Do Vegetarians and Vegans Think They Are Better Than Everyone Else?

Didn't this all start because 93Devil thinks that vegetarians should be willing to eat fish at parties as a "nice compromise"?

 

Very close friend of mine grew up nominally Lutheran (wasn't a big deal in his household, as I understand it) but became (I don't know how you'd put it) a Catholic after marrying his high school/college sweetheart. Apparently, during one of his first Lents, he was telling his new wife how good he'd been on a given Friday, having had only a few chicken wings. He laughs now at how disappointed he was to find that that wasn't quite good enough.

 

No. It was that they were insulting their meat-eating guests if they didn't serve fish at parties, because that's a "good middle ground."

 

You mean like calling an ambush an assassination attempt? [/cross-thread]

Or do you mean a coworker telling you that the windbreaker they have on is from when they worked for the FBI, when in fact this coworker did not work for the FBI? [Weirdly specific work situation, umm, thread]

Sorry, I don't feel superior when I don't meat. I mostly miss cheeseburgers and think how crazy expensive and how difficult it would be to live in my town and be a vegan. Especially if one eats out.

 

Wow, how did I miss this discussion?

 

Which columnist, who has won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, published this today:

We often wonder how people of the past, including the most revered and refined, could have universally engaged in conduct now considered unconscionable. Such as slavery. How could the Founders, so sublimely devoted to human liberty, have lived with — some participating in — human slavery? Or fourscore years later, how could the saintly Lincoln, an implacable opponent of slavery, have nevertheless spoken of and believed in African inferiority?

While retrospective judgment tends to make us feel superior to our ancestors, it should really evoke humility. Surely some contemporary practices will be deemed equally abominable by succeeding generations. The only question is: Which ones?

I’ve long thought it will be our treatment of animals. I’m convinced that our great-grandchildren will find it difficult to believe that we actually raised, herded and slaughtered them on an industrial scale — for the eating.

bit.ly/1F9LnS5

Will meat eating eventually become rare, and exotic?

Which brings us to meat eating. Its extinction will, I believe, ultimately come. And be largely market-driven as well. Science will find dietary substitutes that can be produced at infinitely less cost and effort. At which point, meat will become a kind of exotic indulgence, what the cigar (of “Cigar Aficionado”) is to the dying tobacco culture of today.

 

What do you think of that, YF?

I could see some scenario where industrial-scale meat production is phased out, but people still hunt, for example.

 

Aren't we best at preserving the animals we eat?

If we didn't eat them, why the fuck would cows exist? Or chickens?

Aren't buffaloes only coming back because we're eating them more?

 

And, without giving it away, could you have guessed the author of that piece?

 

Right.

But I would question if industrial farms where 1,000 chickens are crammed onto the equivalent of a Manhattan night club dance floor 24 hours a day is long for this world, long-term.

 

Obviously no.