"Without animal rights groups, moreover, it would all go almost completely unremarked... Feared for the truths they might tell, animal rights champions do not deserve our scorn. They deserve our admiration and our gratitude, here above all. Sometimes the most courageous thing is to state the obvious, and that is what they are doing when they tell us that to treat animals in such a way is cruel, abhorrent, and inexcusable. 'We do not need a zoological proletariat,' writes one commentator in dismissing the rights of farm animals, to which the obvious reply is that we do not need zoological gulags, either." (pg. 288).

This book convinced me to never again buy meat from a supermarket.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I picked it up at the library last week because I recognized the author's name from when he was one of George Bush's speech writers. I didn't really even pay attention to what the book was about because I was in a hurry (although the cover image was captivating). The book explores the idea of man's dominion over animals, and how in modern times that has been turned into a completely unrighteous dominion. The author eloquently argues that every animal should be allowed to fulfill the measure of its creation, and that each animal was made for a divine purpose.

I have always been an animal lover, but I have also kind of thought the "animal rights" people were kind of hippie, liberal weirdos. Scully is not one of those people. He isn't one who would throw paint on a fur coat, or set a bunch of lab animals free. He simply thinks that all animals should be treated with dignity and respect, no matter what their purpose is. I could not agree more.

I learned alot from this book (some things I wish I still did not know!). I had no idea that safari companies in Africa offer "canned" hunts, where captive animals (elephants, lions, etc) are released from a cage directly in front of a waiting hunter. Where is the sport in that? How could anyone possibly think that was ok? Some of the animals used in canned hunts are previously captured wild animals, while some are "retired" zoo or circus animals. So after years of entertaining humans while being mistreated in the name of "training", the final fate of many circus animals is to be shipped to africa and shot. Awful!

I also had no idea that the debate is still going on about whether or not animals are conscious, sentient beings. Really??? How is that even still a question, after all the work done with Alex the parrot, Koko the gorilla, and millions of other animals who have shown the ability to display emotions, thoughts, and suffering?

The chapter on factory farms was just awful. To hear the farmers talking about how the pigs "like" being kept in crates and how they are "happy" with not having enough room to turn around just totally reminded me of the way Satan convinces people that evil isn't really evil. I think Abraham Lincoln's quote about slavery ("If slavery isn't evil, then nothing is evil") could be applied to factory farming. If factory farming isn't an example of unrighteous dominion, then there really must just not be any such thing as unrighteous dominion. I finished reading about the farms thinking, "Dang it! Now I will have to be a vegetarian!" because I really just did not want to contribute in any small way to such a cruel industry. But luckily I was able to find some local sources of 100% pasture raised beef and poultry, so my family can still eat meat, but definitely in smaller amounts than we have in the past. I like the idea of following the word of wisdom's admonition to eat meat "sparingly" anyway.

I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone. You will learn a lot, and it might change the way you think about certain things.

When I finally cracked it open, it took a long to read as it is just heartbreaking. The author is a Republican and admittedly conservative in most things, but also a vegetarian and fiercly devoted to the welfare of animals. His writing is well researched, well documented, and carefully worded. This has been one of the most difficult books I've ever read: he covers every aspect of animal cruelty: mass farming, whale hunting, animal research, big game hunting, crush videos, etc. He pulls no punches, making for brutal, painful reading. He holds up excuses given by others for their behavior concerning animals and then carefully shoots numerous holes in every single one. This is an important book. He doesn't have all the answers, of course, but he does have a lot of them. He also points out some of the simplest things that we, as humans, as consumers, can do. I can say, without a doubt, that I will live my life differently for having read this.

I liked this book a lot more before I learned the author is the speech writer for Sarah Palin. I have a hard time believing that Scully is not passionate about vegetarianism. The book is incredibly dramatic. You can tell he is a speech writer -- he writes as if he is before 100,000 people trying to enliven them for battle or something. I am a passionate vegetarian, and there were times that even I was like, okay Matthew Scully enough enough enough! So where is his inauthenticity? How can he believe all of this and support a woman who is cool with aerial shooting and hunting and doesn't give a shit about polar bears?

Whatever. I liked the book, and I didn't feel overwhelmed by his conservative/religious bias, although I disagreed with him about some moral issues. Like, it was interesting to see where he draws the line on killing animals and then abortion and stem-cell research. Most vegetarians are liberal and are cool with stem-cell research and women's rights. Most. Matthew Scully breaks that mold. So I guess it makes you realize how fuzzy all the lines really are.

Scully makes a lot of valid points and says them better than I ever have. I liked this part:

He was saying people are always like (paraphrasing: "humans have thought and conscience so we obviously are better than animals, we have dominion over them, so we can eat them because they don't and they're stupid and they have no idea what's going on." They are? They don't? Fine, then: (now I'll start quoting Scully...)

"When people say that they like their veal or hot dogs just too much to ever give them up, and yeah it's sad about the farms but that's just the way it is, reason hears in that the voice of gluttony. What makes a human being human is precisely the ability to understand that the suffering of an animal is more important than the taste of a treat." (303)

Also:

"Let's just call things what they are. When a man's love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets a demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes the divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice." (121)

See what I mean about the dramatic stuff?

Anyway, read this book, if only to be confused about how someone could do such a brilliant job encapsulating such a complicated issue so beautifully and simply, and yet churn out the words for a woman who says things like "Talibani" and "Gee Willikers*".

*I have never heard her say "Gee Willikers, but I bet she does."

This is a book I didn't expect to change my life. The tagline is, “The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy.” I picked it up because of the rave reviews of people I trust and because of my amateur interest in bioethics, which this relates to, if only tangentially. How should humans relate to the world around them? How should Christians think about our relationship to the rest of creation? I've typically been more interested in this topic in connection with the environment but of course you can't totally separate separate flora and fauna. I figured it was time to turn my questions to the animal kingdom.

The thing is, I don't really like animals. They can be cute, and majestic, but they never inspired in me the same passion that I’ve seen in other people. Most pets annoy me and don't seem worth the time, money, and contact with bodily fluids, strange smells, and cleaning supplies. And I have always laughed at vegetarians (I’m sorry). Didn't God give us animals to eat? (Well, sort of, as a concession after the Fall.) Aren’t animal products the best way for us to get protein, containing all the amino acids we need in one package, unlike plants? (Well, yes, but of course there are other animal products besides meat and if you're careful about it, you can get everything you need from plants.) Like many conservative-leaning folk, I saw animal rights activists as sentimental, inconsistent, and even anti-human, crusading for the whales while ignoring assaults on human life.

Then I read this book, which is written by a speechwriter for George W. Bush. Scully has conservative street cred. You can't accuse him of pandering to his liberal base. That immediately made me more open to what he has to say, not just because I'm more aligned with him on several fundamental ideas but because I knew he couldn't rest on appealing to people who already agreed with him. He would have to rigorously defend his arguments to a skeptical audience. There could be no cheap ideological rhetoric here, not if he really wants to make his point.

Scully does all of that, and more. I was stunned by the quality of his writing and his thinking. His sentences—oh, his sentences! He mixes lucid philosophy with sharp-eyed reporting, wrapped up in humor, ruthless logic, and warm personal reflections to create an account that is unapologetic but movingly gracious. He bares before you the gruesome details of porcine slaughterhouses, recounts conversations with international whaling lobbyists in between reflections on the ethics of utilitarianism, and surveys theological interpretations of the Judeo-Christian creation story before taking us with him to Safari Club International, a multi-day big game hunting convention. He spends pages carefully deconstructing arguments from both conservative Roger Scurton, who revels in the glory of fox hunts, and the liberal Peter Singer, who argues that infanticide is less bad than murder of an adult (and therefore the killing of animals is even less problematic). He quotes Saint Bonaventure and Pope John Paul II as well as David Hume and Sigmund Freud.

If this book were merely a survey of current attitudes toward the issue of animal welfare or an in-depth journalistic expose of the state of industrial farms, it would be a significant and eye-opening contribution to this discussion. But Scully goes far beyond reporting or criticism, instead laying out a compelling argument for why and how all people but especially Christians, of whom he is one, should treat animals. My favorite summary of this thesis is from one of the reviews in the front pages: “Scully’s argument for the protection of animals is not based on rights, liberation, or legal sophistry, but on the old—someone would say old-fashioned—idea of mercy.”

Scully does not, as I expected, frame this issue in terms of animal rights. He does argue for reducing animal product consumption, ending big game hunting, radically re-hauling the way we treat livestock, and various other related protections of animals. And although he dives into the persuasive evidence that animals are conscious and can suffer pain (and since this was written twenty years ago, I'm sure there is much more data now to defend this claim), he ultimately does not rest his case for protecting animals on qualities they possess. Nor does he only point to some classical idea of humanity—we lessen ourselves when we mistreat animals. While he acknowledges these as good points, the linchpin of his argument is the uniquely Christian concept of mercy.

Animals are, on the whole, weaker than us. They do not have the moral capacities we do. That is precisely why we must use our greater rational and moral capabilities to look out for their good—as one spider-bitten human learned, with great power comes great responsibility. Or as Scully says:

“The whole logic of Christianity is one of condescension, of the higher serving the lower, the strong protecting the weak, the last being first, and all out of boundless love and generosity, ‘rights’ having nothing to do with it.”

“Whenever human beings with our loftier gifts and grander callings in the world can stop to think on [animals’] well-being, if only by withdrawing to let them be, it need not be a recognition of ‘rights.’ It is just a gracious thing, an act of clemency only more to our credit because the animals themselves cannot ask for it, or rebuke us when we transgress against them, or even repay our kindness. We are going to need a little mercy ourselves one day. The way I figure it, I cannot expect mercy if I am unwilling to give it.”

“One may regard animal welfare as an entirely secondary matter. One may view the creatures as morally incidental, as soulless beings for whom no bell ever tolled and to whom no one has direct moral duties. What one may not do under the guise of religious principle is deny that we have at least certain basic obligations of kindness, and that these obligations impose limits on our own conduct that today are simply not being observed.”

Animals need not have moral capacities to necessitate that we use ours. It was convicting to realize how many of my arguments, once I was informed about what's actually going on in our slaughterhouses, rest solely upon my pleasure and convenience. Isn’t it my right to eat meat? Or is it my responsibility to offer mercy to creatures that I have been given, well, dominion over? Which of these motivations will I follow?

A large part of Scully’s argument is that eating animal products, especially meat, is no longer a necessity. I expected him to make a strong, explicit case for going vegetarian or vegan, but he does not. Instead, he lays out the facts of how animals are treated and the argument for acting with mercy. He then leaves the specific choices that will follow from those things up to the individual. Depending on where you live and your income, for example, you may be able to buy locally, humanely sourced meat and dairy products—or you may not. There are different ways that the conviction to treat animals with mercy can be lived out, and I appreciate that he leaves room for that. He was clear, however, that some trends, both personal choices and national systems, will need to change and that it will require sacrifice.

“We have no valid claims of need anymore, only our claim to the material good of fare to which we are accustomed. Meanwhile, in a global, high tech economy of six billion consumers— perhaps nine or ten billion by the year 2100—livestock animals simply cannot be raised under humane conditions. We are left, then, with exactly one material good and one moral good, our pleasure weighed against our duty of compassion. And these can no longer coexist. One or the other must be abandoned.”

I am not sure I would have been willing to hear this argument a couple years ago, or even last year. It would have seemed hyperbolic and virtue-signaling to me. I'm not sure what changed in me, and I'm not sure what needs to change in people to be able to hear it. But I pray that we are able to.

Perhaps the most compelling part of Scully’s argument to me was how the current discussion around animal rights and treatment of animals seems to take for granted that they must be of use to us to matter. He quotes the president of the International Wildlife Management Consortium—World Conservation Trust (what a mouthful) talking about whales: “Our main purpose is sustainable use…For us, the principle of sustainable use will suffer no exceptions, except for science. The worst crime against nature is waste, not to use resources.”

So animals are just resources and simply to exist as a waste.

I have done a lot of thinking recently about where our worth as humans comes from, our value as beings and not producers. Perhaps that is what cleared the way for me to be sympathetic to Scully's arguments because I recognized in them a similar push against utilitarianism, a resistance to the idea that any being matters because of its output or usefulness to others. As he says when describing how groundbreaking the Genesis depiction of animals was: “For the first time animals are not only significant in themselves, belonging to Him and not to us; they are players, however lowly, in the story of our own moral development. The God of Israel delights in all that He has made. All creatures sing their Creator’s praises, and are dear to him for their own sakes.”

It is not that we may never use animals for anything. The problem arises when we make their utility our only calculation in how we treat them. It becomes perverted when we cannot imagine whales simply swimming in the ocean as being a good thing but rather a waste of resources.

Scully does not only critique others, however. He provides a detailed list of policies that we should bring before Congress right now to address the exploitation of animals in America. It's one thing to condemn the current laws, and it's another to paint a compelling vision of a more just world, but it's still yet better to be able to enshrine these ideas in practical next steps. I don't know much about our current policies, how feasible his suggestions are, the fallout in other industries or negative externalities they might cause. But at least he has positive, practical solutions for both the individual and the country.

As I kept reading, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with my superficial, indifferent criticism of those who have sounded the alarm bells about the way animals are treated. I am ashamed to admit it but before I truly didn't care. Scully has convinced me that nothing could be further from how a Christian should behave.

I am still pondering what this looks like for me practically. Right now, I'm trying to only eat meat at restaurants and at the very least stop eating meat every day, resisting this expectation that I can't have a good meal unless there's meat in it. When I do buy meat, I try only to buy it from my local farmers market. Yes, it's more expensive, but if you buy less of it in general, it balances out. And surely it is a small price to pay for the chance to be more like God, our kind and generous creator, author of all mercies, delighted inventor of the manifold creatures that fill his earth who in their beauty, diversity, and vulnerability point us to him.

As Scully concludes,

“[A]nimal welfare is not just a moral problem to be solved in statutes, but a moral opportunity to fill our own lives with acts of compassion. Kindness to animals is not our most important duty as human beings, nor is it our least important. How we treat our fellow creatures is only one more way in which each one of us, every day, writes our own epitaph—bearing into the world a message of light and life or just more darkness and death, adding to the world's joy or to its despair.

‘In a drop of rain can be seen the colors of the sun,’ observed the historian Lewis Namier. So in every act of kindness we hold in our own hands the mercy of our maker, whose purposes are in life and not death, whose love does not stop at us but surrounds us, bestowing dignity and beauty and hope on every creature that lives and suffers and perishes. Perhaps that is part of the animals’ role among us, to awaken humility, to turn our minds back to the mystery of things, and open our hearts to that most impractical of hopes in which all creation speaks as one. For them as for us, if there is any hope at all then it is the same hope, and the same love, and the same God who ‘shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away.’”

Absolutely brilliant book.

We’ve all seen the crammed chicken coops, the overfed, hormone-injected cow, or the shot deer hanging off the back of a hunter’s pickup. We’ve all felt something, if not a little sadness, for these defenseless animals. Then we go home and we pet our dogs and think nothing of it. So what then? In his treatise DOMINION, renowned journalist Matthew Scully explores the argument for animal rights in the modern world, and the various inconsistencies found within these debates. As the title lets on, Scully’s perspective is that humans misinterpret the Bible’s meaning of “dominion,” twisting the concept to mean that our superiority trumps all. We forget the precious idea that along with this privilege comes responsibility and the expectation that all life will be treated with dignity at our hands.

Scully explores several main animal industries, including factory farms and hunting, bringing to light the political and philosophical contradictions found around the world when justifying the cruel treatment of animals. Scully never makes the naive assumption that all animals should be treated equal, as that is just simply not the case in biology—there will always be a food chain. Rather, he makes an argument for the humane treatment of all animals, even if you eventually plan on slaughtering them and having a fantastic pig roast. Scully has been a vegetarian for many, many years, but DOMINION is in no way a call for veggies to unite and spread the good word. It’s a book about grace, understanding, and respect for your fellow creatures, as well as a call to view the laws of nature through a new set of eyes not tarnished by the industrial food system or a false reading of some holy scripture.

While there are some (at times heavy) Christian overtones, he successfully presents his argument in a way that spans all cultures and religions, compelling me to examine my behavior within my own structure of ideology and belief.

I am not what you'd call an 'animal person.' I have never had a pet, nor do I want one. Although I have moved to a largely plant based diet over the past three years, my choice to go mostly vegetarian had more to do with my health than animals. I don't think much about animals, really, except that I don't like factory farming, and think zoos are mean. Then, about a week ago, after watching the documentary Vegucated, I learned something that utterly horrified me: male baby chicks are thrown alive into giant grinding machines because they can't lay eggs. The video of this practice was utterly shocking to me, and made me realize that there is an entire universe of cruelty out there in the world that I knew very little about. I had been meaning to read this book for several years, so I got it and thought I'd slog my way through.

I read in three days, which is saying something: this is a long, dense, deep book. 398 pages, 10 point font, full of an awful lot of law and philosophy. Dominionis written by a conservative Catholic who writes for National Review and who worked as a speech writer for President George W. Bush, so he's hardly some hippy tree hugger or breathless Vegan activist. This is a guy who believes in free markets, limited government regulation, and the primacy of the individual. And he is repulsed by how animals are treated. The book surveys big game hunting, whaling, animal experimentation, and factory farming. I had no idea about how any of these things really work, and I could not believe how unspeakably vile it all is. We are not talking about deer hunting, or indigenous people killing a whale, or tests done on animals to help cure cancer. We are talking about people raising monkeys in cages to kill them and sell their meat. We are talking about the Japanese classifying whales as fish and killing thousands each year for 'scientific research.' We are talking about pouring common household chemicals into the eyes of rabbits to show--yet again--that those chemicals are blinding. And we are talking about pigs (just for one example) who are as intelligent as a three year old human being spending their few years of life being tortured. As I read, the word I kept coming back to over and over again was 'unspeakable.' Literally: what I read left me speechless.

Much of the book discusses mankind's role in this world, and the Biblical idea of dominion. That is, the belief that 'man is the measure of all things,' and that all of the world is ours to use and abuse as we see fit. As the author puts it, people view creation 'as a colorful backdrop for human action,' and believe that because we can dominate and slaughter and warp life as we see fit (through things like genetic manipulation of animal DNA) we should feel free to go ahead and do these dreadful things, especially if they make money. An elephant, for example, has no inherent worth unless someone puts a market value on it, then conjures up enough wealth to go and shoot it. Not for food. Not out of necessity. Just because of some twisted appetite to do so. Whales--utterly harmless, peaceful creature (maybe not killer whales)--end up in miso soup in Japan because some small but wealthy minority wishes to eat them. Chimpanzees, a species so intelligent that it can learn sign language and communicate with us, spend decades in small cages to serve our need to create more potent drugs and chemicals. And on and on and on.

The author's main argument is not that humans shouldn't eat meat, or that medical testing isn't sometimes necessary, or that people who hunt for food are immoral. The author's point is that, like so much else of our modern world, our treatment of animals has become deeply inhumane as it has become more industrialized. As with most of humanity's vices in this day and age., the cruel treatment of animals has become excessive. The author's call is for mercy, and for human beings to realize that animals are living creatures, not cogs in our human systems. I am profoundly moved by this book--again, written by a Republican and read by an guy who has never picked up a cat in his life. I kept wincing. I feel convicted. I kept thinking, how is this different than wealthy people who go to poor countries in Asia to have sex with children? That, too, is an appetite. That, too, fails to acknowledge the claims of life and dignity. That, too, is just sick. And that, too, is a perversion of the wealthy; a symptom of affluenza, similar to those people who buy an tiger from India, have it shipped back to the United States, then shoot it as it emerges from its cage and have it stuffed. Appetite plus wealth plus what is darkest in human nature. It is all so disturbing.

The author spends a good ten pages or so demolishing Professor Pete Singer's philosophy, too, which I found joyful. I hate the evil, twisted fuck.

With all of this said, the book could have been 50 pages shorter. There was a long section about consciousness and sentience that was a bit dry, and to me, unnecessary. As interesting as neuroethnology is (I actually studied it in college long ago), I don't think I need to be convinced about the intelligence of animals to recognize that their maltreatment coarsens human nature. Like abortion, if people could see what is being done to the creatures they bring into this world, much of what constitutes 'animal husbandry' in this day and age would end tomorrow.

This book is hard. It is important. It is infuriating. I don't know if I'm happy that I read it, or if I would have been better off not connecting all of the dots that I've witnessed over the years with regard to animals and food and human beings. Very, very dark stuff.

i cannot get past the first couple of chapters, which rarely happens to me. the continual religious perspective feels forced and a bit ridiculous. can't we have moral arguments against the animal-industrial complex without referring back to the bible? it gets old quick.

Much information in this book that should be common knowledge for everyone. We all eat, and we all should know of factory farming methods that see the pig only as a machine, as an economic resource, but not as an animal who suffers, a creature made by God and designed to derive pleasure from sunlight, fresh air and contact with humans and other animals but is denied those things from birth to the slaughterhouse. Scully describes his tour of a factory pig farm where he saw pigs with tumors, cysts, bruises, gashes, and crushed legs from the too-small iron cages they lived their whole lives in, unable to even turn around. He observed animals that were not allowed to be animals. His description of these practices and other cruelty to animals on our food chain is heartbreaking.

Scully is vegetarian so he suggests that the answer to this inhumane treatment of factory farmed animals is that we all give up meat. I wish he knew about Joel Salatin, who raises meat animals all the while treating them with dignity and allowing them to live their lives within the scope of how they were made to live: open fields, fresh air, medical care when needed. I will not be able to view meats available for purchase with the same eyes again and take steps to not support "farms" that treat their animals despicably.

I confess that I have known about this book, and knew I needed to read it, for more than a decade. I am not sure if Scully covered all the bases, but darn close. Through his words, he illustrates his examples of cruelty so well that I winced, and sometimes wept, repeatedly. Nonetheless, I forced myself through it. Hard as it is to read, I feel uplifted by it, because I know, though I am one person, I can not only do my part to bring joy to creatures on a small scale, I can also educate others as the opportunity arises.