Factory farming is horrifyingly cruel. It's suffering for the animals to live that way, never mind how they are slaughtered. It's even suffering for us to //watch//.

Traditional organic farming (or, as your great grandparents would say, "farming") is certainly kinder than this. But you still have to confront the fact that not only are you slaughtering animals to consume, but that's the only reason you raise them in the first place. Dying for you is the only reason they live. Otherwise, they'd just go extinct in the wild.

But there's a difference, here, between organic and industrial farming. The animals don't know this. They haven't quite put those two and two together. So long as they are free from the immediate suffering of factory farming, the stress of slaughter at the end of organic production cycles is minimal.

I'm not saying this as if to justify our behavior. I'm making another point entirely.

How would we feel if this were done to us?

I've always grappled with some trouble in confronting the answer to this question. in order for the comparison to stick, the conditions have to be the same. And in order for the conditions to be similar, they have to be similar //relative// the object entities under consideration.

If we were being factory farmed, shoved into concentration camps, and treated //literally// like livestock, we'd be horrified - EVEN IF we were "farmed" "organically". For us, "organic" farming might not really be that much less horrific than being factory farmed.

Why? Because we know what's going on. We have significantly greater cognitive, cooperative, and communicative capacities than livestock. You could even say we bred livestock specifically to be stupid - the better to control them.

So given this significant difference in intellect, what would our farmers have to do to keep us calm and bewildered?

Ever seen your dog tilt its head sideways, confused? Have you ever watched your cat glower at your antics, seemingly as contemptuous as they are confused as to //what in the world// you are doing? They don't get it. They probably don't even know that they don't get it.

Now put yourself in that position; not so much imagining yourself as a cat, dog, pig, chicken, or cow, but as a human. Our owners, to be in such a dominant position, would have to do vast amounts of things we really have no clue about, even though we can get advanced degrees in engineering, or humanities.

To compare ourselves to being organically farmed, we'd have to be blissfully unaware of what what we're being farmed for, at the same time our basics needs are being provided for us.

It might not be too much different from how we live right now.

But are we being organically, or factory farmed?