One time, a friend was describing an evening they spent out with a lesbian couple from their workplace. After arriving at the bar, they sat down and talked for a little until my friend realized that Holly, one of the girls, had not drunk anything so far. When asked about it, Holly simply replied, “I don’t drink.” My friend reported that she was astounded that Holly didn’t drink. When I asked her why, she said, “I don’t know. I guess I just assumed that if she was a lesbian, she would drink, too.”

This got me to thinking. It made me wonder exactly how we link together various decisions, and what we assume about people that make certain decisions.

            In various Christian circles, the word “atheist” has a load of baggage associated with it. If someone says that they are an atheist, they might be met with assumptions that they are snobby, unfeeling, and arrogant, rather than the much more simple explanation that he or she is a person that doesn’t believe in God. And an idea that would be almost too much for a Christian to understand might be an atheist that doesn’t drink. The reason is because no matter what kind of person we choose to be, we have assumptions about people who made choices different than ours. We also must be careful that we don’t link two decisions together, and that we respect people as individuals.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2073687_respect-other-religions.html

Of how much worth is it to avoid awkward social situations? How far would a person be willing to go to avoid that? Many of the social and familial connections we make in life are because of similarities, and more rarely because of differences. “I really like my friend because he is a Hindu, and I am a Catholic” is not a phrase you hear very often. People tend to clump up in groups that are well suited for them, that is to say, people that are like them. And that might put a meat eater turned vegetarian in an awkward position.

            Stemming all the way from pre-pubescence, most people have a desire to fit in. As you get older, you better understand what you are and are not willing to do to fit in. But when people truly grow up and have to make life decisions without the consent of other people, that’s when things get awkward. Most people in the 1950s US probably would not have chosen an interracial partner, but not necessarily because of race. For example, the social pressure that would have been on a white male and black female couple would have been great enough to make most consider an alternative. The same goes for meat eating. If you’re friend that you hog down baby back ribs with declares vegetarianism, it might change that aspect of your friendship. But the key to these situations is accepting others for the choices that they make, and making smart and ethical choices yourself. 

When listening to most of the arguments for and against eating meat, I’ve found that many opinions are based on definitions. People can argue about right and wrong indefinitely if they do not agree at the beginning of such a debate what is meant by certain words. In Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer touches on this. He says that certain words can put a different spin on topics, or the same word can mean something different to different people. When words like “natural”, “free-range” and “cage free” are introduced in a conversation, it’s important to understand what those words mean to different people.

            Using language, we can even hide the truth of what we are doing, or cloud issues unnecessarily. Foer says that calling what someone has on a plate a corpse is considered hyperbolic, but it is closer to the truth.

            Many times, people change words for different reasons, and one of those reasons is relative to how they feel about an activity. If they feel that what they are doing is not wrong, then they might say they are a meat-eater instead of an animal killer.

A second reason that people use language to change arguments is to justify what they do. Without having to use direct language without clouding the issue, people can pretend that what they are doing isn’t so bad. Politicians are notoriously good at “saying something while saying nothing.” And though we want to make sure we don’t exaggerate things, when it comes to important issues, we might want to make sure that we don’t downplay big issues. 

Far from being apathetic about eating meat, America seems to be more interested in it than ever. Even though zombies have long been staples of myths and legends, recent incidents have brought to light an up and coming group of people that might be our newest group of fanatics. According to popular legends, a zombie is a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft or voodoo, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions. Zombies have become popularized through the use of entertainment, starring in movies and TV shows such as Zombieland and The Walking Dead.

            Zombies have become a hot topic of conversation in the past two weeks, following incidents of human flesh eating, including brains and hearts. Alexander Kinuya, a 21 student at Morgan State University in Maryland, was charged with first degree murder after killing his roommate and eating his heart and brain. This is interesting in light of discussions about the ethics of eating meat. Most people are repulsed at the idea of eating another person, but most of us don’t flinch when speaking about eating animals. Part of this has to do with how much we can “other” something. If we can be repulsed at the idea of eating people, but continue to eat animals, we are consciously or sub-consciously saying that there is something inherently different about animals that makes them okay to eat. And if we would prefer not to think about what we’re eating, we should just sit and begin to chow down with the zombies.   

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-cannibalism-sidebar-20120531,0,7706899.story

When studying the process of meat production, it is easy to get lost in mountains of facts and research. Having a conversation about meat production can be even more frustrating, even when you feel that you have a full compilation of the facts. One place where I feel that many vegetarians can fall in to dangerous territory is when they assume, like Jonathan Safran Foer says, that a full knowledge of the facts will lead to a decision for vegetarianism. Every person is different and makes different choices, some more knowingly than we might be willing to admit.

            Many things guide our decisions, supporting the popular saying “Go with your gut.” In life, there are a great many decisions that people make: Religious or atheist, traveler or stable, meat eater or carnivore. Making these decisions is not easy, and it takes a great amount of effort. Many times, we may not understand how much effort because it takes place so quickly.

“Although they [intuitions] seem to emerge from an obscure inner force, they actually begin with a perception of something outside—a facial expression, a tone of voice, a visual inconsistency so fleeting you’re not even aware you noticed.” (Psychology Today) So while vegetarians might strive to have others see their point, they may not realize that others make different decisions based on the things that they see; vegetarians can’t assume that all the same facts lead to the same decisions. However, by giving people respect we can learn more about why they choose differently than we do. 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200704/gut-almighty

Knowing a little about other cultures and the way that they treat meat might lead one to make different decisions concerning the ethics of eating it. The 1957 ethnographic The Hunters focuses on the JuǀʼHoansi tribe of the Kalahari Desert. The terrain in the Kalahari can be most unforgiving, and many skills are necessary to ensure the survival of the people; one of those skills is hunting. Unlike the US, eating meat on the Kalahari has an entirely new meaning, and it can sometimes even mean the difference between life and death.

            While watching The Hunters, I thought about ethics concerning meat and whether or not they change depending on location. If it is wrong to eat meat in New York City, does that mean that it’s also wrong in Botswana? From watching The Hunters, it seems possible that culture, time, place, and preparation of meat are all contributing factors in the ethicality of eating it.

            It also occurred to me that being in America might give us the luxury of having enough time to sort through matters of philosophy and ethics in a way the Jul’Hoansi cannot. When hunting game, the men have much more at stake than the sacrifice of good taste. If they do not complete their duty and bring home meat, their families could be severely deficient in the nutrients that meat provides. Also, taking into account that the animals that the men hunt have lived free lives up until that point, they’re not tainted by factory farming. That said, it may be far more ethical to eat meat out on the Kalahari Desert than it is in your home in the suburbs. 

 I have been thinking recently about the extremism in the most hardcore animals rights activists. It led me to think about the possibility that these people care more about animals and the environment than they do about people. Even though this might not be a problem to them, to me it poses major issues. When people become obsessed with a singular focus, they sometimes lose sight of ethical decisions that they have to make along the way.

Most people are familiar with Batman, a masked vigilante from the fictional city of Gotham. In the 2008 movie, The Dark Knight, Gotham’s caped crusader is faced with his most challenging villain yet – the Joker. After creating an ethically “gray area” type of device, Batman is confronted by his friend Lucius Fox. After Batman swears to Fox that he will catch the Joker, Fox asks a pivotal question: “At what cost?”

It led me to wonder what cost a PETA activist would be willing to pay for what they perceive as justice. It also led me to wonder what a person would do if their demands were met. What might happen to the cause of an activist’s life if we suddenly released all dogs and cats from our custody? Activities objectionable to animal rights activists include using animals for TV commercials, circuses, medical research, guiding the blind, searching and rescuing, and owning domesticated pets of any kind. I’m sure that many PETA activists have not stopped to think over what would happen if their demands were actually met.

http://homepages.sover.net/~lsudlow/ARvsAW.htm

Recently, there has been a large push towards vegetarianism in the US. Programs like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have been campaigning for vegetarianism, promoting its health benefits as well as its environmental benefits. Their assertion is that by not eating animals, humans can do their part to stop environmental tragedies such as global warming.

            PETA is an organization well known for their theatrical ways of making a point. Some of PETA’s staunchest adherents have even taken to throwing balloons full of red paint at fur and leather wearers, to remind them of blood shed on behalf of their wardrobe. PETA has even gone so far as to use stars of pornographic films for the promotion of their cause. A popular PETA slogan is “We would rather go naked than wear fur.” Another things that PETA is doing for vegetarianism, they started a campaign using Michael Clarke Duncan, actor in the movie The Green Mile.

            When he was filming The Green Mile, Duncan was eating a lot of meat. After going vegetarian, he realized that he felt much better when he wasn’t eating meat, and decided to stick with the decision. PETA’s campaign is especially effective because they make good use of “ethos”, or the credibility of a person to propel an idea forward. PETA also capitalized on the campaign to share more information about vegetarianism, like the impediment or even reversal of heart disease, one of the nation’s biggest killers. Many American may now use Duncan’s example to make their own decisions about eating meat and the issues surrounding it. 

http://www.looktothestars.org/news/8359-michael-clarke-duncan-appears-in-peta-vegetarian-ad

The word “influenza” comes to us from Italian, meaning, and “influence”. It’s a term that was used to describe the influence that stars had over many people at once. Its meaning has morphed into a name for a sickness that can affect many people in very different ways, none of which are entirely pleasant.

Solely from observing people and the way that they act, I can say from experience that people act differently around others when they have the flu. Most people will look at you with apologetic eyes while not greeting you in typical fashion, saying that they don’t want to get you sick too. It leads me to wonder why we don’t treat the food we eat with the same hands-off approach.

If Jonathan Safran Foer got at least half of his facts right in Eating Animals, it is possible that by eating meat, we are ingesting the very worst of diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. From being raised in a family that ate meat, I know that omnivores tend to eat meat almost every day. If factory farmed meat really contains all the aforementioned diseases, destroys the environment, and causes suffering to animals, is it truly something that we would want to give to each other? Perhaps it would be wiser to put meat at a safe distance, as one would do with the flu. Perhaps it is more important to put someone at a farther distance from a McDonalds than the from a person with the flu. 

When discussing the implications of eating meat in our current society, many turn toward a more favorable topic of discussion very quickly. As Ken Robinson said in his 2006 TED Talk about education, “When people ask you what you do, and you tell them education, you can see the blood running from their face as they internally ask, “Why me?” It’s fair to assume that many people feel the same way about vegetarians, and they feel that they wouldn’t like to be assaulted with a litany of reasons why it is bad, even immoral, to eat meat. On the one hand, Jonathan Safran Foer agrees with this, saying in the early pages of his book that most don’t realize that not all vegetarians are preachers. But in his book, he also says that eating meat should be called into our conversations more often, instead of something that we simply sweep under the rug.

            Although public opinion can be a strong force behind a good cause, it can be equally damaging in cases of extreme apathy. As David Moore writes: “Public Lukewarm on Animal Rights: Supports strict laws governing treatment of farm animals, but opposes ban on product testing and medical research.” Public opinion can be a barometer of sorts for following ethical behavior, but sometimes it may be necessary to go against the grain. Not every practice that has slipped the eye of general opinion has been right, and not everything practiced now will always be practiced in the future.