The other day in work, we got these samples of alternative cheese, which we thought were vegan, from this vendor who wanted us to sell them. There is this vegan girl who was really anxious to try them, so she opened the box. Upon examining the ingredients, she found that it contained casein (milk protein). Because of this, she would not try the samples. I urged her to try it, since she has a good taste for weird imitation shit, and I could eat crickets and think they taste good. She persistently refused to eat them. WTF?
I can empathize with ovo-lacto vegetarians (people who don’t eat animal flesh, but still eat eggs and milk) and their belief that we shouldn’t eat living, breathing things. But I don’t get vegans. Does it really hurt the cow to be milked? Dairy cows live on pastures, where they would probably live anyway, even without modern agriculture. But all this is beside the point. I can’t say that the idea of vegan-ism is ethically incorrect, because I don’t understand all the reasons why people are vegan.
However, I do believe that the level of persistence shown by most vegans, and even vegetarians, is unrelated to ethics. One possibility could be that they are trying to prove something, maybe because they feel inferior in some way. It can be clearly seen that eating a piece of meat every once in a while will not damage your ethical character (illustrated in the next paragraph). If you are vegan for religious purposes, this does not apply.
For example, let's say you're a vegan and you're going over your grandmother's house for a family dinner. She prepares a plate for each member of the family. As the main course, there is a piece of chicken. Let's see what happens if you refuse to eat chicken, thereby insulting your grandma-ma: the chicken will be eaten by somebody else, or even worse, it may be thrown away. Let's assume that everyone is too full to eat your piece of chicken, so it would be thrown away - a true waste of life. In this situation, one can see that it actually may be morally wrong to not eat the meat. If the meat is thrown away, the chicken will have died for no reason. By not eating the meat in this situation, I guess you are proving something to your grandmother, but other than that, it doesn't do anything to decrease meat consumption. Somebody might raise the point, "Eating animals is just plain wrong!", but simlarly, what about a police officer who kills in self-defense when being attacked? Would you say to them, "Killing somebody is just plain wrong!"? No, you examine the circumstances of each case.
The point I’m really jerking off to is a simple statement I learned in one of my Food Science classes: "
The dose makes the poison". Dietary carcinogens (things that cause cancer) can have absolutely no effect if in low doses. If a high enough intake, they will cause cancer. Too much government control is bad, but none is also bad. The list goes on. People obviously intuitively know this (nobody wants a judge who doesn't examine the circumstances of each case) but it doesn't seem like it's given much weight when determining their beliefs.
I think the reason why a lot of people take the black and white approach is because it's a lot easier. When you take an 'equilibrium approach' (I think I'm cool with this term), you have to really trust yourself and your judgement, because it's a lot easier to find yourself on a 'slippery slope'. Here is an illustration:
In my quest for the ultimate eating habits, a while back I tried to completely control my junk food intake. What better way to do it than to to just completely boycott it? So I did. It was hard in a way, refusing a lot of good tasting food, but it was also incredible easy, too.
It required so little thought.
Whenever junk food was nearby, I would think, “I will not eat this junk food, no matter what the circumstances.”
That was it.
This way of thinking is very dangerous though.
I found myself making people feel inferior at times or limiting people’s enjoyment if they wanted to eat out.
Now, I know other people’s thoughts about me should not really influence what I want to do with my life, but having vision that narrow is just not good.
In the example I just mentioned the consequences aren’t bad because the issue that is being dealt with is not serious – it’s very trivial.
But when this same pig-headedness extends to stuff like politics and ethics, the weight of the consequences increases.
If somebody takes the simple, thoughtless approach of "killing is wrong no matter what", there would be some bad consequences to that approach. As of now, I eat junk food here and there. When I lose control, I take note of what my mind-state was like at the time, so I can tell the warning signs next time. When I lose control, it is a mistake I made, and I make sure I learn from it, just like when doing math problems. Sometimes, I will use the black and white approach if I know there is going to be junk food somewhere where I determine beforehand, using my rational mind, that my body should not have it.
Sorry for blowing such a huge load on your brain.
