Megan McArdle is a vegan, but she's not mad about it. And she wishes some people would get off her case. Excerpt:
But this isn't enough for many of my critics, who want me to never mention being a vegan, lest they feel bad. Even better if I stopped being a vegan entirely, so that they wouldn't suffer with the knowledge that someone, somewhere, is enjoying a hearty bowl of split pea soup with tofu croutons. Like most vegetarians, I suspect that my angriest critics are those who, like me, feel that eating meat is wrong--and therefore want me to do it too, so that they don't have to think about their own choices.Well, apologies, but I think that I have a moral obligation to be a vegan. And I blog about it because many of my readers are vegan, and they like to read about it. And also, because I'd like people to know that if you are thinking about animal welfare, being a vegetarian or a vegan is nowhere near as hard as you think it is--believe me, I never thought when I tried veganism for Lent that I'd be able to stick with it, but it's surprisingly easy to keep up with.
But the one reason I am not blogging about it is to make people feel bad. First of all, this never works--if you tell people they're evil, they just get defensive. Second of all, unless you are willing to wall yourself up in a PETA compound, it is not possible to have anything approaching decent interaction with other humans if you spend all your time judging their eating habits. But third, and most importantly, I don't think they're evil. It's okay. Eat your double bacon cheeseburger. I'll still love you every bit as much.
This raises an interesting ethical question. Are there any guidelines for deciding when morality is absolute, and when it is relative? In practice, I mean. Megan obviously believes that meat-eating is objectively wrong, but she also appears to believe that in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big a deal. Not such a big deal that she would lose a friend over it, or feel the need to go around telling people they shouldn't eat meat.
We all do this kind of thing, negotiating our way through life unconsciously, having to decide when we can tolerate something we find immoral, and when we have to make a stand. It's the people who believe that one is absolutely required to make a firm and uncompromising moral stand, and to make it publicly, no matter what the circumstances, at the risk of obviating their own personal integrity -- those rigid, inflexible, inhuman people really put me off.
Fortunately, you don't run into many people like that; they tend to drive others away. But isn't there a bit of that in all of us? The temptation to tell others who share our moral convictions, but maybe aren't quite so convicted on this or that, that if they really believed that X was wrong, then they wouldn't be doing Y...? Or maybe we're right. I dunno. This question reminds me of how people like me regard other drivers on the road: as nuts who go too slow and are too cautious, or as idiots who drive too fast and too recklessly. If everybody drove exactly as I did, the world would be, you know, perfect. Heh.
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Since none of us knows, really, how non-human animals think and feel, we can neither prove nor disprove the "they don't feel existential horror" theory. But even if it is true, I don't see why it justifies torture and killing, especially for reasons of mere gustatory pleasure. Besides, if there's one truism about zoology, these days, it's that the line between human and non-human animals keeps getting ever more blurred. Tool use, language, culture, rich emotional lives, ability to plan, ability to strategize are all present in non-humans, and probably much more we don't even know about. So we shouldn't make assumptions about animals' interior life - or, more to the point, should err on the side of caution, particularly given evidence such as this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/opinion/31kristof.html
While one of our geese was sitting on her eggs, her gander would go out foraging for food — and if he found some delicacy, he would rush back to give it to his mate. Sometimes I would offer males a dish of corn to fatten them up — but it was impossible, for they would take it all home to their true loves.
Once a month or so, we would slaughter the geese. When I was 10 years old, my job was to lock the geese in the barn and then rush and grab one. Then I would take it out and hold it by its wings on the chopping block while my Dad or someone else swung the ax.
The 150 geese knew that something dreadful was happening and would cower in a far corner of the barn, and run away in terror as I approached. Then I would grab one and carry it away as it screeched and struggled in my arms.
Very often, one goose would bravely step away from the panicked flock and walk tremulously toward me. It would be the mate of the one I had caught, male or female, and it would step right up to me, protesting pitifully. It would be frightened out of its wits, but still determined to stand with and comfort its lover.
Maybe this does or doesn't qualify as "existential horror" but it's compelling enough to me, especially given that we don't need to do it to survive. Oh, and btw, what about the existential horror of the slaughterer - how does it affect his or her soul?
Hill
Interesting posts. FWIW, we have decided at our house that we're opting out of the supermarket meat counter. We are not vegan, except at fasting seasons, which means that we are vegan for about half of the year, like now, for instance ;-) Although we're fine with eating meat, we can no longer support the cruelty of the large scale industrial meat packing system. Hill, I am enjoying what you have to say, but my Great-grandma slaughtered barnyard fowl for most of her life, and she had one of the sweetest souls around. I'm thinking that maybe her habit of beginning the task with a prayer of thanksgiving had something to do with that.
Hillary's moving story about the geese makes me realize that what the animal-welfare and vegan movements need is a popular novel destined to be proverbial unto future liberation. And, given the immortal track record the male diminutive of Thomas afforded the abolitionists (Lincoln to Stowe, from legend: "So this is the little lady who started this big war?"), for those concerned with the fowl treatment of our breast friends, a like title suggests itself, perhaps set in battery-farming Bayoo Country to boot:
tinyurl.com/6rm2a3
Uncle Tom's Cagin', or, Strife Among the Poultry
An anonymous Dickens adaptation also hatches, bookending the holidays a month before its Christmas precursor,
A Thanksgiving Peril, by "Darles Chickens"
in which poor broken-winged Tiny Tom leaves no eye dry in pleading, as the hardfaced farmer approaches, knife and musket in hand,
"God help us, everyone."
Perhaps Tom Tom Club could score the film adaptation.
If using the name "Tom" gave Stowe a way on board the humanitarian ship, there's a steel will waiting to be inspired among the wheelrighters of animal wrongs still trapped in steerage.
How about it, novelists?
Martha Grimes is working on it. Try her latest, "Dakota". Her writings have become less murder mystery and more animal rights in later years. I really don't know if she has gone vegan, but it wouldn't surprise me.
I haven't read all the comments, but my basic response to the entry itself is that recognizing animals as right-holders means respecting the interests their moral rights protect, i.e, interests in not being killed or caused to suffer. If we consider how we respect the individual moral (and legal) rights of humans, we see those rights as barriers we are not allowed to cross, even when it benefit many others to ignore or violate a given human's rights. We seem them, in other words, as inviolable.
This is not so because we are talking about humans, but because we are talking about rights. Just as you would never find it morally acceptable to confine and kill another human being for his flesh, or keep a woman captive so that you can drink her milk, rights-oriented vegans never find it morally acceptable to use nonhuman animals exclusively as resources, too. While it may be impossible to avoid all animal-derived ingredients (in places where many of us least expect it), that does not absolve us of our moral duty to avoid as much as possible using or consuming animals and their products for our own benefit.
Just as it would be if humans were in the role of nonhumans, our inability to practice this with 100% purity is no excuse not to do everything we can to avoid eating animals or animal-derived ingredients, wearing them, experimenting on them, using them for entertainment, etc. These are all things that many of us can avoid with very little effort. Any effort one may expend in the initial phase of becoming vegan and learning the ropes of proper dietary intake, meal planning, etc. (buy some cookbooks) is nothing when considering the interests nonhuman animals have in not being used as things for our pleasure and convenience (interests we would never consider it acceptable to ignore in humans).
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