Political, spiritual, and cultural leaders who ignore or sometimes even deny what factory farms do to animals, humans, and the environment lose intellectual and moral authority. Obviously, those who care about animals are disgusted. However, even among people who want to believe that factory farmed animals are treated well, there is an awareness at some level of consciousness (thanks to animal advocates) that all is not well down on the factory farm. Consequently, people know that reassurances from authorities aren't really truthful. Those leaders who aim to inspire the changes needed to preserve human civilization can't lie by omission or commission about institutionalized abuse of animals yet hope to be widely regarded as beacons of truth about other institutions, such as the extraction industries.
A final consequence of ignoring animal issues might be best described as spiritual. In attempting to address global challenges, it would be very helpful -- perhaps even essential -- for people to have a common set of values. Common values can inspire cooperation and a willingness to make whatever sacrifices are necessary.
The problem is that, as long as people abuse animals for relatively trivial benefits, this dream of human cooperation and salvation appears impossible. Any value we might propose to unite humanity -- such as the Golden Rule (do to others as we would like done to us), opposition to oppression and cruelty, and defense of the weak -- is fundamentally contradicted by the unjust, massive mistreatment of nonhuman beings. First, tolerating (or even financially supporting) animal abuse contradicts those principles. Second, it undermines the idea of compassion itself, a cornerstone of any such proposed cooperation. Third, it is easy to shift the arbitrary boundary between human and animal to human and "lower" human, and then deny justice to those "lower" humans.
I don't believe in the notion of karma that asserts that individual sinners will someday get their comeuppance, either in this or a future life. However, there is a kind of karma in what I think the future holds for humanity. Factory farming (as well as the vast majority of mislabeled "humane" farms) directly harms humans in terms of health, hunger, and environmental damage. Further, when we countenance massive, institutionalized abuse of sentient, often remarkably intelligent, beings, we profoundly undermine all efforts to reverse humanity's current self-destructive course.
(Article changed on January 20, 2015 at 05:52)
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