Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog

Author:Hal Herzog
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

COCKFIGHTING AND HUMAN MORALITY

I am conflicted over many moral issues involving animals. Cockfighting, however, is not one of them. I liked many of the cockfighters I met in the course of my research, but, as was the case with slavery, their sport is a cruel and unjustifiable anachronism. It is time for rooster fighters to close down the pits and swap their gaffs for golf clubs and bass boats.

I am, however, still disturbed by what our attitudes about cockfighting say about moral hypocrisy and the fallibility of common sense in our relationships with other species. While the great chicken-eating public (of which I am a member) will sleep easy tonight knowing that cockfighting is now banned in every state, teams of chicken catchers from Maryland to California will enter darkened broiler houses and stuff 35 million terrified birds into wire crates in preparation for their journey to the processing plant tomorrow morning.

Back when I was doing my doctoral research on cockfighting, I took an organizer from Amnesty International named Tony Dunbar to a derby at the Ebbs Chapel pit. Tony’s day job was trying to save convicted murderers from execution. As we were driving home at 2 AM reeking of tobacco smoke and greasy cheeseburgers, I asked him what he thought of our evening rubbing shoulders with some of western North Carolina’s ace rooster fighters. After a pause, he said, “To me, cockfighting is a small moral problem.”

A lot of people would disagree. But I find it hard to escape the conclusion that, in comparison to the suffering that goes into producing a six-piece Chicken McNugget Happy Meal, he was right.

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