Re: Thoreau on the Moose, Paul Theroux

[Karla Armbruster <armbruka@webster.edu>]

Going in a bit of a different direction:

I'm no fan of Palin's, and I'm not a hunter.  But I am always curious  
about why hunting generates such an outraged response (and equally  
outraged defense) when far more animals in this country are killed  
for food after miserable, insanity-inducing lives in factory farms  
and feedlots.  Theroux doesn't even address whether or not he eats  
factory-farmed meat, or meat at all (I'm guessing he doesn't eat  
hunted meat).  Clearly, it's not simply the life of an animal that is  
the issue.  (And I'm letting Thoreau off the hook here because,  
fortunately for him, he did not know about factory farms.  And he did  
pay some attention to domesticated animals, as Barney Nelson has  
pointed out in her book _The Domestic and the Wild_.)

Is this different level of interest due to the privileging of wild  
animals over domestic?  Is there something about the dignity of the  
wild at stake that catches our interest?  I am asking this as a  
genuine question — why hunting is so interesting to people and the  
treatment of animals in factory farms and feedlots is not — which I  
hope will enlarge the hunting discussion rather than criticize or  
silence it.

Karla

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Karla Armbruster, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair, English
Co-Chair, Environmental Studies
Webster University
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