Ringling performer Gleice of Brazil rides a circus elephant in front of the U.S. Capitol in March 2011. (Ricky Carioti/WASHINGTON POST)
We often wonder how people of the past, including the
most revered and refined, could have universally engaged in conduct now
considered unconscionable. Such as slavery. How could the Founders, so
sublimely devoted to human liberty, have lived with — some participating in —
human slavery? Or fourscore years later, how could the saintly Lincoln, an
implacable opponent of slavery, have nevertheless spoken of and believed in African inferiority?
While retrospective judgment tends to make us
feel superior to our ancestors, it should really evoke humility. Surely some
contemporary practices will be deemed equally abominable by succeeding
generations. The only question is: Which ones?
I’ve long thought it will be our
treatment of animals. I’m convinced that our great-grandchildren will find it
difficult to believe that we actually raised, herded and slaughtered them on an
industrial scale — for the eating.
To be sure, there has been a
salutary turn in our attitude toward animals, especially their display and
confinement. To its credit, Barnum & Bailey is retiring its elephant acts. Festooning
these magnificent creatures with comically gaudy costumes and parading them
about, often shackled, is a reproach to both their nobility and our humanity.
Or consider those SeaWorld
commercials reassuring us how well their orcas are treated. The tone
is contrite and almost apologetic, as befits a business that trains splendid
creatures to jump high on command for fish — and for our amusement.
And although some of these
measures are market-driven — SeaWorld has been hemorrhaging customers and Cirque du
Soleil has been thriving without animals — they are nonetheless welcome. As are
the improvements in zoos. The zoo animals I remember from my childhood were so
sadly caged, so restlessly pawing the ground, so piteously defeated. Today, the
enclosures are more forgiving, the bars largely gone, the running space more
ample.
It’s understandable. The zoo used to symbolize man’s
dominion over his menacing adversaries, his competitors for living space.
Tigers still roamed, and could eat you. Now the competition is over. Our rivals
have either been wiped out or driven back to the bush. Except for the
occasional shark dining on some intrepid surfer, the threat is gone — and with
it, the thrill of conquest.
No need, therefore, to
display wildlife bound and tamed, King Kong-like. The overriding mission of today’s zoo is conservancy
— the care, study, preservation and propagation of the various species, some of
them endangered.
Another advance, and not just for them but for us. One
measure of human moral progress — amid and despite the savageries we visit upon
each other — is how we treat the innocent in our care. And none are more
innocent than these.
Which brings us to meat
eating. Its extinction will, I believe, ultimately come. And be largely
market-driven as well. Science will find dietary substitutes that can be
produced at infinitely less cost and effort. At which point, meat will become a
kind of exotic indulgence, what the cigar (of “Cigar Aficionado”) is to the
dying tobacco culture of today.
As a moderate carnivore
myself, I confess to living in Jeffersonian hypocrisy. It’s a bit late for me
to live on berries and veggies. My concession to my qualms is a few
idiosyncratic distinctions (of no particular import). And while I don’t demand
that every chicken I consume be certified to have enjoyed an open meadow and a
vibrant social life, if I can eat free range, I will.
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