In the recent presidential debate in the United States, Donald Trump said, in reference to immigrants:
In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.
This claim has been thoroughly debunked. As one Springfield police spokesperson said:
we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.
Trump was trying to pull a very old trick in the populist handbook. Throughout history, accusations of cannibalism and unusual eating habits have often been used as a tool for dehumanising and delegitimising specific groups. Such accusations were commonly employed by European colonisers against indigenous peoples in Africa, the Americas, Oceania, and other regions as a means to portray them as savage and uncivilised, justifying their subjugation, exploitation, and even extermination.
These narratives of cannibalism and unusual eating habits were not only used to create fear and misunderstanding among different cultures but also served as propaganda tools that facilitated the expansion of empires and helped maintain power dynamics that favored European interests over those of colonised peoples.
But for the sake of argument, let us suppose that Trump’s claim is true. If someone steals someone else’s pet to eat it, then certainly it is objectionable. Yet, the theft itself does not have the shocking effect that Trump was intending. If the claim were that migrants steal pigs and cows to eat them, probably few eyebrows would be raised; after all, these types of thefts do happen occasionally. The shocking effect pertains to the type of animals being eaten: dogs and cats.
The animals that are eaten each year in the Yulin festival in China are not stolen. Quite the opposite, they are raised and killed by farmers, and their meat is sold and eaten by attendees. Yet, this festival elicits particular animosity in many people, because the animal species served on dishes are dogs.
There are some legitimate concerns about the miserable conditions in which dogs are kept in cages in preparation for the festival. But this is where the hypocrisy begins. Those Westerners eager to criticise such conditions in far-away China ought to begin their activism closer to home. Farms and slaughterhouses in most – if not all – Western countries are not exactly humane. As Peter Singer sensibly points out in his classical manifesto Animal Liberation:
To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.
It is hard to find any significant moral difference between the Yulin festival and, say, Thanksgiving. If we come to agree that we have stronger obligations towards animals closer to us as a species – an assumption that would still be debatable – then perhaps eating dogs is worse than eating turkeys. Additionally, on account of their intelligence, cats and dogs probably have more elaborate consciousness than turkeys, so that might also lend some support to the idea that we are more justified in eating turkeys instead of dogs.
But what about pigs? Many studies suggest that pigs are as intelligent as dogs, if not more. Yet, few people in Western countries have moral qualms about the Saturday afternoon pork barbecue.
These inconsistencies reveal that most people’s judgments about which animals can and cannot be eaten are determined by specific cultural circumstances, and not substantial moral concerns. Anthropologists have long sought explanations for these variations in food taboos. For example, Marvin Harris famously explained that dogs are a food staple in China because that nation has traditionally struggled to find other sources of protein, and the advantages usually provided by dogs in Western societies – eg companionship – can be provided by other animals or humans. This explanation may or may not be accurate, but it does seem that, whatever the reason a society chooses not to eat a particular animal, it has little to do with morality itself.
Some people in Western nations might agree that there is a huge moral inconsistency in opposing the consumption of dogs and cats while thoroughly enjoying pork chops and Big Macs. These people would be willing to remain silent about the Yulin festival, provided dog-eating stays in China. But in their view, if a Haitian immigrant eats a dog in Springfield, that is unacceptable. As per their argument, dogs and cats have become lovable companion species in Western countries, so eating such animals hurts the sensitivity of most people and should therefore be outlawed.
This is not a very good point, for the same reason that blasphemy should not be considered a crime. By and large – some extreme cases might still be open to discussion – the offensive character of an act should not count towards its morality or legality. If you are offended by someone eating dogs, look the other way; bear in mind that many of your eating habits probably offend other people, too.
Furthermore, in claiming that eating dogs would be fine in China but not in the United States, there is a stench of moral relativism. Many post-modern critics have regrettably engaged in this intellectual vice, often claiming that human sacrifice would be morally wrong in 21st Century London, but it was not morally wrong in 16th Century Tenochtitlan because ultimately, morality is relative to the cultural context. Similar things are said about female genital mutilation, foot binding, and a host of other barbarous practices in non-Western nations, all in the name of postcolonial liberation. I counter that sound morality is universal. While there may be space for context dependence in some cases, most actions are universally right or wrong. Consequently, eating a dog – or a pig – is either right or wrong, regardless of whether it is in Yulin or Springfield.
Ultimately, if you are fully concerned about the welfare of animals, you have no other option but to become a vegetarian. It is of course hard being a vegetarian, and possibly there is no such moral requirement. Perhaps the ontological gap between our species and the rest allows us to eat animals. But moral consistency is a requirement, and if you oppose eating dogs and cats, then you must also oppose eating pigs and cows. If you choose not to be a vegetarian and enjoy that delicious steak, then you must refrain from criticising an immigrant for eating a dog. Arbitrarily deciding to oppose one but not the other, is a form of bigotry. Bigotry is a universal wrong, and it is the kind of moral flaw to which a demagogue like Trump was pandering in his now infamous remarks.
