Plants and Reactions
Zinnia flower
Yesterday, Kelly posted about the discovery of tool-using veined octopi. How cool is that? We’ve known octopi could manipulate objects, like opening jars to access food. Still, people will no doubt be surprised to discover that an ocean-dwelling invertebrate, an animal without a skeleton, shows such amazing cognitive feats.
Every time vegans learn more about the amazing animals sharing our planet, we grab onto that information and add it to our arsenal of arguments in favor of, you know, not eating them. We parade the videos, showcase the photos, share the personal experiences – look at us, we implore, see how these other animals are smart, fascinating and engaging!!
But the moment plants are brought up, it’s as if we transform into defensive omnivores. What?!? How dare you claim plants might suffer? Are you stupid, plants can’t move, why would they experience pain?!? Your arguments are laughable and inane! Which is, of course, how nearly every vegan blogger reacted when they read Natalie Angier’s New York Times article titled “Sorry, Vegans: Brussel Sprouts Like to Live, Too.” Some of the posts were so vituperative, so unnecessarily angry that I couldn’t help but think of similar responses I’ve read from angry omnivores, ornery hunters, pissed-off farmers.
Let me say this about Angier’s story: It would have served a far more educational purpose had she left out veganism entirely. I think that is where most of the vegan-ire really comes from, the same-old-same-old we get from disinterested, argumentative non-vegans – plants suffer too, you’re so evil for eating them! Eat the animals instead, save the plants!
Taking a step back here is fair, I think. When I was in college, I learned that in 1993 the American Medical Association (AMA) finally conceded that infants felt pain. 1993, people. This wasn’t true in 1981 when a doctor inserted a needle into my infant-back without anesthesia. For a long time, doctors performed painful procedures on infants under the ignorant and tragically wrong belief, supported by their science, that infants did not feel pain or, if they did, it wasn’t the same as pain experienced by an adult. If it took American doctors that long to acknowledge the real existence of pain in infants, it should come as no surprise that acknowledging the real existence of pain in nonhuman animals would take as long, if not longer. There are still behaviorists, farmers, veterinarians, vivisectionists who will stare you straight in the eyes and say with certainty that dogs, pigs, cattle, chickens, cats do not feel pain or they may blithely accept the pain factor but qualitatively deny emotions and superior cognitive abilities. Supporting evidence, be damned!
If we have only come this far understanding mammals, birds, reptiles and other nonhuman animals, imagine how much we need to learn about those seemingly stationary, unmoving plants keeping this planet alive?
I accept there is a lot about plants I don’t know. I’ll go out on a limb and say that’s true for most of us who don’t study them extensively, either professionally or as botanists/master gardeners. I find the new knowledge we learn about plants to be incredibly interesting. And if it is true that plants do feel plant-pain or engage in complex feats of intellect, I will have to take a serious look at my diet. That’s fair.
I’ll probably still come to this conclusion: No matter how you look at it, from an environmental or compassionate perspective, veganism offers us the least-cruel, most sustainable diet. There is no avoiding that reality. In order to eat meat and eggs, and drink milk, you have to grow expansive fields of plants. More plants must be killed to maintain a standard american diet than a vegan one, for sure. Considering the possibility that we don’t know everything about plants we like to think we know doesn’t mean we have to eschew our ethics. It just means we have to be cognizant of the fact that there is still so much of this world, this universe we simply don’t understand.
Stephanie Ernst
Marji
Kelly G.
Deb
Mary Martin
The plant argument is about speciesism and dishonesty plain and simple. We are told by people like Natalie Angier all the time to look at humans similarities rather than our differences. Natalie is a smart woman I’ve read her essays before. She is always about reason and evidence..always. Yet when the subject of sentient conscious beings killed by humans for meals and clothing comes up…all the rational thought drops away and defensive excuses take over.
To prove my point that its about speciesism and being dishonest and not really about caring for plants feelings or their inherent rights, just imagine some moral philosopher or op ed columnist raising seriously the rights of brussel sprouts or cabbage after being shown a graphic documentary about children being brutally killed in Darfur.
Would any of these plant rights people make a reflective jump directly from human women and children being slaughtered to lets say heads of lettuce needing to be protected immediately as well?
I think not. Yet this leap from chimpanzees, chickens, dolphins and directly pigs to the rights of carrots and mushrooms happens like swiss clock work without fail whenever the morality of killing non human animals is discussed.
I don’t disagree when the argument is that veganism is invalid. And I think your point is well-taken.
At the same time, it isn’t useful to completely disregard the issues brought up. We know so little about plants, and to get irate (not you) about the possibility that they are more complex than currently known isn’t helpful.
I like that you took an approach different from what we usually see here. It’s maddening when people use the potential of what plants may experience as an illogical, self-serving argument against veganism, dismissing that eating animals requires the killing of more plants than eating plants directly does, but you’re right that we simply don’t know everything about plants and should be open to learning and considering the (pretty wondrous) possibilities. I can’t imagine there’s anything we could learn that will suddenly make it somehow more ethical to eat animals than plants, but like you said, we can do better than outright dismissing information just because it challenges what we think we know or because others may misuse that information.
That said, the irritation with Angier makes sense to me, given that she makes such comments as “Food choices are often like that: difficult to articulate yet strongly held,” when vegans can articulate the reasons for their food choices pretty clearly, even in the context of potential plant pain, and given that she essentially equates the eating of plants and the eating of animals near the start of the article.
If she’d just left the comments about animals and veganism out of the mix — and hadn’t set it up like this was some sort of proof that eating plants causes as much suffering & death as eating animals — I would have found it an entirely fascinating piece; the tree-hugging part of me that finds such peace in forested spaces and such intricate beauty in the tendrils of flowers and the edges of leaves would have been mesmerized. But the AR-advocating vegan part of me coudln’t help but roll my eyes at her title, at what she was implying, and at some of her flippant remarks.
It’s the fallacious argument that because plants feel pain that we should just keep eating animals that really bothers me. Taking a strictly utilitarian approach, it’s obvious a vegan diet reduces the suffering of the most number of “creatures”, from nonhuman animals to plants to humans as well.
I really wish she had just left out veganism – it just makes people angry and detracts from the interesting factoids and information she proffered. As evidenced by the commenters and other bloggers, the issue becomes one of veganism v. eating animals instead of challenging our understanding of the plant world.
Yeah, her title was definitely an eye-roller!
Finally! Not only was I not offended by the article but I was intrigued by the cool stuff we’re learning about plants. My own veganism isn’t so shaky as to get all riled up by a cheap journalistic ploy. A majority of the kneejerk vegan reactions did smack of the same cognitive dissonance defensiveness for which non-vegan people often resort when faced with vegan issues. I welcome the opportunity it brings to talk about the nuances of speciesism with vegan and non vegan people alike.
Thanks for your refreshing take!
Thanks, David – I, of course, couldn’t agree more!
OK how about this.
We give Natalie or any other person who is pretending that plants and animals are equal.
(I’m not saying plants don’t count) I’m not being an irate vegan. I just know in the real world my cats my dog feel more than do avocados.
So…At Natalie’s or every other pro plant person’s next dinner party they have the option to either slice up a live raw head of cabbage in front of their dinner guests or a live rabbit.
Seriously, I’m not trying to be clever here.. just real. Just truthful.
This plant sentience argument is fine in a mystical context but to take seriously in the same breath as animal rights? I’m just tired of it. Weary of having conscious animals with brains and nervous systems disregarded.
How come no one brings up the feelings of plants when we were having a national debate about torture? Speciesism..that’s why.
How come no journalists or big time chefs criticize Amnesty international for not caring about kale? Speciesism.
Yet these same people (famous chefs especially) will attack a vegan who speaks out against raising and killing animals for food.
I’m over it.
Where was Natalie with her brussel sprout piece when the country was angry at Michael Vick? Why didn’t she come out then and attack the anti dog fighting sentiment going around the media as over looking the feelings of vegetables being ground up, hung up and killed? Because she would have been seen as WRONG!
Yet no problem with her attacking vegans for caring about farmed animals.
The problem is in this context its not that we vegans are angry, its just that its we are never allowed to stand up for animals…ever!
I’m sorry…but yeah the discussion about plants is cool and all…but this is not an appropriate serious argument to even have in the context of ANIMAL rights and oppression…and if you don’t agree…. then I sure don’t want to go to your next dinner party!
With all due respect, Philip, I think you’re misinterpreting the intent of this conversation. I’m sure we all agree that it’s ridiculous for people to claim concern for plant pain while they chow down on animals. And it seems we agree about how problematic Angier’s eye-rolling approach was. I don’t think anyone here is arguing.
All I’m taking from Marji’s post is that we shouldn’t just defensively dismiss information.
We can point out how the information and possibilities don’t make it any more ethical to kill & eat animals without shouting down the information itself. We can’t claim to be on the side of truth and logic if we wave away any scientific info that, like I said, others may defensively misuse. We just have to let them not misuse it. Let’s argue against the illogical arguments omnivores make and their misuse or potential exaggeration of such information, but let’s just not shout down the exciting revelations themselves.
Finally, I understand that you admirably feel strongly and passionately about animals — as you should and as we all do — but this post is perfectly appropriate for this space. This blog is expressly intended to explore both animal rights issues and issues beyond animal rights, and this post fits perfectly well here, as a discussion not only relevant to how vegans interact with new information but also relevant to our concern for and interest in the natural world.
Oh..I certainly did not mean (to be mean) that this subject should not have a discussion.
I was not at all implying that this website was not a good place to discuss plants and sentience at all. I was merely expressing I’m weary of this discussion with people who defend eating animals by claiming we are slaughtering plants! I’m really over the comparisons of broccoli to cows.
There is a difference.
And I in no way was attacking you Marji…I apologize if it seemed that way.
However, we do (not me personally) know a huge amount about plants. The research is thorough and incredible. Saying we don’t know a lot about plants is very iffy..in my opinion and verges on saying …well, we don’t know enough about evolution to claim for sure that it is fact. Well we do know evolution happened. Do we have every answer? NO.. true. But the research shows… we do know that plants do not feel in the way you or I do or in the way cats, crows or crickets feel.
I’m just tired of people leaving animals so out of the conversation when it comes to their suffering. My point above was that most humans who defend eating killing animals will jump right from human rights to plant rights and the non human animals get left out.
Can you imagine having a discussion about the holocaust with someone who defends killing jews by bringing up the notion that well we don’t know yet if plants feel pain either.
That’s the way I feel about this conversation…not with you…but with people who defend being cruel to non human animals…and think its clever to defend killing them by bringing up the plant argument.
I agree with you we don’t know everything about plant life insect life or even rabbit life.
I agree that you don’t know if I’m a conscious Zombie or not..I may just be a robot living in your conscious world. You don’t know for sure…true!
I once had a conversation with someone who was a very good friend of a friend..who went wolf hunting and used the excuse that my house was built from wood and that trees had to be killed for me to live. They are not the same, trees and wolves.
I’m tired …weary of it!!
Much respect,
Philip
Philip, there is a reality here: We don’t know everything there is to know about plant life. Just like we don’t know everything there is to know about marine life or insect life or rainforest life or outer-universe life.
I’m not suggesting you turn your ethics upside down. I’m not stating that plants = animals on an ethical scale. I’m asking readers to a) think about how they react to these arguments (replace “plant” with “cow” and you’ll see the defensive omni alive and well) and b) stop outright dismissing the idea that there is a lot about plants we don’t know…you know, keep an open mind.
As to whether this is appropriate – your response certainly makes me think it is. :)
Royce at Vegans of Color wrote about this topic yesterday, as well. I like his observation that we’ve come to recognize that there are different types of pain and suffering; in addition to physical pain, there’s emotional / psychic / spiritual pain. Perhaps plants can experience a form of pain, suffering or even frustration (e.g., of growth thwarted?) that we cannot even fathom?
Of course, Angier is obviously using the possibility of plant suffering as a red herring; if she cared a whit about pain and suffering – of humans, of nonhumans, of plants, of the planet – she’d see this information as a reason to go vegan, rather than bait vegans.
Feed me, Seymour, feed me!
Plants, or at least trees, can communicate: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Do-Trees-Talk-45806.shtml
Plants do react to some degree to external stimuli.
They don’t feel in the same way that we do, or that any species in the animal kingdom does; they certainly don’t have a nervous system. But, as was Marji’s point, that’s the same argument that was used against humans, and animals as well. I remember growing up being told that our dog (or was it one of our cats?) didn’t need pain medication after being spayed because “animals don’t feel pain the same way that humans do.”
We don’t know *how* animals feel pain. For that matter, we don’t know how other humans feel pain, we only know how we feel it ourselves. (And we know for certain that different individuals have different “pain tolerance” levels.)
It just doesn’t matter how, or whether it is the same.
The good news is that if anyone was truly worried about the pain and suffering they were causing plants by eating them, not only should they remind themselves of Marji’s point (eating animals kills more plants than eating plants directly), but that person could also decide to become a fruititarian. Fruit is how certain plants reproduce, fruit is designed to be ingested and digested, and that is how a stationary plant spreads its seeds far and wide. We would be helping a plant by eating its fruit, not causing it suffering.
Kelly, I like your use of the word “bait” there. It reminds me of what anglers set out to lure unsuspecting fish onto their hooks. I guess the key for us is to recognize the bait and not take it, huh?
Deb, that’s a good point about fruit. Wouldn’t it also apply to many veggies: beans, tomatoes, radishes, corn, etc.? And also to nuts on trees? When we accept these gifts from nature, we’re not chopping or uprooting a plant — no killing is involved. Only thankfulness for an abundant harvest.
Philip, I understand where you’re coming from, you make some great analogies, your point about dishonest motives is well taken, and I think the ignorance, arrogance, and childish “gotcha” attitude displayed by this reporter is just as sad as the response of Marji’s college professor in her story about the poor piglets.