Aristotle had cautioned against the kind of active probing of Nature on which modern science is founded. He doubted that setting up artificial conditions, under which to observe the reactions of natural things, could produce a true understanding of their real nature. Knowledge of things as they are in their own right could only be achieved through attentive observation. Tampering, in what is now known as ‘controlled experiment’, would instead produce freakish departures from reality he called “monsters of nature.”

But such tampering is how we achieved mastery of the planet. The whole of our civilization could be considered a controlled experiment, in which we ourselves, along with our fellow creatures, figure as the guinea pigs. Overfed, overcrowded and over stimulated, drugged and domesticated like the species upon which we feed, have we not ourselves become Monsters of Nature?

And have we not come to this pass particularly through our treatment of animals? Industrialized food production involves moral as well as chemical pollution. The horrendous practices of slaughterhouses and other treatment of animals is shocking.

Like the citizens of a fascist state, we don’t want to know what goes on in the hidden concentration camps that feed us. But we pay a price for the illusion of being well fed. Hence, the convenience culture is literally malnourished in the midst of overabundance. Similarly, we do not know what goes on in the hidden corridors of power; we are to our masters as the beasts we raise for food are to us. And to quote Tolstoy: “as long as there are slaughterhouses there will be war.”

Is humanity still acting out an age-old revenge against Nature—for the humiliations of being embodied in squishy, smelly, vulnerable, mortal flesh? We’ve done our best to replace the wild with a hard-edged world of our own design. But we haven’t escaped the moral dilemma of being obliged to eat other creatures in order to exist, to kill others of our kind. On the contrary, our guilt has been compounded by systematically punishing the victims for our need. Killing is no dilemma for natural carnivores, but industrialized slaughter must be problematic for a self-conscious omnivore imbued with a moral sense. It will be increasingly a technical dilemma as well, as our ability to maintain wasteful food production wanes with diminishing resources.

With all our technological prowess, one would think that morally and ecologically responsible food production would be a research priority. The ultimate moral exoneration would be to free humanity entirely from the food chain! If, emulating plants, we could manage to produce what we need directly from sunlight, water, air and minerals, we might finally achieve the freedom from beastliness only dreamed of in religion.