I've written about him before, and I'll probably write about him again. Chris Hedges is the fuckin' man, man. And he's back on BookTV even as we speak (so to speak), but don't worry, 'cause you can watch the whole thing online if'n you wants to. And I really think that you should.
I'd throw down some quotes, but I gots to go watch this thing. But I will say this: within a couple of minutes he quoted John Ralston Saul and Noam Chomsky. Sigh. He had me at Rebellion.
Ex Post LibroOculus: Too many great lines to set them all down here, so just a little taste (or two):
"We cannot use the word "hope" if we are not willing to rebel."
and (and this one is from memory, so it may not be exact, but it gets the main points)
"You've got to give Clinton his due: he turned the Democratic Party into the Republican Party, and he pushed the Republican Party so far to the right that they became insane."
7 comments:
I've been a great admirer of Chris Hedges for some time, always read his weekly article on Truthdig, in fact had an interview of his pulled up on the interweb when I checked your blog, but started smelling something funny back in January when I read this:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/all_forms_of_life_are_sacred_20150104
Then again last month he published a similar article:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/choosing_life_20150419
and now I'm not so sure what to think of him. I even got myself into a futile dialogue with "abolitionist vegans" in the comments section of these articles. I've never engaged in comments section squabbling, but I felt compelled to, having felt so insulted by someone I so respected. I don't wish to repeat my same arguments here, but I do wonder what you think of this Chris Hedges. Am I utterly immoral, akin to a rapist, for raising chickens?
A fellow farmer friend of mine, also once a fan of Hedges, told me that he thinks it's the PTSD that is ravaging his brain, making him latch on to things with an insane fervor.
I could go on--but what do you think?
Just read the first article, and I felt like I had wandered into the wrong living room by mistake. I don't know this Chris Hedges. I don't agree with this Chris Hedges, either. I thought it was interesting that the majority of this article was not Hedges himself speaking, though. Using Gary Francione's words to such an extent seems a little suspicious to me . . . almost as if Hedges isn't really sure of his position, so he uses someone who is sure as his avatar.
A few thoughts:
(1) Turning dogs into vegans is somewhere between cruel and really funny. Also interesting that the fact that many (most?) animals eat other animals never enters into the discussion. In fact, if instead of taking the Francione route--which basically says that animals are humans--we take the opposite route--that humans are animals--then I think we see that eating animals is just what animals do. Plus we've got the teeth for it.
(2) Quoth the Francione: “I am not interested in discussions about the cruelty of factory farming. It does not matter. It is not a question of whether you go into the woods, buy a small farm and the animals come into the house at night so you can all play cards. The entire institution of animal exploitation is wrong. Our moral thinking about animals is terribly confused.” Well, first off, there is obviously a difference between factory farming and family farming, and you'd have to be a complete moron not to recognize that fact. (I include Screeners in the moron category.) I also find that bit about playing cards with your animals to be significant. Sure, he means to be funny. But I think he's also showing his hand (to extend the metaphor.) Francione does, indeed, think of animals as humans. And they're not.
(3) Quot the Francione: “The idea that ... animals [are] of lesser moral value is dangerous,” he added. “It creates hierarchies that can also be used within human communities. Interesting to me that this is the same logic that is used by fundamentalists to oppose gay marriage. The good old "What's next, you let people marry chickens?" argument. (Hmmm. I am thinking that Francione would probably be okay with the marrying of chickens. You could sit around the table and play cards after your vegan dinner.)
So I guess I have to say that I'm disappointed in Chris Hedges. Not enough to discount what he says about American foreign policy, which I think is usually brilliant. But--and I'm sorry to say this, but nothing is truer than truth--like every Christian I've ever met, he seems to have a gigantic blind spot. And inside of that bind spot is a little black hole, and it pulls everything into it: logic, sense of proportion, etc.
Ahmo gonna read the second article, but I have to catch my breath first. But I don't think you're a rapist or a concentration camp commandant. And I just ate some baked chicken with my kids the other night, and it was good, and we were grateful for the nourishment it provided us, and if we saw someone being mean to a chicken we would beat the hell out of them.
To be continued . . . .
I just finished reading the second article. On the one hand, at least Chris spoke more directly--from his perspective--this time around. On the other hand, it's just more of the same. Playing the Nazi Death Camp card just doesn't work for me here. I agree that it is immoral to mistreat animals. I don't agree that it's immoral to eat them. Not to be specious, but what are animals for, anyway? One of the comments in this article which caught my eye was "animal agriculture is the primary engine behind the ecological devastation of the planet." I've heard that before, and it certainly is very troubling. But then I have to wonder, how would that be different without animal agriculture? And the only answer I could come up with was that the animals would be spread out over a greater area. I guess that makes sense. It also sounds like an argument against factory farms and for the small farmer.
BTW, I also took a little peek at another Chris Hedges article on this subject--"Saving the Planet, One Meal at a Time" which was posted on Nov 9, 2014. I think the first line of that is significant: "My attitude toward becoming a vegan was similar to Augustine’s attitude toward becoming celibate—'God grant me abstinence, but not yet.'” Humorous, yes. Catchy, too. And shows--or purports to show--the fact that becoming a vegan was a struggle. But then there's that other aspect of using this quotation: he's comparing himself to St. Augustine. And in a way, that's what those other two articles are about: I am saved and you are not. Until you accept veganism as your digestive tract's personal savior, you will be mired in sin . . . no better than the commandant of a concentration camp.
Well, fuck that shit, man. I've got nothing against vegans or vegetarians. I even tried to be vegetarian for awhile. Which affirmed what Denis Leary said about vegetarians: "Sure, they live five years longer, but they spend those five years in the bathroom." But hey, if you want to go all Christian-y about this issue, I seem to recall that Jesus put down his fair share of fish. My understanding is that Chris Hedges is a Christian . . . so does that mean that he believes that his (personal) savior is on the same level of moral decrepitude as Franz Stangl? Now THAT's fucked up.
Glad to read your thoughts. Like you say, I had trouble squaring up the Chris Hedges I was familiar with and this Francione follower. The born-again fire-breathing vegan has not changed my respect for his revolutionary thoughts, but some doubt has certainly crept in: where else is his thinking so religiously anti-rational and extremist?
I only commented on the "all forms of life" article because I could not figure out a way to communicate directly with Hedges and wondered if anyone had any idea as to how his previously expressed respect for Wendell Berry could fit with this animal-agriculture-is-evil stance. Mr. Berry raises sheep, which by this abolitionist vegan (AV) logic means he is as dangerous as Hitler. My comment plunged me into a morass of typical internet idiocy and gave me more insight into what the AV community believes. I found--as you sniffed out rather quickly--that here was a dyed in the wool religious group, following each other around, patting each other on the back, assured of their salvation. If I made a point that the good lawyer Prof Francione had prepared a response for, they would quote him, as if the last word had been spoken. If I made a point that he did not have a ready-made answer for, silence would resound. At the heart of all of it was a sanctimoniousness that, like other sanctimoniousnesses, made me sick.
If pressed, the AV's will eventually acknowledge that what they are calling for is the extinction of domesticated species. After all, no John Brown is going to swoop in and set me chickens free, make them equals of humans, give them the right to vote, housing, getting a job. My chickens set free quickly become food for their myriad predators and die violent deaths. They are thoroughly domesticated and dependent on us. Same goes for the dog, which should not exist, because its existence is slavery.
One thing this further impressed on me is the distance most people are from the food they eat. These self-righteous folks feel morally superior because they buy or don't buy certain products in the store. They are saving the planet and great lovers of animals because of their consumer choices. People who grow food realize that the reality of food production is not so simplistic: animal manures have always been the source of fertility in the fields, animals are killed in vegetable fields, vegetable agriculture is very destructive by nature. One can remove animals from the equation on their grocery list, but they are an essential link in soil health. A truly sustainable farm has a balance of animals and plants.
My favorite quote about vegetarians comes from Joseph Campbell: "A vegetarian is someone who can't hear a carrot scream." Believe me, though, Francione has skillfully destroyed this argument with a hierarchy of sentience, which is funny because he doesn't believe in hierarchies.
I found the second article more angering, actually, as it seemed pathetic to me for Hedges to use his platform to write another piece painting a farmer as an unthinking tool. By all means, tear down the tyrants, Chris, but there's nothing terribly virtuous about looking down on a farmer. As I said to one of the AV commenters after she gave the "family farms are no different than factory farms" bit--on behalf of all farmers, go grow your own damn food.
I agree that animal agriculture as (mostly) practiced today is terribly destructive. But it doesn't follow from this fact that raising animals inevitably destroys the planet. I could write the sentence, "Higher education is the primary engine behind the intellectual devastation of people," but it wouldn't follow that education should no longer exist. We're back to the oxymoron of Christian thinking.
All very frustrating and disappointing to me from Hedges. He surely can't expect a lot of support for his revolt if he feels the need to tell all of us who have anything to do with animals that we are damned.
Mos def. I am totally with you on the viciousness of that second article vis a vis the farmer mentioned, and should have commented on the unfairness of that.
I, too, would love to hear what Hedges has to say about Wendell Berry. I'd also love to hear what Wendell Berry would have to say to Hedges. Any chance of that happening, you think?
Loved the Campbell quote, and your point about the involvement of animals in the vegetable agriculture cycle is spot on. Wish I'd thought of that. I'll have to confess that my favorite quote about vegetarians comes for a crass, politically incorrect t-shirt: "Vegetarian is an old Indian word for bad hunter." Which I look at with a partially serious eye, actually. As you said, the people raising their voices on this are, at least for the most part, not raising their own food. So to them, I echo your words and add slight amplification: Grown your own fuckin food, then talk to me about growing food.
Y'know, the more I think about this the more I feel dislike and disdain for Hedges (who, I'm just noticing, used to be Chris) creeping into my brain pan. He has been so important to me as a voice of reason and courageous opposition to tyranny . . . but this . . . . Well. I'm going to keep my eye and ear on this fucker henceforth.
Thanks for the exchange, btw. I looked for your comments on the articles, but either (1) you used a handle I'm not familiar with or (2) there are several billion pages of comments and I pooped out before I got to you. Or (3) I am old and not as observant as I used to be.
Now I am going to go cook a hamburger, and as I chew each bite twenty-five times I am going to think--with each separate act of mastication--, "Fuck you, Chris Hedges. This is Laura's Lean Beef, jackass."
Cook a hamburger? Beware the slippery slope, my friend. Next thing you know you'll be torturing inferior human creatures.
There were definitely billions too many comments on the article; you'd have easily identified me by my handle. But I'm glad you got yourself out of that landfill before it drowned you.
I do think Hedges deserves a hearty "Go fuck yourself," but then there's this:
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/video_chris_hedges_on_the_wages_of_rebellion_20150601
which is the good Hedges, or Chris.
I'll keep listening to him on matters of rebellion and try to disregard the hocus pocus transfiguration self-sainthood bullshit.
Slip slidin' away, man. Thanks for the new link, though. Good to know that there's still that in him.
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