If you're not willing to do LJ support...

[avram]

You’ve probably seen this argument: If you’re not willing to personally kill and butcher an animal, you shouldn’t eat meat.


If you’re not willing to personally do construction work, you shouldn’t live in a building.

If you’re not willing to personally tailor cloth, you shouldn’t wear clothing.

If you’re not willing to personally grind your own pigments, you shouldn’t paint.

If you’re not willing to personally write an OS kernel from scratch, you shouldn’t use a computer.

If you’re not willing to personally sing in public, you shouldn’t listen to songs.

If you’re not willing to personally bear/father a child, you shouldn’t adopt.

If you’re not willing to personally break CO₂ down into carbon and oxygen, you shouldn’t breathe.

Comments

[batyatoon]

However, I believe something can be upsetting to me without being morally wrong

Do you have any idea how much better the world would be if everybody understood this concept?
...oh, wait. Yeah, I suspect you do.

That said, I do think you shouldn't eat meat if you're not prepared to acknowledge, as non-abstractly as you can, that the meat comes from animals who are killed and butchered and turned into food. The best way to acknowledge that is to do the deed yourself, or at least to witness it being done.
Because the alternative allows for an extraordinarily unhealthy worldview that doesn't want to think about the fact that beef comes from cows, which is closely related to the worldview that doesn't want to think about the fact that babies (of all types of animal) come from sex.

"Doing it yourself" isn't the important part. The important part is understanding at a gut level that it's being done, and why.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Omelas.

[meowse.livejournal.com]

*quiet applause*

At least I'm not the only one who loves that story.

[batyatoon]

Now CUT THAT OUT.

[avram]

In my experience, this isn’t actually a problem. I’ve never yet met anyone who’s denied that meat comes from animals.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Aw, come on. There's a world of difference between factual awareness that "beef comes from cows" (but only by way of shrink-wrapped plastic trays in the supermarket refrigerator case), and grasping the corporeal presence of a Real Live Cow whose body is being turned to your sustenance.

[avram]

OK, let’s grant that such a difference exists. How to you tell, in real life, the difference between people who have the factual awareness and people who grasp the corporeal presence? Have you ever known people in real life who had the first and not the second, and how did you tell? Did you know them well, so that you could verify that this was a real difference, and not just a result of you happening to have a one-minute conversation with them on a day when they’d gotten no sleep the night before or were all stressed out from work and therefore not thinking clearly?

[batyatoon]

"Denied" no, but "tried not to think about"? Oh yeah.

Weird story: I know someone whose friend didn't like thinking of vegetables as plants. No, really. Both botany students, and one of them didn't like looking at broccoli and finding pistils and stamens. Wanted vegetables to be things that come in plastic bags from your grocer's freezer, not things that grew out of the ground and used to be alive.
I don't think anyone will disagree that this is a seriously unhealthy attitude.

Here's a good litmus test: what will you say if asked about it by a very small child? If you tell the truth, easily, without stammering or fidgeting or sidestepping ... and if you don't feel that you're somehow Destroying Innocence by doing it ... you're probably okay.

Otherwise: worry. A lot.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

what will you say if asked about it by a very small child? If you tell the truth, easily, without stammering or fidgeting or sidestepping ... and if you don't feel that you're somehow Destroying Innocence by doing it ... you're probably okay.

Did just that with my own son (who was then four years old). The only problem was finding honest language that was in or near his vocabulary.

What did the botany student eat, if not previously living beings? Dirt?

[batyatoon]

What did the botany student eat, if not previously living beings? Dirt?

No, that's just it. She ate previously living things, just like absolutely everything alive does (except for those that eat currently living things). She just didn't want to think about the fact that they'd once been alive, and was very uncomfortable discussing it.
(Actually I'm not sure if it's the "alive" bit that bothered her. But she was very squicked by her friend pointing out the plant-anatomy of the vegetables they were buying...)

The only problem was finding honest language that was in or near his vocabulary.

Well, there's that of course.

[avram]

So she may have just been squicked at eating plant genitals. (Aiieee! Broccoli penis!)