Hacker News Reader

Comment by Sharlin | Hacker News Reader

The psychology of eating animals is definitely a great example of how people compartmentalize and simply avoid thinking about the details too much in order to evade cognitive dissonance. Which is also why so many respond with hostility when prompted to do so. (Disclaimer: I'm an omnivore.)

View on HN

In most cases, if you grow up eating something, it's normal. If you don't, it's unusual. Sometimes people think things are disgusting when they really mean they're not used to them. I think that explains about 95% of it.

me with escargot

I think there’s an important distinction to be made between being disgusted by the thought of eating escargots and being morally judgemental of the thought of eating horses. That said, it is not a far-fetched idea that moral disgust has its roots in the more visceral feeling of physical disgust, as evinced by the alimentary restrictions imposed by some religions.

tbh i dont get why people arent ok eating horse or dog. i've had both and they're fine, like why is this a problem? i will be the first to call out veganism but i also have literally been lectured by meat eaters about how me eating those 2 is wrong and then they have eaten a burger or steak in the same day.

Dog is clearly a special case. It's the most common pet in the USA; many people consider their dog part of their family.

Dogs are known for forming such strong connections to their humans. On the spectrum between farmed-for-food and totally-off-limits, it's not hard to guess where we would put dogs.

It's just like indians and cows. Cows have a special place in their culture, therefore they don't eat beef.

I’m not a vegan but I had a few cows growing up that basically became like pets. They would come up to me just to spend time and receive physical affection, they knew my voice, etc. I’m not sure if this reason for not eating dogs stands up to scrutiny for me.

ya lots of farm kids have pets like that and lots of us end up eating them later

Many social norms are arbitrary. People don't do things because you're not supposed to do things and nobody else does (or at least admits doing).

Animals that are both higher intelligence in our perception and closer to us day to day will fall into the category of disgust, imo. For instance, I've had dogs my whole life. They're pretty deep creatures with emotions, intelligence, and personalities all their own. If you tell me that you ate what I have a personal connection to, what I consider my family - It's hard not to look at you in disgust. Similar to the disgust that people feel when they hear someone ate human flesh. The case with horses is similar.

Cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and fish on the other hand are not similar at all. They often have short memories, and live pretty simple lives. Thus, it's a bit easier to look at them as purposes for lunch. I'd be curious if Hindus feel relative disgust over seeing folks eat cow, I think that might bolster this theory a bit.

That said, although I feel disgust over that stuff I don't really say anything. If offered, I'd probably smirk and say, "That's not for me". Other cultures are allowed to, in my mind, enjoy things that might disgust me and vice versa.

Edit:

I'm also curious that if one day when all meat is lab grown if we'd ever feel those feelings of disgust. If the loss of what we view as potential personal connection is removed, it's entirely possible we wouldn't feel disgust at all.

Cows have much larger brains than dogs and are quite intelligent, and so are pigs. The "dogs are special" argument is a familiarity thing or perhaps a statement that dogs evolved to more effectively manipulate human emotions.

As I said, it probably has to do more with our aggregate personal connection to animals in a given culture, because that will influence how we perceive their intelligence.

If you've read the studies I did, they're not very good. For instance, the test that asserted a pig is smarter than a dog was where they were tasked with moving a joystick designed for a monkey that controlled a cursor that they wanted moved into a blue region on a screen. I'll let you make your own judgements about how sound the testing with respect to the assertion is. My dog certainly has eyes that can be tuned to manipulate me, but she also has a sizeable vocabulary, a lot of tonal intuition, and this little heat seeker in her nose that quite literally syncs her heart rate with mine. There's a good amount of theory that says this adds up to empathy.

Cows may have larger brains, but they also have much bigger bodies. They aren't anywhere near as intelligent as dogs.

Now, with pigs, you have a point. They're indeed very smart.

I justify eating pigs by reasoning that pigs will happily eat humans if they get a chance (a few pig farmers lose their lives that way every year, plus there's the occasional serial killer...). Turnabout is fair play.

> Animals that are both higher intelligence in our perception and closer to us day to day will fall into the category of disgust, imo.

Think in general this holds to animals seen as pets. Like in the West with adorable little guinea pigs, which in the Andes Mountain regions are a food source. And it makes sense too if you live high in the mountains that get snowed in in the winter, to have a bunch of them living in your home.

I think a lot of it comes from ancient tribal customs. Many pastoral/nomadic groups, like the Aryans, would only eat horses as a last resort. The horse was so important to the tribe's survival. Incidentally, the same taboo was probably applied to eating cows, as that animal was extremely important for Indo-Aryans' survival. Over time the original meaning of the taboo is lost, it just continues to get enforced by each subsequent generation.

As an omnivore, at some point avoiding the dissonance became a zen of embracing the dissonance.

having grown up around farm animals I never really felt either dissonance or the need to compartmentalize.

You can have a relationship with animals and raise them but they are also food. You can ride horses and eat them, to me that isn't contradictory because killing for sustenance isn't an evil act, and if the animals are raised well and kept in good conditions and live happy lives there's no issue.

I think the psychological issues are mostly about anthropomorphizing animals and not having personal experience with the food chain, killing animals for sustenance or quite frankly death which most people now have a completely pathological relationship to.

Yes, I realize that historically in agrarian societies, common folk in particular have had a very different relationship with animals than most modern Westerners, and some people still do. I did not mean to imply that compartmentalization is something inherent or unavoidable, just that clearly in the modern Western society this sort of mental model is more or less prevalent. You’re probably right that it’s connected with our relationship with death.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com