Certainly. The kabbess is a vegetarian. She says that she would, in theory, eat freshly hunted game. This is because her objection is to the conditions that farm animals are kept in and not to the eating of meat per se. She’s not a sentimentalist – it isn’t the animal death that she objects to so much as the way that it leads its life.
As I have stated either in this thread or in the Pit thread (cannot remember and am too lazy to check), I have absolutely no problem with eating wild animals. I don’t have a problem with the slaughter of cows either, just their conditions of living prior to being killed. My reasons are that animals kept in poor conditions suffer, but a hunter’s bullet causes no suffering (unless you miss, and if you do, I hope you follow up with a killing shot rather quickly).
There is definitely a distinction then, between vegetarians who do not eat meat because of the way the food animals live, and those who do not eat meat because of animal deaths.
Do any of you vegetarians in this thread ever have disagreements with the proselytizing type?
Also what do vegetarians here think of this premise that was brought up by my vegetarian/vegan extreme cousin: Honey production is morally wrong because it involves the enslavement of bees?
I think your problem is one of overgeneralisation.
What do omnivores think of that proposition?
What do white people think of it?
What do Republicans think of it?
What do Christians think of it?
Vegetarians only have one thing in common – they don’t eat meat. Even the reasons for this tend to vary hugely from individual to individual. Even amongst those with the same reason, they will have very different beliefs as regards propositions not relating to that reason. You’re trying to group about 30 million to 100 million people together to answer a complex question. It’s not going to happen.
No, my problem is that I’m asking questions about what vegetarians think of other vegetarians so that I can find out how ‘diverse’ vegetarains are, and I’m getting told I’m generalizing.
I have a hell of a lot more experience with what omnivores think of proselytizing vegetarians and vegetarians like my extremist cousin, so it’s more interesting to talk to vegetarians about this than it is omnivores.
I have never come across a proselytizing vegetarian. Neither has the kabbess. I know this because I have talked about the matter with her. However, in principle, she finds the idea of them annoying because they provide strident omnivores with an excuse to constantly carp about her choice as to what she eats.
I’ve never met one, but I’d probably be annoyed if I had.
This is where I’m eagerly awaiting some eradication of my ignorance. I know way too little about honey production to be able to answer that question. Luckily, I almost never use honey. I own one jar that’s like five or six years old and still more than half full, so I have the best part of a decade to work out my moral stance regarding honey production.
Yeah, totally fair. And also refreshing to see viewpoints that aren’t those of the very extreme and very vocal type people like the ALF groups that get heard cause they make so much noise.
Her problem with it was something about how the bees were forced to live in wooden hives, they were abused by the smoke that the beekeepers use, and that the products of their labor were stolen while they were forced to eat only foods that the beekeeper found appropriate because it would ‘taste better’ to people as honey, and she also thought that thousands of bees died horribly in ‘mass murders’ if they tried to attack the beekeeper who invaded their home.
I have to admit, I don’t know much about bee farming, and neither does she. Then again, this is the same cousin who bitches about cruelty to beef cattle while wearing leather, so I tend to see her as one of those ‘wacked out hypocritical extremists’.
Exposure to her has probably caused damage in my perception of vegetarians in general, but this thread is helping that a lot.
A lot of people can’t stand the ALF. A lot of the people who can’t stand them are the silent vegetarian majority. I’m sure you also have a belief that is taken to an extreme by a very vocal group that makes your palms itch.
However, I live with extremist whitterings via the following rationalisation: society tends towards the centre ground. So it never hurts to have extremists from ALL camps pulling the debate towards areas that would otherwise simply be ignored. As long as those extremists gain no actual power, the issues they highlight may actually be useful.
Don’t know anything about this nor how bees feel about living in wooden hives. By the way, it’s not like they can’t leave and form a new colony elsewhere.
This one I can see. I don’t know the facts, though.
I have a really hard time imagining bees sitting around complaining that someone steals their honey.
This one I can see too, but I don’t know the facts here either.
This makes no sense. Killing a bee horribly is much more difficult than killing it quickly. Why would the beekeeper take the time to kill them horribly? Is he expecting the others to take notice and get in line?
I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of her argument, but this one was based on the idea that having the stinger ripped out of its ass into the beekeeper suit was cruel to the bee.
I’m not accusing anyone in particular here of this but many of the strict vegetarians in my life take whatever opportunities they can to point out their vegetarianism, make plain their moral ground for being so while simultaneously bragging about the glorious foodstuffs they enjoy.
Because of this I have come to view vegetarianism as a form of gluttony- not in the traditional eat-everything-in-site sense but the sense in which C.S. Lewis describes the sin in his Screwtape Letters (letter 17 ). That is, being vegetarian is an excuse to be overly particular and priggish about what one eats. Not to overindulge in food but to overindulge in concern about food. Their alleged moral belief seems to be a mask to cover or justify their overweening approach to what they put in their mouths. Clearly not every vegetarian is like this- just the ones I happen to know. It is a singularly obnoxious sort of gluttony.
As for the OP, a moral principle stands alone and does not need the ability to affect change to support it. I may disagree with the entire animal rights argument, but if one does believe in it than one should not eat meat even if your neighbor may never change his ways. Perhaps the implicit premise here is that the poster does not believe that vegetarians who claim morality is their motivation are not actually motivated by such, ergo “what is the point”. I have come to view that about of few of my acquaintances.
You must be joking. Have you any idea how annoying it is to be a vegetarian? How much longer it takes to make food? How difficult it is to find choice in a restaurant? How irritating it is to deal with the majority (90%+ of people are omnivores), a significant proportion of whom find it necessary to cast judgements over your food choices?
And you think they do this not for moral reasons but because… they want an “excuse to be overly particular and priggish about what one eats.”?
Wow. This level of arrogance I don’t even know how to touch. Ah well. Judge away there, sparky. I hope it makes you happy.
catsix – you see what vegetarians have to put up with? Imagine people listening to your moral views and then telling you that actually you don’t have those moral views at all and really its just an excuse to be priggish! Now tell me that isn’t even more irritating even than your extremist cousin. And remember that for each one of your cousin, there are nine of these guys…
Not joking. I rarely have conversations about food with my omnivore friends, but with my vegetarian friends it always seems to come down to food- what they eat, what they don’t eat (and why) and how good it is, how hard it is to find, etc. etc. It seems to be the focus of their existence.
Taking a moral stand and sticking to it is one thing. Talking non-stop about it and food in general is another. One begins to wonder if the goal is adhering to a moral principle or if it is the appearance of moral and epicurial superiority. I don’t say that these two are mutually exlusive- all of our motivations can be very complex- but I do believe there is a counter-culture alure to the lifestyle and that for some the preaching is disingenuous.
If I had accused you of this I would expect a bit of venom but I hadn’t so you can lighten up.
Vegetarians get accused of this a lot. In my experience, however, it tends to be quite the reverse: it is the non-vegetarians that bring the topic up. Along the lines of:
(In a restaurant)
NV: Why don’t you try this?
V: Can’t, sorry, I’m a vegetarian.
NV: A vegetarian! Why?! That’s just silly! Let me point out these helpful arguments as to why you shouldn’t bother. (Etc. ad infinitum).
Most of the time, the non-vegetarian doesn’t even realise they have done it. They just remember after the event that the vegetarian was strangely defensive about being a vegetarian. Well no shit!
Hah! You accuse a whole section of people of gross deception – that their so-called morality is a sham and actually it’s just an excuse to be priggish – and you think that you are the one taking the high road! Oh sweet, sweet irony.
I hadn’t accused a whole section of people of that. I stated 3 times in my original post that I did not believe this applied to every vegetarian.
On this note however I stated that the motivations may be more complex than simply posing vs. moral belief. This is not the same as deception and I did not accuse vegetarians (in particular or en masse) of lying.
Finally, I never indicated that I thought I was taking the moral high road; but since you opened the door- I do think that advocating animal rights is immoral- though that is a discussion for another thread.
You are accusing a whole section of people. Even if you later modify it as “of course, not all vegetarians are like this…” the implication is still that most are. That’s just obnoxious.
And given your whole approach to this issue, I would not be at all surprised to find that you are precisely the kind of person I was referring to in my fictitious conversation; you don’t even realise that you are the one with the confrontational attitude that gets the vegetarians’ backs up in the first place and then just remembers how defensive they were being.
You are free to interpret it any way you wish but it was not my intended implication. I can’t help but feel that I am not the one being obnoxious at this point.
I don’t know why you had to make this so personal. I am not one of those. I tend to be pretty sensitive to the dietary requirements of my friends when entertaining so I tend to avoid the confrontation alltogether. If dining out though I don’t hesitate to order a steak rare, so perhaps you consider that part of my “confrontational attitude.”