Carol explains the Absent Referent

At the end of my first year of Yale Divinity School, I returned home to the small town where I had grown up. As I was unpacking I heard a furious knocking at the door. An agitated neighbor greeted me as I opened the door. "Someone has just shot your horse!" he exclaimed. Thus began my political and spiritual journey toward including animals in my theory and my practice. It did not require that I travel outside this small village of my childhood--though I have; it involved running up to the back pasture behind our barn, and encountering the dead body of a pony I had loved. That evening, still distraught about my pony's death, I bit into a hamburger and stopped in midbite. I was thinking about one dead animal yet eating another dead animal. What was the difference between this dead cow and the dead pony whom I would be burying the next day? I could summon no ethical defense for a favoritism that would exclude the cow from my concern because I had not known her. A year later, I became a vegetarian.

Later, as I began to work on my first book I was struggling to find a way to explain why people eat animals and why it is so difficult to discuss the issue. I realized that it was because of what I call the structure of the absent referent: Behind every meal of meat is an absence: the death of the animal whose place the meat takes. The "absent referent" is that which separates the meat eater from the animal and the animal from the end product. The function of the absent referent is to keep our "meat" separated from any idea that she or he was once an animal, to keep something from being seen as having been someone.

Many of my books arise from this insight about the absent referent.  The Sexual Politics of Meat introduces and explains the structure of the absent referent. If you are interested in a political, feminist, or theoretical analysis of vegetarianism, this book provides it. Yes, it makes startling and controversial claims--but for many it was the first book they encountered that made the connections between sexism, racism, classism, homophobia and animal advocacy. Now The Pornography of Meat further extends this analysis by illustrating the precise relationship between the structure of the absent referent and inequality. From the rise of chain steakhouses to the language of the hunt, from the halls of government to the practice of artificial insemination on farm animals, The Pornography of Meat shows exactly how harm to others parades as fun.

The Inner Art of Vegetarianism series is for you if you wish to engage with vegetarianism from a spiritual perspective, whether you are or are not a vegetarian. If you are not a vegetarian, they offer a gentle, non-forced way of becoming a vegetarian--"Growing Vegetarian Roots." And if you are, they offer exercises and meditations to deepen one's sense of spirituality and connectedness. In one sense, The Inner Art of Vegetarianism series provides insight into how to go about restoring the absent referent. This book makes a perfect gift for friends who are interested in or committed to spirituality, yet haven't found a way to become vegetarian (even though you may have provided them with numerous reasons to do so!).

Living Among Meat Eaters,  is a survival guide for vegetarians. People who haven't restored the absent referent (i.e., people who still eat dead animals) must deal with many feelings when they are reminded of what they are doing. I propose that vegetarians and vegans should view meat eaters as blocked vegetarians. Just by being a vegetarian you remind meat eaters that they are blocked. Living Among Meat eaters provides suggestions for talking, eating, living with and cooking for meat eaters. Michael Greger, in a review for Vegan Outreach wrote, "Ten years in the making, Living among Meat Eaters is a truly monumental work....Our movement sadly lacks theorists. Carol Adams is one of our brilliant exceptions....Living among Meat Eaters is frankly entertaining - in some parts literally laugh-out-loud funny. This is the book we've been waiting for to finally make sense of all the hostility."