Jonathan Safran Foer's Essay 'Let Them Eat Dog'

Ricardo Olea-Nava
Professor Nagel
ENG 99
6/6/2018
Powerful Ambition
For a long time, ambition has been in humanity’s mind. When ambition captivates peoples’ thoughts, it empowers them to do everything out of their reach, to get what they want. The ambition of wanting power often affects, not only humanity but other species too. In the article, “Let Them Eat Dog,” vegetarian Jonathan Safran Foer believes “food is not rational, but is part of our culture, habit, craving and identity.” In his writing, Foer proves how different countries have their own opinion about what kind of meat they can eat. On the other hand, David P. Barash, a professor of psychology from the University of Washington, believes that everything that exists on earth is natural,
but it does not mean all-natural things are good. He gives examples of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and diseases like HIV as being natural but destroying other natural species. In comparison, Foer and Barash show how humanity and nature live in one small world and how we destroy each other. Because humans are obsessed with power, the need to have control over everything, even nature, creates greater satisfaction. Most of the time, people tend to believe they are more important than others, and to achieve that, they need power.
Power is the ability to influence people to perform in a specific way. The ambition of having power, has made humans influence other peoples’ lives and nature. For example, writer David Hume presented and criticized the “is-ought problem—the notion that we can derive what ought to be from an example of what is” (Barash 283). People are not satisfied with what is natural, so they want to go furthermore and try to change it, using any sources they have within their reach. We are unstoppable, the more we have the more we want. The need of having power can bring us benefits but also destruction. Some people might not have visible power, but they use their intellectual knowledge to pursue
others. Psychological power is a tool used to manipulate or influence others to do or stop them from doing something. We see many tv commercials where sales people try to sell their products by influencing our minds showing images of children, poverty, and abused animals. Foer, in his article “Let them Eat Dog”, tries to manipulate the emotions of pets’ owners. As he says in his article, “In America, millions of dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters every year become the food for our food”. Finding out about this, will most likely bring repulsive feelings from pet owners. Pet owners will probably stop buying those juicy wet food trays for their cat and dogs. This could also be manipulation from Foer. That is how people manipulate psychologically, by appealing to others’ emotions and most of the time making them think differently. For the same reason, people with this ability of controlling people minds either positively or negatively, will feel they are good at ruling among others. The power of leadership is something that attracts masses of people, both locally and globally.
People with good leadership qualities, is willing to change their life style to fit the life style of their followers. Although this may be true, some leaders use their power to oppress the people and rule among them with strong hand. That is how we become divided into two groups: “who gets eaten and who gets to eat” (Barash 286). We could say the eater is the person who is leading certain group and those who are eaten are the ones under his leadership. This happens when the leader wants to take advantage of those in his charge and for the same motive the person must leave that place and seek another refuge. It could be the reason why many people hate to be under the leadership of someone else. Surprisingly, even though we have all the power we can think of; some humans claim to be like
God. Many religions, especially Christianity in the US, believe there is an almighty creator, who created everything out of nothing. Even though science cannot disapprove the existence of God, they want to prove they can also be like God. Scientists wanted to show they can create a new life without the interference of Divine power, IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) for example. As the article “Two Cheers for Nature” says, “For decades the developers of the immensely beneficial medical option were vilified for ‘playing God’ by promoting unnatural ‘test-tubes’” (Barash 285). It might look like scientists are competing with God. Although they were criticized, they were successful on their role as creators by helping families that may not be able to have children naturally. We could say that in some way, humans are like God; they are creative, and they can love. They have a role model to follow, and in some cases, humans want to create their own ideal world, where they can fit everything according to their needs. When people open their eyes and discover the meaning of personal power, they usually find out they can do more than they knew. Even if others oppose, they still go after their success. When people have personal power, they are responsible for their own future and actions even if that means not living according to what other people expect. For example, when Foer says “The French, who love their dogs…eat their horses. The Spanish, who love their horses…eat their cows. The Indians, who love their cows… eat their dogs”, it means they have the personal power to not give importance to what others may think about what animals they eat; they just do. Each race has created their own environment and has chosen what or who to love and cannot been criticized because that is what they value. That is the power that most of us would love to have, but society makes us do and act like everybody else. As humans we probably forgot that all “living things find it pleasurable to eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, sleep when tired, obtain sexual satisfaction when aroused” (Barash 284). Without a doubt life is pleasant when nobody pushes you to do something you do not want. As ambitious people in having personal power, we should understand we choose our own destiny. We should not let anyone treat us like one of their pets, who are trained only to obey and compensated only when well behaved. There are distinct species living in this planet, fighting for survival, human vs human, animal vs animal, and human vs animal. We have come so far wanting to have control among all living creatures in this planet that even animals cannot escape from our obsession to reign over everything. With the same desire to live, animals try to adapt to the lifestyle that human beings give them. We treat some animals with respect, but kill others to satisfy our hunger, or just for fun, like hunting. As Foer quotes from George Orwell’s Animal Farm book, “All animal are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. We feel capable to choose who do we treat well and in wich category to put them: the smart ones and dumb ones, edible and the detestable. We do not know for sure when this started, but we love when our pets obey to our commands and we call them, good or bad according to their response. Here is where we have to think if what we are doing is right or wrong to what we are doing to them: “It is natural for horses to stand around in fields, eating and pooping and swatting flies. It is not natural for them to dance to music.” (Barash pp 282,283). It is contradictory how we like to control others, but we do not like to be controlled. The same way we try to tell our pets to obey our commands, is the same way we want people to believe what we believe or do what we think is right to do. Our world has many countries, therefore many cultures and we cannot take away from them what identifies them as such. We have enough to deal in our own habitat, therefore we don’t need to go into anybody else’s to rule over them. The power that humanity wants to have, often benefits and brings them pleasure, but could also hurt others. We want to adapt according to our needs without caring about others. Most times, we want people to behave like us to fit them in our society. Humanity competing against each other to see who is the strongest, this is how war starts. This will never end, because none of us would like to stay at the same level of power we are now. Each day we are growing in knowledge and that will help us to succeed in area we set out to. We should grow in power day by day without being influenced by others and without looking back because that will make us be satisfied in life. Works Cited
Barash, David P. “Two Cheers for Nature.” Culture: A Reader for Writers, edited by John Mauk, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 281-287.
Foer, Jonathan Safran. “Let Them Eat Dog.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 31 Oct. 2009, www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703574604574499880131341174.