I recently came across a thesis on the topic of Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (and I apologize), and while the overall outlook didn't make me want to read the novel itself, the general idea behind it did get me thinking.
Now, for those blissfully unaware, TitF (what an abbreviation) is a dystopian novel about a society where a virus contaminated all animal meat and mankind went "Welp I guess we better eat people now" instead of switching to soy beans. To be fair, after trying soy beans, I can sympathize with this decision, and yet, I have to admit that the premise is somewhat unrealistic. I mean, come on, let the lower classes eat meat anyway? Yeah, right. How about dried crickets and rat droppings instead? To be fair for a little while longer, the novel does tackle this somewhat, the lowest classes get some kind of completely botched meat and are otherwise pretty close to roving bands of cannibals, but, again, why?
This got me thinking - if one wanted to level critique at normalization of atrocity, why not just take a few extra steps beyond where we currently are? What aspects of our life right now could easily flex into accepting a new kind of diet? What could make the ideas of the novel work, and possibly make the moral angle even worse? Well, let's stop being fair and find out, shall we?
First of all, what's the worst kind of atrocity? Now, one might have all sorts of things flashing in front of their eyes, but what I'm angling for here is something that doesn't benefit most of the population. In certain cases, atrocities are committed for "the greater good", "progress" and other such things, and, in hindsight, have their fair share of apologists claiming they were justified. However, when an atrocity is accepted by all, but serves few while oppressing many, that becomes the "worst kind" of it in the long run. Therefore, we can kick things off by having the whole cannibalism thing only benefit the rich and the powerful, while having the rest of the society eat synthetic meats and quietly accept that the elites are helping themselves to long pork.
In fact, I do have to pause here and question the premise of the novel once more - so you're telling me the meat industry somehow managed to remove the inherent problems of cannibalism (such as diseases and mutation of the genetic pool), but couldn't clone a healthy pair of cow and chicken and grow a new population in a lab, or come up with mystery synthetic meat, or improve the formula for plant-based proteins? Even current level of tech is pretty close to doing all three without the whole science fiction bit, so what's the deal here? Oh, right, allegory.
So hey, how about economic viability of farming humans? Last I checked, we really suck at quick growth. You know, gestation, reaching optimal growth, all that. Not the best of optics. And getting a marble steak? Do you have any idea how much money would have to sink into that? Capitalism can be terrifying because it makes lives cheap, not because it decides to dump resources into a pit. Anyway, we'll get back to the economics of it soon enough, don't you worry, dear reader. Let's get back to designing a hellscape!
So, we now have the target audience of the meat - the elites. Now, we need the donor and the cause. Now, the usual target here are clones, but I'm not interested in removing the problem from reality by any degrees of separation. Clones are an interesting ethical question, but, in my personal opinion, they are still what I'd call "playing it safe". We don't yet have clones (as far as I know), so this is all very much a "problem for a future me" kind of a thing. Lucky for the current me, there already is a wonderful segment of actual human population that's ripe for consumption, and that is life sentence/death sentence prisoners. Why are we not eating them and using their organs anyway? What a waste.
Jokes aside though - there are certain countries that sentence prisoners for hundreds of years. Hundreds. That always bewildered me, I have to say. Of course, I've also been bewildered by some countries having 20-year-long life sentences; I guess I'm just easily bewildered. Anyway - they are sentenced for hundreds of years, and yet, practically, that means nothing. What if, all of a sudden, it would?
It wouldn't even require a virus to wipe out all animal meat on the planet. It can start small. Slippery slope fallacy is not always a fallacy, sometimes, when left unchecked, it runs to its logical conclusion. In fact, I love using said slope to run ideas into a wall at full speed and marvel at the shape of a stain they leave behind, that's how we ended up with this text. So, indeed, it could start out small. That death row prisoner with 1500-year-long sentence could be saving a dozen lives by going for spare parts.
Think about it - two eyes, two kidneys, a liver, a heart, a pair of lungs, intestines, so much good stuff just going to waste, and for whom? Why, they are barely even a person anymore, and yet, we waste precious resources we can't afford for the rest of the population. Think about that for a moment - I'm pretty sure a part of people that support death sentences will actually nod and say that this makes sense, that this is indeed a good way to pay penance to the society. Perhaps part of the money made on donor organs might go to victims' families! Basically, everybody wins. Honestly, I could see something like this taking place without a cataclysm.
If we go ahead and add a cataclysm, though, long prison sentences and waste of flesh can easily become negligence bordering a crime. Instead of giving to the society, the prisoners instead take from it, after already taking so much. Taking back from them becomes logical. Organs go for medical purposes, meat goes to auctions, skin can be used for, I don't know, cool hats or chairs (hello, fellow RimWorld players), bones for the Bone Thro-- sorry, glue factories, blood for the Blood Go-- err, transfusions. Proceeds go to "the society" and the victims. Who'll even protest this? Do you hate the victims? Do you hate people that need urgent medical aid? You don't need glue? Are you dissatisfied? What's your credit score?
Fun part here is that by going down this path, the society as a whole becomes complicit, while not really truly benefiting from it, and while being morally destroyed, and once a few small steps are permitted, the rest can logically mount, especially if the world state is already totalitarian and driven by cost-efficiency. Is it not easy to see, for example, a situation in which the legal system flexes to facilitate better access to new resources? Higher penalties for lower crimes? New crime brackets? Lower barriers for repurposing?
And once we're there, we can make another step - well, what about those people with thousand-year sentences? Feels kind of wasteful to just use one prisoner's limited life pool, and truly lacks incentive to improve as well. What if we introduced voluntary generational payback that could result in shortening of the term, and even possible pardon? If you read that sentence and thought "He did not just suggest baby farms", I am sorry to inform you, but that's exactly what that sentence meant. Farm 'em, clone 'em, put 'em in a stew, or, as Natasha Bedingfield once sang, I wanna have your babies, I'm serious like crazy. One baby = 100 years! A life for a life, an eye for an eye. In fact, why not remove limbs for lesser infractions to shorten prison terms? Ah, the ride never ends.
Finally, just like in TitF, the state could offer incentivized volunteering from the general population. Why not? There's not enough resources to go around, want to step off? Your government is here to help - and you can choose where to donate the sum it offers! Charity of your choice? Your family? That cute barista that refused your date? The sky's the limit, friend.
And this is where we come back to the general plot of TitF. Would the events in it occur in this world? Sure! An escaped "generational payback" could run into just about anyone to set things into motion, but we could make things even more interesting - what if one were to run into someone that's a crime victim? Imagine morality clashing with justified outrage, where will it lead? So many possibilities, from the bleakest to the, well, somewhat uplifting, I suppose.
So there we go! That's how you get corpse starch outside of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Thoughts? Suggestions for refinement?
