It's a Dog Eating World



 

Caged cats after being rescued by China Small
Animal Protection Association from a market in in Beijing where
 cats and dogs are traded for meat and fur. Photograph: AP



                    Mostly everyone is familiar with the phrase “Man’s best friend”, in a kindly reference to typical dog as a pet. However, in one article written by Jonathan Watts, there is controversial over the widespread and ancient practice of eating dog meat. A distasteful move for China is growing affluent, pet loving middle class. Entitled “Chinese legal experts call for ban on eating cats and dogs”, there is no doubt that this article represents the cultural hegemony and the resurgence of cultural essentialism.  Published on Tuesday 26 January 2010, Chinese legal experts are proposing a ban on eating dogs and cats in a contentious move to end a culinary tradition that dates back thousands of years ago. In relations to the Makah tribe of northwest Washington, in ancient times, dog meat like whale meat was considered a medicinal tonic. However today, the meat is commonly available through the country, but in recent years, such traditions are increasingly criticized by an affluent, pet-loving, urban middle class. Nevertheless, the plan for banning dog meat has stirred up fierce debate between animal welfare groups and defenders of traditional values.

           Watts article is an excellent example of cultural essentialism. In class we watched the TED video “Wade Davis on endangered cultures”, about how there are multiple forms of human existence, a mass extinction of languages, culture worlds, in response to what Greta Gaard “Tools for a Cross- Cultural Feminist Ethics: Exploring Ethical Contexts and Contents in the Makah Whale Hunt” called the truncated narrative. Truncated narrative is wrenching a small part of a narrative or ethical practice out of the historical and cultural context. This view goes along with the term of heroic ethic, when ethics are designed to treat the symptoms of the problem at the point at which conflict occurs, seeing only random metaphors and isolated problems- rather than the entire diseased worldview.  In contrast, cultural essentialism disregards the diversity within and variation of culture over time. The idea that there is a timeless feature, that if it were changed or eliminated from a way of life, it would signify a fundamentally different culture.

        Hence, the Chinese must stop the proposal of banning cats and dogs, but offer a solidarity agreement of feelings or actions. The urban middle class ethical dialogue may cause many problems. Watts states, “The drafters of the new proposal want far more drastic measures, which would oblige law enforcement authorities to close down thousands of dog restaurants and butchers which supply the meat”. As the dominant “culture”, the Chinese animal eating is no longer seen as a supposed “warming quality”.  The media coverage of this is getting explosive. Online petitions against dog and cat consumption have attracted tens of thousands of signatures, the most popular videos showing the maltreatment of farmed dogs spurring protests at markets where animals are bought and sold.  Through this type of media criticism, a new dominance over the aspects of a particular culture arises. However, it is far from certain that the government or the National People’s Congress will adopt the draft. 




Photo By:  M Scott Brauer, A Yangshuo dog butcher at work.



This article also falls into the paradox of the above mention article by Gaard, she discuss:

 “ World –travelling means no just visiting as a tourist a community to which one is an outsider, but actually allowing one’s identity to be reshaped as a result of this repositioning, and allowing one’s perspective to identify with that community as well. It is a kind of double vision, shifting from mainstream culture to marginalized culture that is held by cultural border-crosses…” Gaard, pg 22).

           Watts article does not give us a responsible view on the rights of animals, but rather than an illusory one. In place of a practical more of how to live within a culture, it suggests we must live together, and share the same inheritance.
Thus instead of focusing one’s attention on the devastating idea of killing dogs and cats for food, why not question the nature of killing pigs, cows and sheep. Just like Americans who travel for example to a place like China, and view this practice as through the ethnocentric of one’s self. The world-traveler displaces this view and lets us see their culture through their eyes, not through our own. However, one class may try to practice colonialism over the thoughts and actions of the oppressed. At blame is not, what Greta Gaard might argue, ethical context and contents, but rather egocentrism or society in general.

For More information and about the Reference Click on the below links:

TED Video staring Wade Davis Endangered Cultures http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

"Chinese legal experts call for ban on eating cats and dogs"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/26/dog-meat-china

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/11/dogs-vs-pigs-why-do-we-eat-what-we-eat-ctd-1.html

Gaard, Greta. "Tools for a Cross- Cultural Feminist Ethics: Exploring Ethical Contexts and Contents in the Makah Whale Hunt." Hypatia vol. 16, no.1 (2001): 1-22.

By Briana Echols