In chapter 12 of The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan writes about his experience "'processing' broilers." During this time he assisted in the catching and crating, killing, plucking, gutting, and clean up afterwards of 300 hundred chickens. The first was definitely the most difficult for him, but while slitting the throats of the chickens that followed he became aware of the fact that it was no longer having an impact on his morals, as the first one had. It no longer seemed like taking a life, just something that was done. With each chicken he slaughtered it became that much easier to finish the next one. As he looked around he saw men doing this exact same thing for their entire lives and it no longer had even the slightest impact on them. He started to feel eerie about his sudden apathy, however realized that it was a part of the territory in the food industry. As Joel said "slaughter is dehumanizing work if you have to do it every day." Chicken is not necessarily a life form that is particularly lovable, but it is still a living organism and has the sensory to feel pain. This feeling, or lack of feeling, for that matter is quite frightening to me and it is disturbing to think that an act that can be considered immoral is able to become such a mundane task simply through repetition.
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I agree with what it is that you're saying here. It's become so easy for the industries to detach themselves from the act of killing in order to please the meat-crazy masses. Even as a small-town farmer with his close workers, these are real people, who are committing murder 300 times monthly just to please American citizens. Reading these chapters made it even more difficult for me to enjoy eating meat, which is something I do on a rare occasion knowing the process it goes through to become the food on my dinner plate.
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