Deciding what you will and will not eat is a major reflection of who you are and while I want everyone to decide to not eat animals, I do not feel angry or frustrated by people who decide otherwise as long as the decision is made with full (or mostly full) awareness. I am upset by the people who scarf down a cheeseburger one second and then cry about a tortured bunny or a dying dog. People who see nothing wrong with buying and cooking a whole chicken carcass, but who could never bring themselves to slaughter that chicken. These people are living disjointed lives and are lying to themselves on a daily basis about the origins of their food. If you feel uncomfortable eating an animal in full awareness, then you should not be eating meat. If you can honestly accept what you are doing (taking the life of another to feed yourself), then that is your decision.
I don't think many people in our society are capable of deciding to eat meat in full awareness. We were all brought up with conflicting views and ideas about the value of an animal's life. We ate hamburger helper while treating the family pet as a full member of the family. These two disparate ideas need to be brought together, in some way, in order to have a cohesive idea of what rights animals have. There is also the issue of transparency in the meat industry. It is much easier to eat bacon in its prepackaged strip form without ever thinking of a pig who lived her entire life in a cage being force fed and then slaughtered. We are, for the most part, not eating animals who roamed freely on a nice grassy knoll before being killed in order to feed a population that could not otherwise survive. In bringing the various ideas together, I decided to value all animals as the family pet because I can see no reason or way to distinguish between animals in order to assign some the right to live and some the right to die. I also could not distinguish between corporate meat and small farm meat - no matter how good the animal's life was before the slaughter, I do not feel comfortable with the actual murdering of an animal, no matter how tasty.
All this said, I am not in any way militant about my ideas. I think it is more important to discuss the issue than to force people to eat the way I eat. So, that is very briefly my ideas on food (this does not even begin to scratch the surface as I haven't mentioned my ideas on eating locally or vegan or cooking versus buying), but the point is that I have really thought about what I eat and have made peace with my decisions. I think many, many people are eating in ignorance and that is not healthy for their bodies or minds.
And in conclusion:
If you can't eat this:
Maybe, you shouldn't be eating this:
7 comments:
Maybe this makes me a bad person, but I don't think I would have a problem eating domesticated animals if it weren't taboo.
PS. The only thing that has ever made me want to be vegetarian is that sexy PETA video. You know, this one: http://www.peta.org/content/standalone/VeggieLove/Default.aspx
Also, you're getting kind of preachy, which is something Immortal Technique told me not to ever do. And you don't mess the technique.
Laura it makes you a good person to want to eat domesticated animals and wild alike. That's my point! If you eat one you should eat the other or just don't eat either.
This post was totally preachy because I wrote after a heated argument with an ignorant Republican. I can ensure there will be more preaching to come. You can just call me Father Becca.
P.S. I'll try to write a lighter post soon.
I don't think you were being overly preachy. American culture seems to really be torn between stubborn individualism and the strong desire to legislate on other people's lives, and that's a broader issue we as a culture/society have to come to terms with. Although Immortal Technique does tend to always be right.
Here's how I feel about the issue. One thing that I feel like I always have to point out is that all living things, no matter how sentient, require that other living things give up their lives so they can continue their own, period. Death is a fact of life, and it is absolutely necessary for life to continue, period. That's why I can't use the argument that being vegetarian or vegan sidesteps the issue of killing to live. Plants, of course, are also alive, and before we eat them they too must die. I think that maybe we have to come to terms with death before we come to terms with what we eat. Talk about a heavy post.
That said, I think that feeling pain and sadness (not guilt, and I think this is key) about this fact of life is a sign of an aware, compassionate person, and I believe those are two of the best traits human beings can have. I think those two traits are necessary for us to bring about peace in the world and in our lives, so I would never put down someone who identifies themselves as vegetarian or vegan for that reason. So I agree with your main point, which is that awareness is important in what you eat. Also, there is no debating that the meat industry is cruel and disgusting, and that it has essentially gone unregulated by the federal government. The FDA, too, is a mess, a joke, and an insult to us and the living things we eat. These are matters of fact, and people who think otherwise are simply misinformed.
OK, now I'm done. YAY!
Still, I hear ya barkin. Sometimes I just don't want to talk about all this crap.
It always comes down to awareness, doesn't it?
When I am aware of what I am eating, I cannot eat meat. Other people can be aware and eat meat.
Also, though death is always a fact of life, I try to live my life in a way that minimizes the death of others and of myself. I think this speaks to your point about compassion. I don't feel guilty about eating meat (I used to), but I do feel a sadness for the unnecessary loss of life to feed me and my involvement in an industry that is so atrocious.
But it's all very deep shit that it is next to impossible to discuss because people have such gut reactions that inhibit open, honest conversations. I think there is a lot of latent feelings of guilt in meat-eaters that turn into anger towards vegetarians - though this might just be me on a high horse.
Man, I really hate it when people do that knee- jerk reaction thing. It's really the sign of someone who is too afraid to look at themselves clearly and honestly. And wow is America full of 'em.
And yeah, that was exactly what I meant about compassion! I didn't think to make the connection there, but that was what was in my head. It's the reason that many Buddhists are vegetarians (Thich Nat Hanh talks about this): the way to be a Boddhisatva is to desire truly to do whatever you can to limit the suffering of living things. That's the only requirement. I think that's beautiful. It's also why many Buddhists are really nice. (Not a bad idea.)
(Compassion being the foremost aspiration in Buddhism. In Buddhism, Right Living = Compassion to Living Things.)
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