Talking Turkey

Since I got around to reading the Sunday Times – on Tuesday – I’ve been contemplating the opinion piece “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable“. I confess that I’ve been struggling with the whole eating meat/vegetarianism/veganism question for awhile now. The struggle has been, I further confess, entirely intellectual, even conducted at times while I ate Five Guys, somewhat dampening the pleasure I took in my cheeseburgers. (Geez, Catholic much?) Steiner’s opinion, best read in its entirety rather than the ham-handedly edited N&O version, is that ethical people must go vegan.

I’m troubled by the treatment of animals in our society, particularly those raised for food. I’m convinced that if you think eating meat is bad, you should go strictly vegan. Vegetarianism is just partaking of animal products, probably cruelly produced, but turning your nose up at one part. It has to be no meat, no eggs, no dairy, no leather. I have no patience for half-assed vegans who wear leather [Note to self: 1) Encourage the widespread adoption of veganism. 2) Open leather goods consignment shop next to Five Guys. 3) Take first pick of handbags and size 8 women's shoes.]. Where was I? Ultimately, the turkey’s is in the fridge for tomorrow because I remain unconvinced. Steiner sets up two straw men in his argument:

Some suggest that human beings but not animals are made in God’s image and hence stand in much closer proximity to the divine than any non-human animal; according to this line of thought, animals were made expressly for the sake of humans and may be used without scruple to satisfy their needs and desires. …

Others argue that the human capacity for abstract thought makes us capable of suffering that both qualitatively and quantitatively exceeds the suffering of any non-human animal.”

He goes on somewhat convincingly to dispute the validity of the animals-are-less-than-human reasoning, but he never comes close to where I get hung up – and by ‘hung up’ I mean where I find the rationale for my continued meat eating and its concomitant hand wringing. (The hand wringing is also intellectual, by the way, it’s proved beyond me to actually wring my hands and eat at the same time.) We are animals. We humans are omnivorous animals. We eat the animals and plants that are too slow to get away from us. It helps when they’re penned in those hideous CAFO lots, which is horrible, but the fact remains that we’ve evolved eating animal products. Now, sure, we have evolved to the point where we can choose not to partake of anything that was produced by or was itself a sentient being, but are we morally required to make that choice? If we don’t believe in God particularly, and aren’t hung up on who’s made in whose image, we can just look at the situation as a food chain. Do we blame a lion for eating gazelles or do we accept that the lion is being a lion? We can, and should (no more Five Guys, I swear! Damn them and their delicious greasy burgers!) do everything we can to achieve cruelty free, not to mention sustainable, food production. But I don’t believe that veganism is the answer. Do you?