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Can a vegan have a relationship with a meat eater?
May 16, 2008 - 2:49am
When I was vegan, I had no problem being friends with or having relationships with meat eaters, as long as they were respectful of my choices. But then, I had no problem with people joking around with me, and I think I had a higher tolerance for that sort of thing than other vegans I've read about who get really sick, really quickly, of people making jokes or asking questions they consider offensive. It just never bothered me. Maybe because I hadn't been vegan long enough for it to wear thin. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
I'd like to go back to being vegan, but it's hard to go back once you've fallen off the wagon. It was a conscious choice for me to start and to stop, but maybe someday I'll do it again. But I consider it a personal decision and while I'm happy to see others reduce their animal consumption, I don't have visceral reactions to those who don't.
I guess it's just a personal thing. If you are having physical and emotional reactions to watching people eat meat, then I guess it probably won't work to have a relationship with them.
I am in a relationship with a meat eater. While I don't get particularly bothered by the meat eating, I do not like the smell of cooked flesh (although I would never say anything to my boyfriend).
It has always been, for me, that people are constantly putting me down for my choice of being a vegetarian and I've even have a meat eater friend who wanted to date me say we would not be compatible because my vegetarianism is too much of an issue.
I think we can have relationships with meat eaters. It's just a matter of being respectful.
Hee. I've mentioned it on babble before, but I guess you missed it. I should start a thread!
Anyhow, yeah. I was finding it too difficult to navigate the omnivore-son-vegan-mom thing, and I wanted to be able to eat meals with him and have the same stuff he was having, etc. It wasn't just the extra work of cooking separate stuff, but also kind of the...I don't know. It didn't feel like we were "eating together" if you know what I mean.
I wouldn't care if he was an adult, but as his mom, I want him to feel like he and I are sharing the same meal, etc. Emotional thing, I guess.
I'll go back to it someday. I still don't eat very much meat at all. It's just the dairy consumption that's gone up a lot.
Chalk it up to a character flaw on my part, but it'd drive me batty to have to worry about cutting boards and knives, or two different meals at a time. And the philosophical aspects of veganism vs omnivorism could not help but grate, eventually.
We usually just have different variations of the same meal. We'll make a stirfry and I'll have mine vegetarian and he'll throw in some beef or chicken after I get my share. Or we'll BBQ ... him having a burger and me having a nature burger or grilled portabello mushrooms to save us from having to make two entirely different meals. Most of the time he's just happy to eat like a vegetarian until we go out for dinner and he'll order the steak.
Hahaha. Kind of hard isn't it? My boyfriend showed up at my door one day with a huge hunk of frozen deer thigh. For me, it was completely gross but I had to think about in the context of my family. My brother often hunts with his grandfather on the reserve so I have an understanding of hunting for necessity. I had to think of it that way although we do have two freezers, one for meat stuff (which my boyfriend doesn't eat much of at home since we eat generally vegetarian food), and one for veggie stuff.
We eat vegetarian meals two or three times a week. But we don't eat out much, there being four of us, and most of the times it's hard enough to squeeze making a real meal in at all, never mind futzing with variations. The line I use when my kids start wanting something different than the choice du jour is: This is not a restaurant and I am not a short order cook!
Having to put the extra energy into food exclusions would drive me nuts. Plus, if I lived with someone who was turned off by meat, it would be very difficult because I'm adamantly not giving it up -- I am healthier and stronger as an omnivore. That, and I really, really, really like lamb chops. Yum.
Michelle, does this mean there's hope for my hopeless crush? If only I'd known you were so, ahem, flexible... ;]
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...I remember a while back you were speaking about wanting to date a vegan, never guessed it was Michelle!!!
I use and love them all (and I'm not vegetarian -- we eat everything also). We use a lot of herbs and spices, vinegars -- including flavoured vinegars which I make myself and which add a lot to the somewhat bland taste of the legumes and grains.
I have beautiful vegetarian cookbooks and I feel good when I build meals around something other than meat.
I also have an ethical thing about making choices that aren't necessarily healthy (again, room for much debate here, but we are, as an organism, designed as an omnivore) for ethical reasons. It's good to be true to yourself, but I take that to the physiological level and seek balance. Again, I could have a friendly debate with someone about it, but couldn't live it.
[ 17 May 2008: Message edited by: Timebandit ]
If the set of moral rules you adhere to includes an axiom about animals having a level of rights that is violated by eating them, then you should be a vegetarian.
If your moral rules don't include such an axiom, then enjoy your steak.
No issue quite cries out for tolerance by all parties involved than one that is based on arbitrary premises. Big endian, little endian.
Bioethicist Peter Singer, using a standard utilitarian framework, argues that while "rights" are impossible to determine, "interests" are self-evident. Anything that feels pleasure and pain has interests: while "rights" may or may not exist, it's undeniably in the interests of a sentient being to avoid pain and experience pleasure.
As a utilitarian, he argues that, from a disinterested standpoint, it's irrational and unethical to arbitrarily prioritize the interests of one sentient being over the interets of another.
In saying this, Singer distinguishes between minor interests and major ones: minor interests are those that are essentially conveniences, while major interests are questions of life-and-death. With animals, we routinely sacrifice their major interests to serve our minor interests. From a utilitarian perspective, that's deeply immoral.
In other words, the moral issues around animal exploitation aren't terribly axiomatic, except in as much as ethics themselves are axiomatic.
[ 17 May 2008: Message edited by: Michael Nenonen ]
Isn't Peter Singer the guy who approves of sex between humans and other animals?
(Yes, unionist, he thinks sexual acts between humans and animals are fine, as long as the animal does not suffer, although ideally these acts should be mutually pleasurable.)
The problem with using Singer to back up your argument that vegetarianism is more virtuous than omnivorism (I use this term because it is rare to find a truly carnivorous human) is that Singer doesn't actually say you shouldn't eat meat. What he actually says is that animals should not suffer, and if you can be assured that the animals you eat have not been subjected to horrible conditions, it is quite all right to eat them. Then we spiral into that sticky area about how much suffering is involved in butchering a humanely-raised cow (I have half of one in my freezer right now, actually).
I'm also always curious as to what really is in the best interest of the animals raised for food. If we were all vegetarian, they wouldn't be around to have interests at all. I'm not sure this impacts on Singer's reasoning, but it's something that always pops into my head anyway.
Singer is a strict utilitarian. Personally, I find much of his work borderline repugnant and somewhat disconnected from how humans actually tick. Using his work as an appeal to authority doesn't leave much of an impression on me.
We've evolved as opportunistic omnivores. We do best, healthwise, on a varied diet, including some meat, but not in excess. Balance, in other words. I refuse to feel guilty for being the creature I am. Certainly, if you run into a grizzly bear in the woods, he's not going to quibble about the ethics of whether or not you'd make a "moral" lunch. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
I also, when faced with arguments a la animal activist Singer groupies (not Singer himself, as I pointed out above), am put in mind of my morally teetotal MIL, who is fine with me enjoying a healthful glass of red wine with my dinner, as long as she can take pot shots in the nicest possible way about "joy juice" and it's evils. I think moralizing at the table, like trans fats and preservatives, should be kept to a minimum.
And that, my friend, is why I could not live with a morally motivated vegetarian. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Peter Singer, by the way is a devout atheist.
Well there's our oxymoron for the day! [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
This is vile and no progressive person should have anything to do with someone who would force me (or anyone else) to live against our will in the face of horrible suffering. Fuck pro-lifers!
She sounds like one of those shitheads who would keep people "alive" attached to a machine for 50 years. Just as repugnant, that, as deliberately killing a less-than-perfect child.