What's the point of being vegetarian?

Great Debates
101

I know I do. It doesn’t bother me that much if someone is trying to convince other people to change their behavior (although it’s not something I would do), so long as they do it in a way that is polite and doesn’t treat other people as if they are stupid or evil just because they have different beliefs. It’s when people start pushing their beliefs in a way that is obnoxious and disrespectful that it really gets to me. There is a subset of vegetarians (and I don’t think it’s anywhere near the majority) who seem to go beyond even caring about changing peoples minds, to the point of just wanting to stick it to the meat-eating majority. These are the folks who do things like deface street signs (“STOP eating meat” and so forth). Do they really think simplistic graffitti is going to change anyone’s views on anything? I even remember an incident where some “vegetarian activist” threw a pie in the face of some guy who was speaking at some conference of beef industry people. I can’t believe that they seriously thought some meat eater was going to say, “Wow, I better quit eating meat, or some vegetarian might through a pie in my face.” Clearly this so called “activist” was just acting out of pure ego gratification. And it pissed me off, because it makes vegetarians look like a bunch of crazy idiots. And believe me, I’m not shy about telling people just what I think about the jerks who do things like that.

My vegetarianism isn’t based on the belief that all animals are morally equivalent to human beings. Some people do hold that belief, in which case it’s consistent with that belief to feel like we have no right to take anything from animals without their consent. How we would obtain that consent, I don’t know. But suffice it to say:
(1) I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with eating honey, which is why I do so without hesitation.
(2) If someone else thinks there is something wrong with eating honey, and chooses not to do so, I figure that’s there perogative, and I’m not going to criticise them for following that belief. Just like I’m not going to criticise someone for eating meat, if they don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not interested in trying to make everyone live the same lifestyle as me.

Frankly, if we could get the whole world to agree on how humans ought to be treated, I’d be pretty happy with that.

102

It’s not nice when someone denies you the morality you do hold and accuses you of a morality that you don’t hold, is it?

Nevertheless, this much is true: how we think of people can’t help but spill over into how we interact with them. Your comments reveal an incredibly low opinion of vegetarians and the reasons for vegetarianism. I would be very surprised if that doesn’t come across in your interactions with them, whatever you might think of the way that you behave.

pan

103

jforton if I can very slightly paraphrase what you said, it amounts to:
“Surely not every vegetarian is an obnoxious glutton – just the ones I know.”

Are you really surprised that vegetarians would be offended by that statement? It seems likely that if you have found every vegetarian you know to be an obnoxious glutton, then you wouldn’t think too highly of the rest of us. Saying “but I’m sure you all aren’t like that” doesn’t really change the fact that your attitude towards the vegetarians you do know suggests you would find the rest of us to be like that. Unless you just attract really obnoxious friends for some reason.

Besides, your definition of gluttony is pretty damn inclusive. Basically, you just said that anyone who “overindulges in concern about food” is a glutton. I’m led to believe that you think my taking the time to prepare vegetarian dishes, or being overly attentive to what goes into my food to make sure I’m not eating meat is excessive concern. Therefore, evidently, I’m a glutton. Moreover, my alledged moral belief is really just an excuse for my gluttony.

I’m sorry if your friends are obnoxiously pretentious about their vegetarianism. I have no problem with you saying that they are obnoxiously pretentious. But when you seem to be getting back at them by saying that vegetarianism is equivalent to gluttony, that’s obviously going to offend a lot of people. Even though you didn’t say “all vegetarians are gluttons”, you basically said “all people who are overly concerned about what they eat are gluttons by definition”, and that seems to encompass all vegetarians, including those who aren’t obnoxiously pretentious.

Moreover, you claim that vegetarians, or at least the ones you know, aren’t being honest about their moral beliefs. You claim they are using their morals as an excuse for their gluttony. You have no basis to make that claim, even about the specific vegetarians you know. If you want to say they are obnoxious pretentious moralistic assholes, go ahead. But just because their attitude pisses you off, it doesn’t give you the right to say that their “alledged moral belief is a mask.” If someone says they believe in someone, and you want to call them a liar, which is basically what you’ve done, you ought to have some basis for it. Being abnoxious and lying about ones principles are two very different things.
For the record: I was not offended by your comment. It would be pretty much impossible for you to offend me, because I just don’t give a damn what any random stranger I talk to on the Internet thinks about me or my lifestyle. But it is clear to me why others would be offended by your comments as they’re phrased. You might want to think about it and withdraw those statements that don’t accurately reflect your views. Unless you really do believe that anyone who shows particular concern for what they eat is a glutton, and that you truly have the power to discern whether your friends are sincere in their moral convictions.

104

I certainly have a low opinion of the choice to be a vegetarian if it is based on an ethical foundation, though that opinion may not necessarily apply to the entire person. As a gout sufferer I could stand to eat less meat myself, but when a friend equates eating veal with cooking human children they should not expect me to maintain a high opinion of them. In those cases, yes, my opinion of them becomes quite clear. Thats a pretty rare occurance though. Most vegans I know, even if they believe such, have never said as much and so we get along quite well and have done so for years.

But this gets us way OT.

105

But you do realize that someone can choose to be a vegetarian “based on an ethical foundation” without equating eating veal to cooking human children, right?

106

If you had read the link I provided to the Screwtape Letter on gluttony you would see that my view on gluttony is not so broad as you think and certainly does not include the mere concern about what one eats. To paraphrase the letter: gluttony is a state in which food becomes the focus of life and the key part of one’s identity. Here is the link again.

I don’t mean to say that they don’t at some level believe what they purport to believe. I do submit that there are some for who part of the reason they are vegans is the ability to say “I’m a vegan.” What it comes down to, I guess, is that I tend to believe that the motivations of those who do not constantly talk about their beliefs are more geniune than those who can talk of nothing but.

Having strong beliefs, being passionate about them and expressing them when appropriate is one thing- but when it becomes all that you are it seems to me it starts being less about the belief and more about finding an identity. That may be misplaced but I went through a similar thing myself where at one point I had to ask “wait, am I this belief or a person who believes?” I decided I was a person and changed the way I interacted with people.

I am active in the Montessori community and it is a educational philosophy that attracts a certain amount counterculture fans so I have seen this many times. My sample apparently is not very representative…

107

Yeah. I believe my second to last sentence of the post in question says exactly that.

108

So because you went down a route of confusing a belief (that was presumably nothing to do with vegetarianism) with your identity, you want to tar “not all but certainly at least all the ones I know” vegetarians with the same brush.

Nice.

109

At this point you don’t seem to be reading my posts, just reacting. Your position seems to be that if a person claims to be a vegetarian I should give them every benefit of the doubt regardless of what they say or do or how they interact with me. That it is impossible for a vegetarian to be as I describe some of my aquaintances?

110

My position is that it is unlikely. They may well get off on being a vegetarian. Even if this is so, I still find it incredibly unlikely that someone would consistently and persistently put themselves through the extraordinary hassles of being a vegetarian just so they would have an excuse to be a prig. Even subconciously. They almost certainly must have started off from the conviction that animals shouldn’t suffer in the name of food.

And that’s true for a vegetarian. The odds against all the vegetarians you know falling into such a category are just staggering.

At this point I have to ask myself which is more likely: is the problem associated with the extreme odds as described above or is the problem you? There are only two common factors here – vegetarianism and jfortun. Chances are that it is jfortun that is the one fitting facts to conform to his own belief system, not every one of those vegetarians.

pan

111

You are right. Vegetarianism is a cause so pure, just and noble; a doctrine so difficult to adhere to that those who do so must have only pristine motivations. I was a fool to even think I was capable of making a judgement call about people I have met but you have not. Clearly the fact that you and my friends may have similar diets gives you much more personal insight about them than my years of personal interaction.

112

Sorry, entered BBQ Pit territory there.

113

Ironically, if you had read my posts, you would have realised that I am not even a vegetarian.

OTT paraphrasing is always the last refuge of those with nothing further to say. Your crude attempt to ridicule is getting you nowhere. But whilst you’re talking about persona experience – have you ever tried eating no meat for even a fortnight? Until you have, I think that you’re in a pretty poor position to be claiming that it’s not a problem to do so.

pan

114

Touche

I am not sure your former point is true and your latter point was true at the very beginning of this topic (though I object to the “crude”). Do great debates ever change anyone’s opinion?

This I have done. In an attempt to lesson my attacks of gout. For a meat lover like myself it was difficult and I found that moderation was more appropriate for me than abstinence.

115

In other words, even though it was directly affecting your health, you were stillunable to do so . And yet you think that others would do it just so that they would have an excuse to be sanctimonious? Don’t you see the irrationality there? Don’t you think that without the overriding drive of moral imperitive, it would be just as impossible for others as it was for you?

Seriously – what is more likely here? That assholes are assholes but their drive is genuine or that they are living an entire awkward, time-consuming and restrictive lifestyle just to give them an excuse to be an asshole?

pan

116

More unwilling than unable.

Look, people put on airs about much more complicated things than diet. Religion, politics, sexuality are all things people (especially younger people) take on under less than fully sincere pretenses in an effort to form an identity or join a group. It happens all the time. Visit any college campus. I would highly doubt that a lifelong vegetarian would be such without deeply held beliefs, but for others I think there is room for less than nobel motivations.

Can’t we agree to disagree on that point and move on?

117

What kind of stores do you shop at? At every grocery I’ve ever seen, the beef, pork, lamb, fish, and poultry are all sold together–in the meat department.

I guess that’s why I’ve never understood people who eat seafood and/or poultry claiming to be vegetarians. I was always under the impression that muscle tissue from an animal=meat. I had this same discussion with a woman at work Wednesday, actually. She’s one of those quite vocal vegetarians who likes to periodically point out that you really oughtn’t be eating animals, and she ordered a tuna sub when we ordered dinner in. When I asked her about it, she told me that eating tuna was quite compatible with not eating animals, because fish aren’t animals. Well, not real animals, anyway. :confused: I guess maybe they’re imaginary animals.

118

Vegans are the only true vegetarians, if you want to be like that. Vegans/vegetarians that eat eggs are ovo-vegetarians. Vegans/vegetarians that eat milk-products are lacto-vegetarians. Vegans/vegetarians that eat fish are pesco-vegetarians. Vegans/vegetarians that eat all those things are ovo-lacto-pesco-vegetarians.

There is no word for those that eat poultry as well, I guess because there is a clear dichotomy between mammals/birds and everything else. But if they wish to merely be “non-mammal-eaters”, that is up to them. Why do YOU get to decide otherwise? Is it just because you once read some “definition”? Really – I want to know. If someone is comfortable eating anything other than mammal-flesh, how is that an inconsistent ethic and why is it worth your comment?

119

Be like what, exactly? Krokodil said he defined “meat” the same way a grocer does, with fish and chicken being kept apart from the mammal products. I questioned the assertion that grocers don’t consider chicken and fish to be meat, because, like I said, every grocery I’ve ever been in has had the poultry and seafood in the meat department along with all the other chunks of dead animal flesh.

If someone has a more thorough explanation of why chunks of cow flesh are meat but chunks of chicken or fish flesh aren’t meat, I’m genuinely interested in hearing it so I can understand the mindset better. I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m saying I don’t understand it. You know, right there in the line “I’ve never understood…”

And if you can’t understand why saying “It’s wrong to eat animals,” and then saying it’s okay to eat fish (which last time I checked were still considered animals) is inconsistent, I guess I’ll never be able to explain it to you.

120

I’ve never understood it either.

I am not saying that those who include fish and/or chicken in their diets are “bad” people or that I’m looking down on them. They very well may have a very admirable diet, and that’s all fine with me.

But (as I’ve repeated many a time on other veggie threads), poultry and fish are not considered part of the vegetarian diet, at least not in any mainstream context, at least not in the USA. Can’t speak for other parts of the world.

I’ve never seen a vegetarian cookbook that included fish or chicken in the recipes. Maybe there’s one out there, but I’ve never seen it—it’s that rare. I’ve never seen fish or chicken in a vegetarian restaurant (at least not one in the States). Perhaps there is one out there, but my guess is that it’s pretty rare.

I’ve never seen poultry or fish included in the ingredients of a “Vegetarian” dish sold at a healthfood store or grocery store. All of the veggie frozen dinners, canned chilis, soup mixes, etc., that claim to be vegetarian do not have fish or chicken.

And on the other hand, I’ve never seen a Fish ‘n’ Chips dish or Fish ‘n’ Chips restaurant claim to be “Vegetarian.” The Turkey Chili I saw for sale at the health food store did not say, “Vegetarian” on it. Kentucky Fried Chicken does not consider itself to be a vegetarian establishment. Neither does El Pollo Loco.

Some of these dishes, recipes, or restaurants may include dairy, but none that I’ve seen include fish or chicken.

The biggest vegetarian restaurant in the USA, Vegetarian Times, does not include fish or chicken in any of the recipes, and does not consider fish or chicken to be part of the vegetarian diet.

Now, I suppose with all this decided lack of mainstream support and lack of mainstream evidence for the idea that vegetarians can eat fish, one can still call themselves a vegetarian. ::shrug:: They can do that. They can do whatever they want. But they must realize that a lot of people—a lot of people—are not going to consider them veggie. Not because they want to be mean, or holier than thou (though this may be the case with some people), but simply because it doesn’t fit the definition as we in mainstream society understand it to be. (Or at least, all the evidence—as in cookbooks, prepared food, restaurants, etc.—tells us the definition is.)

However, some people call themselves “pesco-vegetarians” or “psuedo-vegetarians” or whatever. And that seems to be fine, since it does make a distinction between the different kinds of diets. Kind of like we all know that vegans and ovo-lacto vegetarians are different.

Now that I truly don’t get.