I don’t know that I would go so far as complain, but count me in as someone who doesn’t want to take 20 minutes out of my day to socialize with my coworkers. I’m at work to work. I don’t want to socialize. I want to get my work done and get out.
I especially don’t want to do this if it’s my birthday. I would rather if my workplace just assumed that personal holidays are, well, personal.
Then I still think it’s silly but I kno better than to try to argue with them about it.
I think it’s easier for a vegetarian to peel the bologna off a sub (I don’t see that as any different than me taking the pickles off a cheeseburger. Sure, there’s a tiny bit of pickle juice left. So what? One billion Red Chinese don’t give a fuck) than it is to open the door to all kinds of special orders by a bunch of self-important employees with petty little food preferences.
Not by a private employer, no. It’s not like they’re forcing anyone to eat the subs or preventing them from bringing their own food. What if I decide that my religion requires me to eat only lobster and caviar for lunch every day. Does that mean my employer is obligated to supply me with lobster and caviar when everybody else is getting Subway?
I’m sorry, but who are you to decide how much is or isn’t enough to matter to someone else? If it’s not enough to matter to you if there’s XYZ residue on your food (whether it be meat squeezins or pickle juice) that’s fine, but the notion that your standard is the one that should guide someone else in this matter is to say the least arrogant.
You’re the one who’s demanding that other people meet your standard when you say that pulling the turkey off a sub isn’t good enough and they should have to pay you. I’m not saying you should HAVE to eat a sandwich that (oh noes) once had some pastrami on it, I’m just saying that you could if you wanted to. You wouldn’t be harmed in any way. You don’t have to act like it’s some kind of toxic poison or like it would pollute your holy purity or something. I’ve spent too much time in 3rd world countries to feel sorry for people with fussy little food issues.
Hindu, Jain, and other Indian vegetarians will not eat anything that has come into contact with meat.
No. It’s your personal choice to declare some foods “ethically objectionable” just as it is my personal choice to prefer one food or the other. Both are personal choices, neither has a “higher value”.
Although some meats may leave a “residue” tothers are very dry (like turkey). Then again, if you object to a “residue” all the subs are made upon the same cutting table with the same knive, so they all have a “residue”.
I know. Jains also sweep the ground in front of them to avoid stepping on bugs and they rip out all their hair by the roots twice a year. They’re insane.
(Some Hindu “vegetarians” actually will eat chicken or fish, by the way. There’s a lot of variation in how people interpret what constitutes “meat” there. The Jains really are nuts, though)
Actually, I believe most of them don’t.
Don’t what, sweep the ground or pluck their hair? I don’t know how common the former is anymore but the latter is still required (though I think a lot of them just shave now, but plenty still do the yanking out by the roots. I saw a videotape of it in college once).
Some of them still go “skyclad” too.
Anyway, my point was that just because a belief or practice is religious in nature, doesn’t mean it’s can’t still be irrational.
Wow, good thing I didn’t ask anyone to feel sorry for me then.
OK, whatever, I’m not goin to get drawn into yet another argument about the ethics of eating meat or waste time trying to convince you that ethical arguments are of perhaps a slightly higher value than “I don’t like the way it tastes.”
This thread started out as entertaining and is now turning nasty. So I think I’m done.
But the simple fact of human society is that it is socially unacceptable to treat the strictures of sincere religious belief as if they are nothing but irrational (even if they are, and I do agree that they are).
But it’s not just a religious issue. Years of conditioning tells us what is “edible” and what is “inedible.” Telling a vegetarian who has never eaten meat to just pick out the meat, is like giving the average American an egg salad sandwich made with grasshoppers and grubs to just pick out the bugs and the worms and enjoy the rest of the sandwich. Or throwing lunch into the garbage bin and saying – they’re all wrapped, just dig them out and eat them.
The food has had intimate contact with something that the eater considers to be incompatible with eating. Regardless of the irrationality of religion, except in survival circumstances, it’s just plain not nice to put someone through that intentionally.
Are you saying that naturism is irrational? 
The thing is- they are your personal choices in ethics. It is a matter of personal choice, and how can you claim that your personal choices are a “hgher value” than mine?
I wanted to add:
This is why Vegetarians often piss off us meat-eaters. We have no objection to your personal choice to not eat meat, fine buy us, more steak for me. It is when start saying your personal choice is of a “higher ethical value” than ours that you cross the line. Eat what you want, I’ll at what I want. If your choices make you feel virtuous, then fine, but don’t start claiming you are superior to me because of it. I feel virtuous when I don’t that slice of cake (I am trying to lose weight), but telling everyone that my personal choices is then of a higher value" makes me an asshole.
You see no distinction between a choice made on the basis of a (perceived) ethical or moral principle and a choice made on the basis of personal taste? As I said before, the majority of human societies seem to give special place to religious-based choices rather than merely personal preference. I won’t say I like it that way, but surely it’s not something that started with Western vegetarians.
That’s all well and good but if I may speak frankly, the vast majority of North American vegetarianism is not a result of cultural or religious conditioning but is simply an affectation, a fashion statement, an attention seeking device. I say that as someone who’s been there and done that. I grew out of it when I realized what a santimonious pain in the ass I was to everybody else. I think it’s immature to expect that everyone else should be concerned about and pander to a dietary affectation.
I know we’re kind of getting far afield here, but I know that if I’m ever in a position to order a plate of sandwiches for a group of people, I’m always going to include a few veggie subs in the bunch. Even if I don’t think we have any vegetarians in the group. You know why? Because sometimes, even people who enjoy eating meat find a veggie sub to be tasty. Jesus.
So because they have ethical or other dietary restrictions different from you, their “food preferences” are “petty” and “little” and they are “self-important” for daring to suggest that people might accomodate them? :rolleyes:
I happen to agree with you that the reasonable action would be to pick off the meat, and that considering a sandwich “tainted by previous association” is taking the issue too far. But you know what, that is essentially the underlying belief system for many a world religion that I do not subscribe to. Respect for my fellow man and a desire to live in peace with him in a free and open society mandates that I show some understanding in practice (even if, in other company, I may openly deride that belief system). And in deflecting criticism by saying “been there, done that” (in that you are a “reformed” hyper-vegetarian) you show yourself to be a fundamentally holier-than-thou type of person; if you’re not holding your nose in the air for being a strict vegetarian, you’re looking down your nose at the strict vegetarians.
Your misanthropic overtones aside, I think your basic approach to this kind of question is wrong. Ethical questions like this are situational, not absolute (which seems to be the tone you are taking). This is because when discussing the ethics of a choice of action in a human group, that group provides the context essential to the discussion.
I would agree that it is unreasonable for a single individual to demand that the rest of a group accede to their demands. However to extrapolate from this a conclusion that results in saying that any request from an individual for group accomodation is unreasonable is, well, unreasonable. The answer depends on the nature of the request, the nature of the group, and the nature of the individual(s).
Here’s an analogy: there are group of ten children with a choice of games available to them, selected by a majority vote, but some of the children in the group cannot play one or another of these games. Let’s say they have a Big Red Ball and can play kickball or dodgeball with it, but two of the children have been barred from playing dodgeball by their parents, because “it’s too dangerous”.
Is such a restriction arbitrary and silly to the other eight children? It sure would seem so to me.
Is that arbitrary restriction binding on the other eight children? No, not at all.
Do those two children “have a right” to demand that they use the ball to play kickball? Strictly speaking, no.
But a vote cast to choose to play dodgeball is, in this context, an act of intentional exclusion, and there’s no question that a vote to play dodgeball will leave these two children feeling unwanted, and unhappy as a result.
In my opinion, there is no answer to the question is it right for these kids to play dodgeball that will be the same for all scenarios. If you think there is, ask yourself: would your answer change if there are 98 children who want to play dodgeball rather than kickball, instead of 8; or 998? What if they play as a group every day, should they simply agree ahead of time to play kickball 1 or 2 days of the week? Does it matter who the parents of those children are? What if the ball belongs to a specific child, does he get to dictate the game by fiat or is it still put to a vote?
To return to the context of the OP, and some of your subsequent comments: it is not difficult to find vegetarian options on most casual, take-out menus. Hence, it is very easy for anybody in charge of choosing the selection of food to include vegetarian options. Therefore, if that person knows there is a strict vegetarian in the group, and yet does not include a vegetarian option in his selection, that would be a deliberately exclusive act. The appropriateness of that act is up to the context, though I find it hard to come up with one where it would be appropriate, short of sending a message that “you are not really liked/wanted around here” (which is a possible message, if said person is always pointing the finger and giving a sermon about the evils of eating meat).
Gaah, I can’t believe I’m writing this much about what seemed to be a completely minor IMHO thread. This is why I stay out of the GD forum.
This has gotten a bit out of hand Otto. I let a statement pass by, because I wasn’t going to argue the point. This sure isn’t a poll anymore.
They’re self-important if they think they should automatically be entitled to accomodation, and they are especially self-important if they think they should be paid off when a proffered gift is not found up to their pious, moral standards. They are entitled to refuse the gift. They are not entitled to restitution.
I’m not judging them morally (like they do to meat eaters), I’m just saying I came to realize how passive-aggressive and phony and ultimately pointless it all was. If someone really doesn’t want to eat meat, fine by me, but it’s their issue, not mine and not their employer’s. No one should ever have to accomodate them.
Yes, but my answer, in this case, is specific to the context. MHO is that if your employer offers you a free lunch, you can eat it or not eat it but you are not enitled to pecuniary remuneration just because you didn’t like what was on the menu.
Your points are taken here but I think I was actually speaking to a specific situation and context (I also think the schoolyard analogy is slightly flawed in that vegetarians are not really prohibited from eating meat, they just don’t want to).
So what? Are vegetarians some kind of protected class like religious or racial groups?
It’s common at my job for my employer to provide pizza during monthly staff meetings. I don’t particularly care for pizza. Am I being discriminated against? Should I demand a few bucks from my boss so I can buy a couple of tacos?