''Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat', Reviewed

A few weeks ago I received a review copy of Hal Herzog's new book,'Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why it's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals.' In spite of the remarkably long title, Herzog's premise is simple. He is examining the different attitudes that he sees among human beings towards different types of animals.



Personally, I don't find it especially hard to think straight about animals. As someone who became a dedicated meat hunter as an adult after a vegetarian childhood, I have already put quite a lot of thought into the matter and sorted things out pretty well, as I imagine that most other locavore hunters have. But for a reader who is new to all of this and who has just started re-assess their relationship with animals and/or food, this book could be genuinely useful.



Herzog is a research psychologist. This fact shows in his writing, which is full of solid citations. Herzog is very good about backing his assertions up with data and research. I like that habit.



I was surprised to see that hunting isn't covered for more than a page or so in 'Some We Love.' The psychology of hunting, especially among meat-hunters, seems like it should be fertile ground for the types of questions that Herzog enjoys posing. Dr. James Swan has already covered the topic of hunter psychology thoroughly in his book, 'In Defense of Hunting' and readers who are primarily interested in hunting ethics and psychology should seek out Swan's book.



The single anecdote about a hunter involves a woman who had shot a zebra on a hunt in Africa, wound up hitting the wrong animal, and cried over having killed a female rather than a male. Herzog suggests that the fact that the hunter was a woman was what led her to feel about this fact, but he failed to back this up with anything. He was on the edge of understanding something important about the psychology of American hunters but didn't quite get there.



A male hunter would have been just as crestfallen at hitting a mare rather than a stallion. He would simply have hidden his sadness. What is usually misunderstood about hunters is that we do not want the animal to suffer. Sadism plays no part in the activity. The hunter's short-term goal is usually to cause death as instantaneously as possible. Shooting a female (depending on the time of year) leaves open the possibility of an orphaned animal that suffers for a long time, perhaps starving to death. At the same time, most of us are such knee-jerk conservationists that we want to leave the females alone so that they can produce offspring and ensure that the species doesn't disappear. Shoot a male zebra and you have removed only one zebra. Shoot a female and you have removed perhaps half a dozen zebras over the next ten years (this is only strictly true among a species that forms harems or in which males typically breed with many females).



The female zebra hunter's regret was not something that was purely a matter of gender psychology. There are good and practical reasons why male and female hunters traditionally tend to frown on shooting females of the species.



Other topics and key figures also seemed to be missing. I was surprised that Herzog didn't discuss Louis Wain, the Gilded Age artist who arguably bears more responsibility for the anthropomorphication of cats than any other single person.



Herzog's stories about traveling and interviewing people about things that they do with animals are the best parts of the book. Being willing to honestly depict cock fighters as decent human beings took some nerve.



The value of this book, in my opinion, is to generate thought and questions about our relationships with animals. What is missing are conclusions. Herzog wraps the book up by essentially saying 'its all really complicated.' I can't decide whether this is a cop-out or incredibly courageous. Probably more courageous than anything else. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people fail to recognize the fact that 'I don't know' is often the correct answer. Herzog doesn't have a lot of answers, but unlike most of us he is honest about our inconsistencies.