The Controlling Mentality

The documentary Food, Inc by Robert Kenner reveals the link between the psychology of control and the exploitation of workers and animals by the industrial food system. The organic farmer Joel Salatin puts it best, perhaps, when he says that the same “controlling mentality” that sees the pig as “matter” will also view workers and other human beings in the same light (Food, Inc). In short, the controlling mentality he mentions is one that sees life itself as matter to be converted into capital, into profit, into dollars, and whatever system of production that best serves that purpose is therefore justified.

In the film, we can see this mentality at work when a hidden camera turns to a hog plant in North Carolina. The pigs are shuffled into the butcher lines, and the workers are shuffled into police vans – they are, after all, illegal immgrants. Despite being brought to the United States at the request of the meatpacking companies, in this case the Smithfield meatpacking corporation strikes a deal with local law enforcement to make token arrests under the cover of darkness. They will not raid the factories themselves and stop production.

The irony of this controlling mentality is that we can never quite see it; just like the Tyson chicken corporation, the Smithfield corporatoin refuses to be interviewed on camera. It may be most terrifying, one imagines, to realize that should the company become visible the public relations officer might look just like you or me.