Thought on Vegetarianism

Note: If you are completely set on eating meat or are stubbornly argumentative in the face of sound reasoning, you’d be best to return to whatever it was you were looking at beforehand.

Over the course of two years, I have experienced discrimination for my dietary choices. This discrimination isn’t in the popularly conceived sense of being confined to certain water fountains or sections of the bus, but it does exist. Occasionally it’s a light-hearted jab, which I can find some humour in; but other times it’s not. Like the old condescending, “… oh, that’s right, you don’t eat meat,” as if to imply that it’s me who’s out of his senses.

It is quite rare for me to go out of my way to push my choice to minimize animal consumption on others. In fact, even the light-hearted jab isn’t something I do to anyone that I don’t know well. I don’t question anybody else’s decision to buy the food that they want, but if I’m pressed upon it, then yes, I will give my firm opinion on the subject. And to prevent any of said pressing, my opinion is that people who eat meat haven’t given it enough thought.

(For the sake of fair argument, I will remove moral ethics from my point completely.)

Consider the meat industry. Their chief responsibility is to make money. In many factory farms, the animals are given regular injections of various chemicals to increase their growth. These chemicals continue along through the food chain both by direct and indirect consumption, meaning that in some capacity, you are ingesting the same chemicals. They affect all physiological aspects of your health.

Consider the pharmaceutical industry, which supplies the meat industry with the chemicals. Their chief responsibility is also to make money, and the best way to do this is to keep manufacturing costs low, which includes health standards. These chemicals are, of course, unnecessary, because animals will grow so long as they eat and exercise; however, the main goal of these industries, as with all industries, is to make money.

Consider the environment, this place that we live. The process of farming animals is an incredible source of unnecessary waste. This includes direct biological waste as well as the emissions from the transportation of the animals and products. And while it’s true that fruits and vegetables are also transported, this counter-argument is meaningless since the process of harvesting animals requires seven times as much food.

Consider global economics. The majority of the world’s population is starving when there is enough food on the planet to feed everyone. The problem is, as mentioned previously, most of this food is being used to feed the animals that are subsequently consumed by humans. For the sake of comparison, one acre of land could produce 20,000 kg of potatoes or 110 kg of beef.

Consider local economics. Our country currently spends between $60 billion to $120 billion annually to treat medical problems – such as heart disease, cancer, obesity, and food poisoning – that are by-products of consuming animals.

When I decided to minimize my meat consumption years ago, I did so with all of these things in mind. I thought about all of these points very carefully before I made my personal choice. So when I say I believe that people who eat meat haven’t thought about it enough, I don’t say it to make anyone else feel inferior or myself superior. I say it to highlight the fact that this sort of decision is not as simple as is often implied. I was asked once if it was because I didn’t want to kill animals. The answer is no, I have killed animals in my life. Most people that eat meat can’t even say this much.

I am not out of my senses because of what I choose to eat; I am in more sense than most. The reason people choose to eat meat is not for any logical reason, it’s simply one of those things in life that we’ve come to accept. And believe me, I accept that. I understand that people have their own personal tastes and beliefs. They have the right to that, and I don’t dispute that, and I certainly won’t ridicule someone for it. And for this same reason, I also don’t think that my tastes and beliefs should be blindly ridiculed. I’ve thought about it. Have you?

Mythbuster (A Quote)

"Myth: We have to save the Earth. Frankly, the Earth doesn't need to be saved. Nature doesn't give a hoot if human beings are here or not. The planet has survived cataclysmic and catastrophic changes for millions upon millions of years. Over that time, it is widely believed that 99 percent of all species have come and gone while the planet has remained. Saving the environment is really about saving our environment: making it safe for ourselves, our children, and the world as we know it. If more people saw the issue as one of saving themselves, we would probably see increased motivation and commitment to actually do so."
-Robert M. Lilienfeld and William L. Rathje

The Redefinition Of Humanity

We haven’t lost our humanity; we’ve redefined it as something more than muscle and blood and skin and bones. Now, our humanity is all batteries and pixels and satellites. We’ve extended ourselves so far outward that there’s nothing left inward. We’re entirely hollow, and ironically – but not surprisingly – hollow things are fragile and easily collapse in on themselves, which explains why our culture has become so self-centered.

Most people, and I’ll provide myself as an example, have an opinion of themselves that is diluted with self-importance. I drive just a little bit faster than the speed limit because I want to get there sooner than everyone else. I keep online journals because I think what I have to say is interesting. I think I’m a little bit better because I use proper punctuation, spell “yeah” correctly, and rarely – if ever – misuse a possessive s.

Lately grammar has become so ill-formed that it barely resembles the English language, which is clearly a reflection on our collective intelligence. Basic language skills are the only thing we have to communicate with, and if we can abandon these so easily, what else might we sacrifice as we evolve? What else have we already lost?

We’ve gone from fists to hammers, sundials to microchips, rocks to missiles. Technology is just an extension of our limbs. We’ve got devices that we can operate as easily as we can think, but this has not made us any more intelligent; it has made us detached. We do not hunt or harvest, we do not build, we do not have sex strictly to reproduce. We are not the creatures that came down from the trees to begin civilization. We are anachronisms on a cultural timeline, out of place and out of mind, doomed to a destiny of repetition simply because we do not correct our mistakes. Not that this matters, though; we do not make mistakes. We make oversights. We make excuses.

Our global conscience is of questionable existence because of our narrow focus. In a broader horizon, we would see our past and our future, with our present somewhere in-between on a skewed line drawing closer and closer to the edge. There are sustainable societies in both our past and our future, like the covers of a story gone absurdly out of control of its author, yet we continue to write. And the grammar that we use is as flawed and imperfect as we command it to be. They’re not just typos; they are examples of our sloth. And being lazy, even in what might seem to be the most minor instances, impedes our development as society, because it does not just stop at these tiny imperfections. The smallest crack in a pane of glass will make its way across the entire surface unnoticeably until one day there is nothing left to see through. Our humanity is already as fragile as this, with cracks running out from the center. Thankfully, we can still see the past, and thankfully, we can still see the future. The question is, can we see through the glass clearly enough to see the immediate and, hopefully, the best direction to proceed?

The Subconscious Danger of Personification

When you have time to spare and aren’t feeling too motivated, do you sit down and watch television? Or do you watch the television? Sure, it’s a minor difference, but it’s arguably very significant; which is why I’m going to argue this significance.

Television is a noun. Not a proper noun, either, just one of those everyday commonplace nouns, like radio. Now, when you’re in your car and you want to listen to some music, you don’t listen to radio, you listen to the radio. Why? Because radio is a noun and requires that tiny preposition. Now, let’s pretend your radio is broken and you had your friend Sam sing for you. You would be listening to Sam, not to the Sam, because Sam is a proper noun. So why, then, do most people watch television when they should be watching the television? Because we’ve over-inflated its status in our lives.

Television is no longer just some household item that we turn on when we want entertainment and off when we’re finished. It sits in the center of the living room with every seat angled in relation to its presence, often still turned on simply for the background noise. It becomes like another member of the household and we watch Television the same way we would watch Sam. The programs on it are intended to make us emotionally involved so that we tune in to see advertising for products that we think we must need because we trust Television as much as we’d trust a member of our family. We’ve personified it as someone important in our lives.

Television is a dangerous beast and it’s easy to become fascinated by its luster. That’s the point. It was designed that way. It is an efficient device for controlling your time and manipulating your mind. It is soma, it is the opiate of the masses, it is the new religion. And if you let it, it will consume you.