Wednesday, March 7, 2012
W10: Synthesis
For this week's post, begin by choosing either Myers ("The Moral Crusade Against Foodies"), Fedoroff ("Genetically Engineered
Food for All"), or the website, cornsugar.com. Your blog post should be a response to one of these readings and it should utilize the ideas/perspectives of at least two
other composers that we've encountered this quarter. Everything is fair
game for the other perspectives--films, assigned readings, and Moments of Zen. You're also welcome to include additional
perspectives (i.e. other outside sources) but you need to work with at
least 2 people that the whole class has read.
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Fedoroff does have a point—as mankind's population increases so does the demand for food, which is being restricted with the government's regulations on food modifications. His perspective stresses the necessity of these modifications and the safety of the conduct based off of the amount of money being spent by large biotech companies on research for these modifications. Although I agree with the logic of “more food for more people” I don't necessarily agree or trust the companies making these decisions.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, most companies have one purpose in this era and that is to make money, completely neglecting the affects their products may have on the consumer's health. In the documentary Food Inc. and Michael Pollen's “Omnivore's Dilemma” our faith in these food corporation's and biotech labs are tested as we explore behind-the-scenes and the the immoral implications that arise from this mass production of food.
Once we begin swaying from the original nature of our food source to unnaturally producing and growing crops and animals we begin to change our food source altogether, we become inhumane.
On the final day of class we were shown a moment of zen from a fellow classmate. The student displayed an article describing the process of growing our chicken's in the future. According to the article, chicken's would be literally “grown” like crops, possessing no brain function, no senses, no life. This moral implications the scientist pleaded was that the animal wouldn't feel the pain of being slaughtered for food. This sounds all fine and dandy but what about the animal's life? Naturally the animal would have to die anyway, and prior to being slaughtered the animal was still granted life, something God-given. When scientists and corporations begin to rationalize the production of life-less chickens they are putting mankind at risk for further developments of dehumanizing growing methods.
Although the necessity for genetically modified foods seems to outweigh the dangers of them, we are still left with some speculation. The Food Inc. documentary showed us that although the governmental agencies place strict laws on the production of food, some of the regulators and star players are playing for both teams. What this means is that some of the corporation executives that were once for the implementation of these modifications turn around and begin working for the very company they are supposed to be regulating and vice versa. This issue is very traumatic considering that these are people we are supposed to trust to protect us from harmful food conditions, rather than protecting the profit and power of these super corporations.
There are many ways to justify the means to produce food in immoral ways due to the increased population crisis, but there is a means of justification to any illegitimate act if you ask the person committing the crime. These regulations and government's duty is to protect the people by any means necessary and govern without any biases and ulterior motives. We as a people must be able to trust our government's decisions when it comes to our safety but this can not be achieved until we can eliminate those who are against the people out of our regulatory procedures and their influence out of our decisions.