I went into John Sanbonmatsu's new book The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong About, Meat, Animals, and Ourselves a little nervous. I had seen Sanbonmatsu talk and enjoyed it, but had only read one essay in the past. It was so jargony and academic that I feared that this book might be, too. Luckily, it is readable, though heavy in subject matter as is to be expected. Sanbonmatsu is passionate about these topics, the experiences and worth of animals including humans, and in conveying important information. I have some concerns with how he went about it at times which I will discuss, but overall found this book to be an important addition to the collective liberation canon. I will note that I no longer read or watch most graphic cruelty descriptions or footage (I have witnessed enough for many lifetimes.) There is not a torturous amount in this book, but I did skip paragraphs here and there that I thus cannot comment on as they are the only things I did not read.
Before reading this book, I knew quite a bit of the long dark shadow of Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Many people who have ever been involved in the monumental task of trying to get people to have respect for farmed animals know of the damage that Pollan's feel good copout of a book caused. It gave people who thought they might care about other animals and climate change a way to think that they could change next to nothing and somehow end up helping animals and the planet by harming and killing them the nice way. On top of the widespread negative cultural effects it had, it's also full of absolute bullsh*t. It has been a long time since then, and a book confronting all of this has been long overdue.
It has been so long that I didn't realize just what I was getting into. Even in hindsight, I did not recall quite how diabolical Pollan's words were, how absolutely cruel his assessments. I did not know that his book is infuriatingly still considered mandatory reading for some courses as some sort of guideline for how to (use liberal capitalism to cause immense suffering and climate destruction for taste.) The cultural lore around Pollan's book made it stick even in my 19 year vegan mind as less horrifying than it was. Sanbonmatsu delves deep into the depths of the text, highlighting just how dangerous the "humane" slaughter movement has been. He shows quite clearly how neoliberal "welfarist" consumerism reduces other animals to the status of products, just like other forms of exploitation towards them. In a way, it becomes more frightening than the callous cruelty in undercover footage that may have gotten some people to pay attention to what happens to other animals before their body parts are packaged. It has taught these people that that cruelty is not cruelty at all. In fact, you should feel good about it. Messages like Pollan's went as far as to pretend people were doing animals a favor by sending them to slaughterhouses. I could go on and on, as you may guess this lit a fire inside me a bit, but I want to focus on this book rather than just one of its many subjects.
Sanbonmatsu uses Pollan's book as an anchor for a far larger scope and discussion of our relationships to harm of other animals. I appreciate that he was clear and direct in his language, calling a spade a spade, rather than allowing industry terms to proliferate. He does well to show how offensive and ridiculous many "humane" slaughter proponents are, using their own words and materials to do so. He shows how the drive for localvoreism caused hippie granola types to embrace the far right and move away from leftist consideration for both humans and other animals (if they were ever on the left, some hippies never were.) He discusses the "femivore" trend wherein women take up harming animals in the many ways men have more traditionally done so (hunting, slaughter, etc) and treat this turn towards patriarchy- complete with their own versions of machismo- as a form of womens liberation.
Sanbonmatsu discusses connections with various oppressions such as the abuse of slaughterhouse workers forced to do the most dangerous and traumatic tasks of killing animals for those who shield their eyes. He does a decent take down of utilitarianist ableism of philosophers like Peter Singer, which he discovered after initially being inspired by Singer's ethical arguments for other (nondisabled) animals. This was also something I was aware of and had read about before, but somehow, perhaps by grace of the universe, I had not heard of Singer's "Should the Baby Die?" until this. It's even more appalling than I had realized. I am grateful that I could not locate more than citations of posts tearing down the piece during a quick search, so hopefully it will die and no one else will have to read it. Sanbonmatsu also discusses ecofascism and the words of Holocaust survivors explaining their thoughts about the mistreatment of other animals. This was unfortunately one of the few times his mention of the Holocaust felt appropriate. The leads to my criticisms.
I am not someone who thinks one should never discuss intertwined oppression between humans and other animals. I believe all of these things are complex and interconnected in many ways. Many writers and organizers have done far better jobs than I can in a small space here, so I added a few recommendations at the end of this review. It took me a long time to flesh out the ways to discuss collective liberation that is inclusive of nonhuman animals that did not misrepresent or cheapen the struggles of any of the groups involved. It is not easy and I still make mistakes. I do think that Sanbonmatsu makes some mistakes in this book in this regard.
He frequently discusses (US chattel) slavery, Naziism and the (Shoah) Holocaust, and makes some other statements that made me cringe a bit. My issue is not that humans and other animals should never be discussed together. In fact, I and people of many marginalized groups discuss how we are intertwined in solidarity with other animals facing oppression. My problem is when people make direct comparisons that are not apt. For instance, discussion of the atrocities of animal agribusiness alongside genocide, with semi direct comparisons, cheapens and erases BOTH struggles. We are not trying to wipe out farmed animals (I know genocide is far more than that but for brevity's sake...) It's the opposite, they make up most of the birds and mammals on the entire planet because of what we have done to them. That is completely different from genocide. I suppose hunters and ranchers' attempts to wipe out predator species could have some connection, but still has its own horrors. Both are horrifying in unique ways.
All of these forces do involve the animalization/objectification/pest-ification of others (discussed in better detail in other books at the end) that can be a unifying factor, but that was not the author's focus. We can discuss how the roots of oppression, hierarchy, capitalism, fascism, and so on are the connecting threads between these things without making these sort of comparisons. I do not think Sanbonmatsu actually means to be making 1:1 pairings. But, the way things are written, it reads like he does. I think he needed a bit more practice and feedback regarding the minefield that these discussions occupy before spending so much of the book doing so.
My other issue is the pop psychology sections of the book wherein Sanbonmatsu compares our relationships to other animals with psychopathy and sociopathy. These sections show that he is a philosophy professor, not a psychology one. Much of the info is inaccurate in the same ways journalists writing about science and health can be. Much of it is irrelevant. It is much more apt to discuss industrialized humans in relation to other animals from a sociological/group dynamics perspective. People are not showing traits of individual sociopathy any more than anyone else (as we all have traits of most mental illness in lesser amounts.) People behave these ways because it's what everyone is doing, it's cultural, normative, and accepted, etc. That fits far better into the central thesis regarding Pollan strengthening these dynamics with horrific results. I would also be remiss if I did not mention that Sanbonmatsu discusses his outdoor cats without realization of both the threat this caused to them and how that impacts other animal populations in the area, particularly birds and rodents. A short anecdote, so this is my short response.
Part of why these flaws really get to me is that I believe that they could stop some people from finishing the book. Many people don't finish most books that they start as it is. Sanbonmatsu's book absolutely shines in the end. This is where we get into his academic field of philosophy. The discussions of personhood and consciousness are by far some of the best I have ever read. These are topics that have been written about and discussed for centuries so that is saying a lot. I put so many flags in that section that I eventually marked the entire chapters. I hope that anyone who may find themselves put off by some of the flaws with this book will simply skip over those parts rather than put the book down entirely. There are some really important thoughts in here that I hope reach a wider audience.
This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.
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*Note: initially thought Sanbonmatsu was joining VINE book club this month, so I put this off. But, it is actually going to be at the end of August. I will update after that if anything seems important to add.
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Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era Sarat Colling
How to Unite the Left on Animals John Tallent
Feminism in the Wild Ambika Kamath and Malina Packer
Transfarmation Leah Garces
Fear of the Animal Planet by Jason Hribal
Veganism in an Oppressive World Vegan of Color Community
Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals Ed. Best and Nocella
Fat Gay Vegan Sean O'Callaghan
There are a bunch more on my to-read list , but I did not list them since I have not read them yet or just forgot to. Many of them came highly recommended, particularly works by Lori Gruen and Claire Jean Kim.