Sheltering from the implications of our choices

THE growing understanding of animal rights is one part of a greater movement of attempting a more peaceful and cohesive existence among other beings — both human and non-human — and our environment.

Public opinion and activism are fundamental mechanisms for important social change. Dark Mofo’s proposal to host 78-year-old Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch’s 150. Action, is a good example of how a single decision can stimulate debate.

150. Action, where a bull slaughtered before the performance will have its corpse mutilated in a “bloody, sacrificial ritual,” as described on Dark Mofo’s website, on June 17.

Dark Mofo organisers have been successful in their search for controversy, upholding a reputation of presenting ethically confronting content in order to expose moral hypocrisy.

“We will not shy away from presenting work that challenges us to consider the ethical implications of our actions both today, and in the past,” said Dark Mofo creative director Leigh Carmichael over the initial public outcry.

Mona founder David Walsh also suggested those opposing the performance are “aiding and abetting the iniquitous system, by concealing one more slaughter”, in a blog post.

But 150. Action, although it may have touched on the ethical dilemma of animal consumption, fails to present to us one element crucial to understanding the true implications of eating meat: the inextricable suffering that is endured during slaughter.

Animal Liberation Tasmania spokeswoman Kristy Alger noted that this “isn’t the true ‘Nitsch’ experience that MONA is promoting it to be”.

This is perhaps true, as historically the live slaughter of an animal was central to the performance. It would be highly inappropriate for an animal to be publicly slaughtered in today’s world. It is a part of human nature to feel compassion for a dying being, and so to watch while a bull be slaughtered as part of an artwork would be both unbearable and outrageous.

But the existence of the reformed 150. Action poses two questions. Is Dark Mofo really likely to achieve impact of the proposed nature when the performance bypasses visual confrontation of slaughter? What does its omitting say about society today?

Madeleine Rojahn

When we buy meat we witness dead animals, arguably sanitised versions of what would be seen in Nitsch’s piece. Many of us are aware of the implications of eating meat and the devastating impacts that animal agriculture has on our environment, particularly its effects on climate change.

Particularly, we are at least vaguely aware of the suffering that an animal endures in order to get onto our plates.

But there is a disconnect: the fact that eating meat is normalised and the majority of people do it, somehow excuses it. Does it? Consuming animal products may be the highest enactment of cognitive dissonance in today’s society. It is the same dissonance that manifests in anti-gay marriage movements and in racist attitudes. It is the same dissonance that perpetuated human enslavement for hundreds of years.

Visual confrontation of the animals suffering for many, is the turning point in overcoming that disconnect, because we relate to other living beings, and the way they feel fear, pain, sadness, and joy.

“Typically, once a consumer is confronted by the reality of slaughter, even that which is performed strictly within the regulations, they are repulsed by it,” said Ms Alger.

Yet 150. Action omits the opportunity to understand the inhumanity of slaughter. What we are left with is simply another trip to the butcher. The only difference is that customers get the choice to watch or participate in the mangling of a corpse.

The potential for this performance to achieve Dark Mofo’s proposed impact of exposing moral hypocrisy and provoking thought about meat consumption is optimistic.

As Ms. Alger expressed, the “watered down” 150. Action “is just a reflection of government policies that remove slaughter from the consumer gaze”.

So who, really, is aiding and abetting the iniquitous system of animal agriculture? Madeleine Rojahn is a University of Tasmania journalism student and a vegan.