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A review by mnboyer
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog
1.0
I've reached that point in life where I just cannot force myself to finish crappy books. I used to try to get to the end just to make sure I had a well-rounded review. But this pile of steaming bull dung is something that I refuse to wade through any longer.
Herzog is a psychologist and anthrozoologist who is going to take the reader through some ambiguous territory in regards to animals. Why do we love, hate, and eat some animals (right there in the title!) and moreover, how can you love animals but still eat meat? Why don't you want to do experiments on mice in labs, yet call the exterminator if there is a mouse in your house? The description of this book had me hooked and I grabbed the audio version from the local library.
What you end up with is Herzog trying to walk the middle-of-the-road on all of these debates. Animal experiments are generally frowned upon, but if one were being done to test a cancer drug that could cure cancer, well maybe then a few mice should be sacrificed. We should probably reduce the amount of meat we eat, switch to healthily raised meat, but the truth is the world will likely always eat meat. I'm fine with these middle ground analyses. I think most of his middle analyses are founded in human nature, reflect cultural differences, etc.
So why one star?
Because in certain areas Herzog tries to justify things that he should actually be pretty firm on and condemn. At one point he is discussing the myth that all serial killers started their violence by maiming animals. This is a myth and doesn't fit all serial killers. Rather than continue to say any torture of animals is wrong ... the author (in summary) insists that some torture of animals is normal for different children. Blowing up a bullfrog is natural, a curiosity, exploring one's world, a childhood right of passage .... NO.
He suggests that if we keep spaying/neutering dogs and cats eventually there will be no dogs/cats for us to have as pets. Wait a damn minute. Animals at shelters are dying by the thousands each day -- spaying and neutering is one of the only proven ways to reduce unwanted pet populations. There are many verified, honorable breeders of dogs and cats out there (look up the AKC breeder registry, for example, and you can find plenty of purebred dogs there which are not made in puppy mills). For any rational person to start suggesting we shouldn't spay/neuter.... NO.
The research is shoddy. Citing small studies (and sometimes adapting those studies to fit his goals but I think perhaps he's summarizing them incorrectly, or only pointing to a small study that is actually a quite bigger analysis he's only using part of). By the middle of the book you're getting the feeling that "our relationship with animals is complicated." That's in the title. We all know that. Telling us again and again "it is complicated" isn't anything breathtaking... we all knew that already when we picked up this book looking for more answers, or at least a deeper answer an analysis.
Overall.... a snooze fest surrounded by lunacy in some of its claims.
As Bob Barker would say, please remember to spay and neuter your pets!
Herzog is a psychologist and anthrozoologist who is going to take the reader through some ambiguous territory in regards to animals. Why do we love, hate, and eat some animals (right there in the title!) and moreover, how can you love animals but still eat meat? Why don't you want to do experiments on mice in labs, yet call the exterminator if there is a mouse in your house? The description of this book had me hooked and I grabbed the audio version from the local library.
What you end up with is Herzog trying to walk the middle-of-the-road on all of these debates. Animal experiments are generally frowned upon, but if one were being done to test a cancer drug that could cure cancer, well maybe then a few mice should be sacrificed. We should probably reduce the amount of meat we eat, switch to healthily raised meat, but the truth is the world will likely always eat meat. I'm fine with these middle ground analyses. I think most of his middle analyses are founded in human nature, reflect cultural differences, etc.
So why one star?
Because in certain areas Herzog tries to justify things that he should actually be pretty firm on and condemn. At one point he is discussing the myth that all serial killers started their violence by maiming animals. This is a myth and doesn't fit all serial killers. Rather than continue to say any torture of animals is wrong ... the author (in summary) insists that some torture of animals is normal for different children. Blowing up a bullfrog is natural, a curiosity, exploring one's world, a childhood right of passage .... NO.
He suggests that if we keep spaying/neutering dogs and cats eventually there will be no dogs/cats for us to have as pets. Wait a damn minute. Animals at shelters are dying by the thousands each day -- spaying and neutering is one of the only proven ways to reduce unwanted pet populations. There are many verified, honorable breeders of dogs and cats out there (look up the AKC breeder registry, for example, and you can find plenty of purebred dogs there which are not made in puppy mills). For any rational person to start suggesting we shouldn't spay/neuter.... NO.
The research is shoddy. Citing small studies (and sometimes adapting those studies to fit his goals but I think perhaps he's summarizing them incorrectly, or only pointing to a small study that is actually a quite bigger analysis he's only using part of). By the middle of the book you're getting the feeling that "our relationship with animals is complicated." That's in the title. We all know that. Telling us again and again "it is complicated" isn't anything breathtaking... we all knew that already when we picked up this book looking for more answers, or at least a deeper answer an analysis.
Overall.... a snooze fest surrounded by lunacy in some of its claims.
As Bob Barker would say, please remember to spay and neuter your pets!