2y ago

The "bovine" joke in The Restaurant at the end of the Universe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series)

The whole "bovine" joke was hilarious on one hand and a little horrifying on the other. It got me thinking: how would I feel if an animal I was about to consume came up to me enthusiastically conveying its consent for being eaten? I will be horrified, just like Arthur! But why?

Will it be better to eat against its consent instead? Why?

Then… what about salad's consent?! Interesting thought experiment…

I am presenting the joke in the form of three extracts from the text:

Extract 1:

"A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox's table, a large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type with large watery eyes, small horns and what might almost have been an ingratiating smile on its lips. "Good evening," it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, "I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?" It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters into a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them. Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox. "Something off the shoulder perhaps?" suggested the animal, "Braised in a white wine sauce?" "Er, your shoulder?" said Arthur in a horrified whisper. "

Extract 2:

"‘You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?’ whispered Trillian to Ford. ‘Me?’ said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes. ‘I don’t mean anything.’ ‘That’s absolutely horrible,’ exclaimed Arthur, ‘the most revolting thing I’ve ever heard.’ ‘What’s the problem, Earthman?’ said Zaphod, now transferring his attention to the animal’s enormous rump. ‘I just don’t want to eat an animal that’s standing there inviting me to,’ said Arthur, ‘it’s heartless.’ ‘Better than eating an animal that doesn’t want to be eaten,’ said Zaphod. ‘That’s not the point,’ Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘maybe it is the point. I don’t care, I’m not going to think about it now. I’ll just . . . er . . .’"

Extract 3:

"I think I’ll just have a green salad,’ he muttered. ‘May I urge you to consider my liver?’ asked the animal. ‘It must be very rich and tender by now, I’ve been force-feeding myself for months.’ ‘A green salad,’ said Arthur emphatically. ‘A green salad?’ said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur. ‘Are you going to tell me,’ said Arthur, ‘that I shouldn’t have green salad?’ ‘Well,’ said the animal, ‘I know many vegetables that are very clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am.’ It managed a very slight bow. ‘Glass of water, please,’ said Arthur."

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The take on this I received from a yoga teacher:
It is a fact of being human that something must die for us to live. Be it plant, animal or Fungi. Each person must decide what life they are willing to take to continue living and be respectful of and thankful to those lifeforms that allows you to continue living.
- I mean plants to our knowledge are not sentient, so no harm done to "someone" when killing them, in the same way as there are no harm done to the rock when you throw it on the ground. Animals we eat on the other hand are sentient so there is clearly someone that is harmed. I really think non-human animals should be included in our sphere of moral consideration.
  Even if plants were somehow found to all be sentient, by eating them directly instead of feeding them to animals then eat the animals you would minimize the harm done.
  
  I mean plants to our knowledge are not sentient, so no harm done to “someone” when killing them
  The same thing was said about animals for decades as well...
  I am not making a value judgement on what life is more important but you are.
  Our lives continue because other lives must end and that is the case if you are a full carnivore or vegan.
  
  Plants can think and likely feel pain. There's a whole field of research on it.
  
  Animals are not someone they are something; something delicious!
- I would argue that it is quite disingenuous to equate eating a plant with eating an animal. This makes the waters intentionally muddy, allows excuses to be made for how many animals one consumes, and does not take into account anything past the killing of the animal such as industry impact on climate, etc. This also shows some genuine misunderstanding of plants. With fungi for example, only the “fruiting bodies” are typically eaten as mycelium is often throughout healthy soil, and consuming a single mushroom does not kill the entire organism. Slaughtering a genetically engineered chicken that can’t stand up anymore is not the same impact or “killing” as eating a mushroom.
  Lastly, animals also eat vegetables, plants and grains. Are these deaths somehow not on your hands when you eat meat? Arguably this would involve even more death and killing even if we do abide by the above flawed definition.
  
  There's the part about making a decision that takes care of most of your concerns. There's no lesser life. Life is valuable in itself, even if it's just one cell. But you have to decide on which one you'll take to survive. You can base your decision on environmental factors or total number of dead creatures or anything that makes sense to you.
- Isn't spiritual centrism great? It lets you feel comfy about the greatest enslavement and slaughter of sentient beings in history.
  
  Sentience is a spectrum. Grubs and worms are barely more sentient than some plants, if at all. I think the yoga instructor's take handles this well, since each individual decides on their threshold and it's a personal choice. I like that, because it encourages people to consider it, without forcing an agenda. I doubt many people who then think about where their own threshold really lies would go the wrong way, i.e. from vegan to steaks for lunch. Merely reflecting on the suffering you may cause is likely to have a positive effect. Anyone who tries to be ethical in their choices has had this talk with themselves or with someone else. It's getting people to actually think that's the struggle. As usual.
  
  I hope you actually read @crapwittyname reply to you. As it encapsulates what a good approach to changing someone's mind on an issue actually is.
  If you are trying to change someone's attitude to eating animals, your snarky response will simply provoke a defensive ego reaction on their part and allow the person you are talking to to dismiss you out of hand as a bit of an arsehole.
  The world is not a TV show where a snarky gotcha reply means you win and the audience applauds.
What makes the whole situation so perverse to me, is that - in my opinion anyway - it's implied that the cow is in some way genetically engineered to be this way.
- That's explicit, not implied!
  it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly
  
  Ah, so did remember that correctly. Must've skimmed over that when rereading just now.
- Same here. I would say that if the animal is bred to give consent then the consent is not really valid. In any case I would prefer to eat my meat which is not capable of talking to me.
  
  So what you're saying is you would eat a mime?
I mean, explaining your own joke is crass. Explaining a joke from somebody who is actually funny is... worse, somehow, but...
...it's because in the joke the cow is sentient. The cow is anthropomorphic and speaks, so it reads like cannibalism.
Which is deployed both for the laughs and to make a point.
- In real life cows are sentient as well.
  
  I believe the correct word here would have been "sapient", not "sentient".
  
  And silence fell
  
  Cows do have feelings, and they're mostly indolence and contempt.
  They don't normally tell you that unless they decide to kick you or headbutt you, though, so that makes them significantly easier to eat than when they're anthropomorphic and talking to you about it.
  Which is the joke.
  We can pedant this all the way to the ground. I have no more chores left for a while.
I think it's so gross because actively consenting to being slaughtered and eaten implies the cow has an S&M and Vore combo deal going on
The cow is a suspiciously wealthy furry going past the point of mere commissioning alone to satisfy its darker urges.
I just hope Peter Singer doesn't read the book. He makes us meat-eaters guilty enough.
- I don't think that should be a problem. (I don't know who is Peter Singer). But if you read through the whole sequence, another interpretation (in my opinion) can be that if you are going to worry about eating living creatures, you would be left with nothing other than water to consume!
  
  You could keep licking salt too!

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