Member-only story
The Myth of Humane Slaughter
Lies we tell ourselves to help us sleep at night
“Did you know spiders are allergic to humans?”
Many years ago I had a friend who was always inventing weird ‘facts’ and repeating them as if they were absolute truth. His girlfriend was worried about spiders crawling on her face at night while she was asleep, so he told her with total confidence and sincerity that spiders are allergic to humans and will never crawl onto your skin if they can possibly avoid it.
It was a total lie, of course, but it reassured her enough that she could sleep soundly at night.
Sadly, not all the lies we tell ourselves (and each other) are as benign as that one.
The myth of ‘humane slaughter’ is a popular one, as it assuages the guilt people feel for taking someone’s life that was never theirs to take.
Like my friend’s white lie about spiders, it allows people to sleep soundly at night, but in contrast to that example it is far from harmless.
Most people don’t like to think too much about where the ‘food’ on their plate comes from, especially when that food used to be part of someone else’s body.
When they are forced to confront that reality, they like to convince themselves that the animals they are eating…
