This weeks episode of This American Life had a segment about a man who created cruelty-free foie gras. For anyone who doesnt know, foie gras is a French dish that involves force-feeding geese to give them super huge, fatty, delicious livers. It is a point of moral contention for many chefs. Anyway, the man used the natural instinct of the goose to gorge itself in the winter-- a compulsion it only experiences when it feels wild and forages rather than being fenced in and fed regular meals which negate the desire to bulk up for winter. He used no fences, accepting a 20% loss from predation until the geese are old enough to defend themselves. Then he littered his property with all sorts of goodies like dates and nuts, in addition to the variety of wild mustard grasses that grew on his property. The result was a goose haven so perfect that wild geese began visiting and staying there, rather than flying north or south looking for better foraging grounds. His geese live wonderful, mostly natural and free lives, and apparently his foie gras is basically the tastiest in the world due to the varied diet of his geese. This story just seems like the perfect metaphor for the source of my constant moral anguish. A lot of people think about every issue in terms of lesser evils. They lock themselves into accepting unacceptable cruelty because their imagination is limited. They call this realism, and it may have a place in some select situations, but I think it is something we fall back on waaaay too quickly, and it really hurts our ability to create new, innovative solutions to our problems. Chefs all over the world have been swallowing the guilt of supporting a cruel product because they thought their only alternative was to abstain. I look at the story of the happy foie gras geese and am filled with joy at the example of a life made successful by an actual, innovative solution to a problem-- a contribution that favors neither moralistic austerity (abstaining from the guilty pleasure of the dish) nor excusing cruelty in the name of enjoyment. He created a plan without a downside. And yet it also makes me very sad, because it is a reminder that such things are possible, and of just how limiting our society is. I mourn for the loss of so many beautiful minds to the corporate rat race, when we could be building a world of mutually beneficial solutions and real community, if we were just empowered to follow our passions rather than building our lives around the escape from highly possible poverty. Here, if you stop you starve. How can anyone truly enjoy that kind of life? And what else is life for?
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 18:38:51 +0000
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