 In his new book The Pig Who Sang to the Moon, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson continues the critical life's work he began with the groundbreaking When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals.
Masson understands the importance of repetition in achieving something
as enormous as changing an entire culture's belief system, and he is
patient and dispassionate in doing so. Like his previous books, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon
is a dense and methodical mix of scientific citations and compelling
anecdotes in defence of his continuing thesis: that animals are not
only intelligent, but also live rich and complex emotional lives.
Previous books have dealt with animals in the wild and with pets, and
the subject this time is the most difficult of all: Farm animals, which
Masson correctly points out should more properly be called 'farmed
animals'.
Masson understands how politically charged his subject is, and
carefully avoids overstatement, provocative language or grim
descriptions of factory farms that would raise defensive barriers. He
is trying to move fence-sitters here -- potential allies in the farming
community, social and political leaders, borderline vegetarians and
other writers who intuitively sense there is something terribly wrong
with raising animals in cramped, painful, mind-numbing, artificial
quarters just so we can slaughter them in astronomical quantities to
feed the never-ending explosion of human numbers. He'll cite a
well-researched report or a respected scientist and follow up with a
delightful, always positive, never confrontational story. He qualifies
almost every statement he makes, and almost apologetically leads you to
the obvious conclusion. He will not condemn our attitudes and actions,
preferring instead to explain and understand them, and then gently
suggest logical and compassionate alternatives. He explains the
atrocities (my word, not his) that are committed against farmed animals
by saying simply "it is in our own self-interest not to know them; it
is easiest to disconnect from whom we are eating if we know nothing at
all about them". Even his conclusion advocating a vegan diet and the
eschewing of leather, wool and down products starts with the word if.
And to the reader who doubts what difference one person acting on that
suggestion would make, he lists the number of animals spared suffering
by a single human vegetarian in one lifetime: 6 cows, 22 pigs, 30
sheep, 800 chickens, 50 turkeys, 15 ducks, 12 geese, 7 rabbits, and a
half a ton of fish. Masson confesses that he has not yet converted
completely to a vegan diet, but explains how quickly the vegan
alternatives to animal food products are improving in quality, taste
and variety. Like me, he's getting there, urged forward, one step at a
time, and he's likewise urging others on, one person at a time. The Pig Who Sang to the Moon is a charming and engaging book with an important message for all of us.
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