An Animal's Place Pollan Summary

In “An Animal’s Place” Michael Pollan (2002) talks about how he is reading “Animal Liberation” while eating a steak at a restaurant. He then starts to talk about the book and how it talks about giving animals civil rights. He then talks about the people who believe in the civil rights movement for animals and how England has changed their Constitution in order to protect animals. The European and Swiss are trying to also protect the rights of animals. Pollan talks about America still seeing animals as “things” (p.399) but we are changing some of our animal slaughter habits. He also talks about how confused we are and how the animal situation is just irrelevant. He talks about being more and more disconnected with animals and how we either look away from animal cruelty or become vegetarian.
The author tries to go against what the author of the book says. He doesn’t believe animals should have moral consideration. He talks about doing research in order to refute what the author had to say. He then asks himself if they do have moral consideration then why are we still eating them. He goes on and talks about the difference in pain between human and animal. He then talks about how they treat animals in slaughterhouses but then goes on to talk about a farm he went to. He notices that the animals live their lives happy and are still killed for food. He likes the idea of this type of farm. He talks about we can’t just be vegetarian instead we should open our eyes and look at how are meat is killed. He also suggest that when we eat animals to give them the “respect they deserve”