know that they ate animeat. After all, they were Wasters. But I know that they ate even more animeat than anyone now alive could imagine. Was it wasteful? Yes, terribly so. But I am not telling you anything at this point that you didn't already know. The Wasters wasted all manner of things, including animals. The problem is that we do not talk about this beyond acknowledging the fact of their wastefulness and their horrible disregard of sacred sentient life. But for much of my adult life I have tried in vain to reflect upon this with an eye to understanding more about why the Wasters ate animeat. We need to move beyond our simplistic portrayals of Wasters and animeat's evilness. I believe that we need to understand that eating animeat was not a completely wasteful thing, and may have even had some useful elements.

Before I begin, two points of clarification. First, why did I say at the beginning that eating animeat was wonderful? Weren't the Wasters given this name partly because the eating of animals was so horrifically glutinous and wasteful? The wonder of it is that the variety and manner of this eating was extravagant, various, yet strangely similar and monotonous across cultures. But animeat was also nutritious and, apparently, tasty. I suppose one could easily argue, and then laugh, as our leaders do today, that eating humans might also be nutritious and tasty. True enough. But there was a value that Wasters gained in eating animals that was not without merit in terms of their nutrition, culinary variety, and enjoyment.

Aside from this, though, wasn't the killing itself a horror? We're taught that the very act of killing fellow creatures of sentience and feeling is so brutal, twisted, and frightening that it was an act that proves how fundamentally corrupted and horrible the Wasters were. But, in fact, the Wasters believed they had developed humane killing processes. Is it possible that killing of anything can be humane?

The killing and eating of animals point to the essential and wondrous contradiction at the heart of animeat. We believe that killing a living creature is wrong. Yet those who killed animals in the Wasters' era, people called butchers as well as farmers and hunters, often cared for and even loved the animals they killed. They were professionals with skills in all aspects of beasts' lives in ways that we cannot hope to understand or are likely to recreate. Those Wasters who ate the most animeat were also part of cultures that had developed what was called animal husbandry to a fine art. Eating animeat is most certainly irrational, but it involved elements of beauty and love.

Second, it is not true, as many of my colleagues believe, that pre-Break Americans, our Noameran ancestors, ate any and all animals. After all, they say, where did all these animals go? In fact, pre-Break people believed that some animals should not be eaten, though other Wasters ate them. Wasters also made pets, something akin to friends, of some animals, usually those they did not eat. Yet sometimes they ate their friends. Why? Was protection of animals only for the rich? Was animal friendship and companionship only an emotional reaction and not one based on reason and rationality? Is it possible that somehow the act of befriending and killing animals was part of the same fundamental bond that made the connection between humans and animals a peculiar but important tie for Wasters?

The reasons for these distinctions seem odd and perplexing since they rested on beliefs that have now receded and been replaced with others. How was it that animeat was once so plentiful and now is almost completely gone? Not only has animeat disappeared, but so also have the animals that were once consumed. This is no accident. Once animals' function as sources of meat disappeared, so too did the necessity of keeping them around. After years of sifting through and reading the records of that time, I have come to believe that Wasters both loved and ate the animals that made up their animeat.

Wasters believed that it was possible to kill animals humanely. Here is one of the essential contradictions lying at the heart of animeat. We believe that all killing is a horror. Wasters believed that killing could be both kind and merciful. Wasters thought that as long as animals did not suffer and were not abused in the moments that led up to their death, then their deaths were not tragic. Prevention of fear and pain were thought to be more important than prevention of death.

To consider the horrors of animeat, we need to reflect on why we now eat meat.

Chapter Two

It is sad and not a little remarkable how thoroughly we are all constrained by modern attitudes to food. Richard Mabey, Food for Free (1972)

And God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be meat." Genesis 1:29

Although the repository for the animeat records is outside of our village of Center Point, the bicycle ride back to the village is not very long, especially on a beautiful early fall day. In the years immediately following the chaos of the Great Break, leaders decided that the best way to restructure Noameran life was around smaller villages, something that the records suggest was common much earlier in the pre-Break years but had been left behind in the arrogance and hubris that cheap energy, digistore, and privicars made possible.

I cycle past fields full of crops. I see a sampling of all the sorts of vegetables and fruits that we eat: potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other tubers; beans, especially soy, and other legumes; leafy vegetables like kale; root crops like carrots, turnips, and yams that do not depend too much on constant infusions of water. We grow peanuts where we can, though in this climate they are not grown here. The same is true for berries and fruit. Many villages specialize in orchards of such things as apples or peaches, and then trade them for other needed items from nearby villages. There is very little corn in sight—Wasters grew crops like corn primarily as feed for animals that would in turn be eaten by people. We grow some grains, especially quinoa and wheat, but unlike the Wasters bread is not very commonly eaten now. Quinoa provides us with protein so it is eaten more frequently than bread. We eat the latter occasionally as a special food, and not as a staple. We do enjoy beer and wine made from our grains and fruit; we are not like the pre-Break Christian sects that preached healthy food but forbade alcohol. Some among the Wasters referred to their agricultural emphases as monoculture. We like to think that we learned from their mistakes to avoid that narrow focus. We are proud, perhaps too much so, about how much better we are than the Wasters.

Small groups of villagers are working in the field, weeding and pruning and taking care of assigned sections of the common fields. We grow food to feed ourselves primarily. There is some trade between villages and even with parts of Noamera that are far removed from us, but this is unusual. We often laugh about the pre-Break notion of locavorism. Wasters made such a fuss about something that should have been natural. Of course, nothing is really natural; all things are products of places, times, and prevalent ideas. We are no different, though few of us would admit this to be so.

Although out of sight from the road I am on, I know other groups of villagers are out foraging for wild foods. Unlike the Wasters, who gave up on food that was free for all, we know that the meadows, woodlands, and marshes are full of good things to eat. Some items are seasonal, such as nuts like the hazel and chestnut and fungi of various sorts. The latter take special training to pick since the wrong ones can cause serious illness and even death. Other items can be found for much of the year, such as root vegetables like horseradish and dandelion; among the green vegetables, we pick watercress, sea kale, and glasswort. We use all sorts of wild herbs in our food, such as meadowsweet, wild celery, fennel, wild thyme as well as spices such as corn poppy. Flowers such as lime, broom, wild rose, hawthorn, hop, heather, and elder are abundant and easy to find. Even more important than plants and vegetables to us are the wild fruits, such as raspberry, blackberry, huckleberry, blueberry, wild strawberry, crab apples, and red currant. We waste very little of any of these wild foods.

Everyone must perform common labor on behalf of the village interests for at least two days per week starting at age 16 until they reach the age of 30. Some people opt to work more than two days because they are unable to do otherwise or simply lack interest in working in other capacities. The categories of common labor service are virtually unending—tending crops, repairing roads, picking up garbage, cremation of brethren animal bodies. The village leaders, elected from a group of candidates over age 50 deemed worthy of public service, determine what constitutes categories of common labor. No one needs to work the same task for their entire period of common labor service unless they choose to. Jobs are rotated and assigned by seniority based primarily on age.

I worked the common fields for about two years over thirty years ago. I remember many long days of chopping weeds, hoeing, pruning, digging, and lots of sweating. I also remember many long, pleasant conversations with fellow workers. The work is supervised—supervision is another common labor assignment but one that must be earned by seniority and trust—but the nature of field work is that one works closely with others with whom you might chat. As long as the work gets done, supervisors have no problem with people who socialize. We are taught that our motivation is serving the common good of the village. True enough. But everyone knows that when it comes to food, our common motivation is eating. If we do not do the work, then no one eats. Disasters occur, and other villages will help, but generally speaking we are expected to save ourselves.

* * *

It takes about twenty minutes to cycle the eight klicks back to the village. Center Point is not much to look at, even by our standards. Wasters would probably think it something like a shantytown—the village is dominated by rows of ramshackle but fairly sturdy small houses; occasional two-story brick buildings that are generally meant for public services, such as bathhouses; and the only stone-façade structure: the courthouse. The latter is my destination because I need to visit the person accused of eating animeat. I am very curious about who this person might be.

Rumors of people eating animeat are persistent and relatively common; everyone claims to know someone who has caught a stray beast, killed it, and eaten it. But the reality is that we Noameras are generally hard-boiled Singerites. It's been so engrained in us to think of all sentient lives as sacred. Nevertheless, although we do not like to admit it, there are sects among us who argue that there are cases where lives might be sacrificed. Many of these sects—all clandestine and officially banned, like the Grandinites, particularly obnoxious as they are—argue that it is possible to kill people and animals humanely in certain cases. For instance, there are no shortages of animals that eat our crops. Generally speaking we opt for methods that avoid killing them. But there are always cases of animals killed for eating crops that humans need. Deer are often a nuisance because they resist the methods we use to discourage their disturbance of our crops. Generally out of frustration, someone will use a bow and arrow to take one out for good. As in the case of natural deaths, the deer's body is supposed to be disposed of in accordance with our traditions of praying for their souls and then cremated. But we always hear of cases where the body is not burned but is eaten instead.

In nearly all cases, the rumors of eating animeat prove groundless. This sort of thing can be like children who boast about their prowess in doing something; the rumors are flamed by a kind of bravado that has shock value. Clearly in this case, though, since it has come before the Center Point Magistrate, there must be more evidence than simply rumor. I guess I shall find out soon enough.

Chapter Three

The peanut and the sweet potato are twin brothers and cannot and should not be separated. They are two of the greatest products that God has ever given us. George Washington Carver (Hearings on General Tariff Revision Before the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1921)

If the average American would eat four or five times as many potatoes as he now eats, and an equivalent amount less of cereals and cane sugar, the result would be a notable lowering of the death rate and a marked increase in physical fitness and freedom from crippling disease. John Harvey Kellogg, The New Dietetics (1921)

Excerpt from: L. Billows, Animeat's End

(Continues...)

Excerpted from ANIMEAT'S ENDby WILSON J. WARREN Copyright © 2012 by Wilson J. Warren. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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