Why are meat eaters paranoid? I say this as a practicing meat eater, but for a few months I was vegan and though that may be too strict for me right now, I would like to cut back on my meat consumption again. Bringing up vegetarianism or veganism to a meatie for some reason really, REALLY sets them off. And I think it's because they've invented a fake war that isn't real (is that redundant? fake/isn't real...).
I say this because the moment I started telling people I was vegan I was immediately hit with, "Oh, well, I hope you aren't going to start calling me a murderer everytime I eat meat in front of you." Which...I wasn't. I was informed over and over that they'd "met so many vegetarians that are always saying shit like that." Except that I don't think that's true.
Every single time I was in a grocery store with a meat eater acquaintance of mine(not Parker, if that's what you were wondering) he would go grab his hamburger or steak and proceed to wave it around my face, chanting, "Here's my poor, slaughtered, innocent animal! Ah! Ah! I'm an evil murderer!!" I guess that was designed to preempt my personal attack on his eating habits...attacks that never came and ones I'd assured him never would, because I honestly do not care what other people eat, unless it's people. Or Sirius. Nevertheless...the paranoia never stopped. He kept insisting that all of his former vegetarian friends were on him for being a murderer. But according to his behavior, I was doing the same thing by actively choosing something other than his own choice. It makes me think that his brain invented these "murderer" comments and they never actually happened.
I'd observed this at the beginning of fall semester in my Ethnic Lit class. On the first day, the professor asked us to give our names and something interesting about ourselves. The first young woman to stand up said she is a vegetarian. Oh, the drama. About 5 people who went after her felt the need to justify themselves by remarking that they *do* eat meat, they *do* eat steak. I guess, to them, they either felt attacked by her decision not to eat meat, or the only thing interesting they could come up with to identify themselves by was their stance on her eating choice.
When I worked at one of my old restaurant jobs, I had a coworker who was a vegetarian, and when someone offered her some meat product, she politely declined and said, "No, thanks, I don't eat meat." To which he stared at her in dismay and shock and asked her what that meant.
This same friend, who never blinked an eye when I'd eat a burger in front of her, was often given a shake down on her non meat-eating ways when I happened to be present to observe. It could get pretty ugly.
I don't know why this is. I'd love someone to explain it to me. Because I honestly do think that people are inventing these attacks in their heads. It's like...if I won the lottery, I might not put in air conditioning. It's not because I hate people who like air conditioning, I just always feel too cold or sickly when I'm in it. However, I can totally see people who love their air conditioners coming over, asking why I don't have one, and then feeling like I personally attacked them and their innocent central air. Choice, it would seem, scares people.
7 comments:
Well...I think there's a difference between being a vegetarian/vegan and making vegetarianism/veganism into one's self-identity.
When I am asked to say something about myself, I say something like, "I'm Sig and I'm a writer." I pick out that detail because I feel that it encapsulates more about who I am than "I'm Signe and I had some meat for lunch." If I introduced myself the second way, it would be a statement about more than the contents of my lunch, and people pick up on that.***
And so that's why I think people pounce on vegetarian/veganism when it's stated in that way: because it's perceived as being some sort of statement rather than as a simple fact.
Do I care what other people eat? Not really. (And before you go off on me, J.Mo., when I had an interest in what you ate it was more out of concern that you weren't eating than out of concern for what specifically you ingested, although it perhaps didn't come across that way.)
Sometimes -- for example, I had a student like this last year -- sometimes vegetarians/vegans have the "I'm better than you" attitude about their food and will shout it from the rooftops (or write it in every paper and lecture their peers during peer review). The few who do that create a bad impression, kind of like the Evangelical Krispies creating the impression that all Christians think/act/believe in the same way even though the Evangelicals are in the minority.
Not that vegetarians/vegans don't ever get harassed even when they're not flinging their vegetarianism/veganism in someone else's face. I'm sure it happens more than I realize. That sucks. But I *do* think that although the war might be fake for many veggie-lovers, it's real at least for a few.
***That doesn't mean it's OK to give someone shit in class for their eating habits. It's not.
PS: I think you should do a post on the budget nonsense. I have a feeling that you would do an awesome smackdown.
I love reading & thinking about your posts, Jamie.
Sig, I think the girl mentioned being a vegetarian because it does set her apart. You being a meat eater would not set you apart. In our culture, being a meat eater is the default position. We assume everyone else eats meat unless they tell us (or show us) otherwise. Just like white is the default "race", male is the default sex, heterosexual is the default sexuality, not disabled is the default for disability, being religious is the default for yes/no on religion, etc.
The studies on identity are pretty interesting in that people of the default setting tend not to view that position as part of their identity unless prompted, with the exception of the seriously religious.
Identifying yourself as a vegetarian is not the same thing as calling meat eaters murderers, and this just proves my point. If she identifies herself as a vegetarian, how does that harm someone else's decision to consume meat? When it was my turn to speak, I said I was a feminist. Some could interpret that as radical, but no one countered with, "I'm Joe, and *I'M* a misogynist." Or even, "I'm Joe, and I'M a man, so don't hate me," which would be the equivalent: "You are this, I'm not, so I must describe myself accordingly by being the opposite of you." If one interprets someone saying, "Oh, I'm a vegetarian" as having something flung in their face, it's only because hearing that someone is a vegetarian is somehow offensive to them. To me, it reminds me more of statements like this, "Well, I wouldn't mind gay people, I just don't want them hitting on me." A direct assumption that an imagined "attack" or reaction from some hypothetical gay person that never happened. This is only presupposed because someone is different from them, or different from the default, as Lauren put it. Similarly, I've heard homophobes say things like, "I don't mind gay people, but I don't think they should flaunt it in our faces." "Our" meaning all of "us heteros" versus all of "them," and "flaunt" being a negative. No one ever says, "I wish they wouldn't flaunt so much hetero-sex in the movies. It's gross." Because it's "normative" and therefore not offensive.
He makes a furious point of declaring his comfort with slaughtering beasts to fill his own gut. Except that he’s not so comfortable, actually. Not entirely anyway, or he wouldn’t have bothered to make such a scene of it, right in the middle of a grocery store. The reaction’s severity betrays a conflict, incited by the uncomfortable recognition of the herbivore’s inherent moral high ground. His conscience is forced to contend with the fact of someone’s conviction to try to be better, overall, as a human being, where he has failed to do the same. Naturally, it pisses him off.
Most people would rather believe that they are – better already – as human beings, a fine illusion to labor under, and one encouraged by Christian/corporate/mundane America, the default majority Lauren observes. The reverse is glaringly obvious, of course, but no likes to be glared at much, particularly by the conspicuous absence of meat on the plate of the person next to them.
Vegetarians/vegans destroy that illusion, and so they are resented, reviled, rebuked, for holding up their silver platters so everyone else can see the meat still stuck between their teeth in reflection. The evidence of death they could give a shit less about.
This painful reminder, of just how indifferent we are to killing, is not one people prefer you brought up. In spite of all our other advancements – technical, legal, philosophical – killing is etched in our DNA. Its dormant, yet ever-present influence, is the reason we abide wars for oil that last for years, indeterminate. It’s the reason for the public’s muted response to cops in New York who gun down innocents, with a hail of forty bullets plus, or beat a guy half to death in L.A.. It’s the reason why multitudes enjoy bloodsports, celebrate the athletes’ heydays, and care nothing to hear of the rest of their days as damaged goods in chronic pain. The phenomenon speaks of our truer selves, of our reaction to those who do their best in life to somehow rise above it, while the rest of us blithely abide the carnage.
I think of this line of thought as anthropic, not misanthropic as some would accuse. It's nothing more than the simple admission, based on proof, of what we all are as human beings. Most of us anyway, myself included, who say, "Yeah. I'd kill at another's expense. To go on living myself? Sure." It underscores the difference between us, the meat-eaters and the veggie crowd who say, "No. I think I'll try something else. Other than meat, other than killing."
Are they more evolved? Quite possibly. Are they a mutation of superior moral virtue, which the rest of us will likely never become? I'm hard-pressed to admit just that because, after all, we're only human.
We came from a primordial slime. Since, we’ve achieved bipedal egress. But we are that slime, we always have been, and we’ll go on being slime ‘til the end of our days.
The silver lining in the gray cloud is the spectacle that he made of himself, and what it indicates about his feelings. The barest inkling of self-knowledge, of the possibility of wrongdoing. It’s the thing that gives me some hope. Not a lot mind you, and not trust, but an open mind to the off chance that people can be persuaded to rightness, even if they lack the sight to see it, without help from a glaring bowl of salad.
I end up eating less meat for the very simple reason that I prefer many dishes without it. I don't pick on people for their food choices, but I will pick on people for being bad at science.
I should correct that to add - if you're eating something really gross I reserve the right pick on you. And some foods are hilarious in and of themselves, like lutefisk.
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